With three under-card title matches and Seth Rollins pulling double duty to defend both his United States and WWE World Heavyweight titles, the one thing you couldn’t argue with is the fact that Night of Champions at least lived up to the billing. But was it any good? With the latest release from WWE Home Video we can find out.
As stated, Seth Rollins had a busy night and if it wasn’t totally successful in terms of results, it was certainly one in terms of match quality. His US title match against John Cena was another good entry into their feud. Much like Edge, there just appears to be something about Rollins that brings the best out of Cena. This was another excellent bout and arguably the best of their series.
Rollins went straight from that to defending the World Title against WCW Icon Sting. Although it couldn’t live up to the previous encounter it was still a very good bout…at least until Sting’s injury that left him in a lot of trouble. He recovered to finish the match, which was a minor miracle, but it left things a little flat in terms of the match finish. One has to hope that this doesn’t prove to be the last time Sting sets foot in a WWE ring. The post match return of Kane was interesting too.
The opener for the Intercontinental Title between defending champion Ryback and Kevin Owens started things well. Ryback is a lot better than some would credit and Owens worked a believable match with him. Whilst restoring credibility to the IC title might be easier said than done, matches like this (where both men seem to be aware of the prestige of what they are fighting over) are at least a start.
The Tag Team Title match between the New Day and the Dudley’s was OK, without ever really getting going, and the non-finish seemed a little pointless at the time. Protecting the veterans seems to be a way of life in WWE though. Similarly the Divas Title match was a bit disappointing. It was a good effort and both Nikki Bella and Charlotte deserve credit, but having been spoiled by some of the excellent women’s action in NXT this year “good” doesn’t quite cut it.
Two non title affairs rounded things off. Dolph Ziggler and Rusev had a decent match that was nevertheless not quite up to the standards we’ve seen from both men. The six man pitting the Wyatt Family against Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose and a mystery partner got off to a bad start for me with the unveiling of Chris Jericho (it was a dull, unimaginative choice) but you can’t argue against the match as a whole, which was very good. That the post-match stuff with Jericho hasn’t really gone anywhere since is just one of those things that happens in wrestling.
All in all Night of Champions was a very good night of WWE action. Most matches seemed important, things happened and the match quality ranged from decent to excellent, with nothing being bad.
The DVD adds the decent Kickoff match pitting Neville and the Lucha Dragons against Cosmic Wasteland whilst the BluRay adds over an hour of exclusive extras, including Sting vs The Big Show (from Raw) and a SmackDown lumberjack match between Ryback and Seth Rollins.
7 out of 10.