Reviewing the Review: Night of Champions 2014
WWE has been nailing most of their pay per views this year but they had their work cut out for them with Night of Champions. It was a one match show and that match was a rematch. The fact that Roman Reigns is out of action for a few months due to hernia surgery makes things even shakier. Let’s get to it.
The pre-show feature was the Peep Show with Christian having Chris Jericho as his guest. This was about as pointless as I can remember as it was just the two of them making jokes about stuff from ten years ago and a brief exchange with Orton. To be fair though it’s better than a boring match that doesn’t get anywhere….I think.
The show itself opened with the Dusts taking the Tag Team Titles from the Usos. The match was fine but nothing all that memorable. These two teams have been looking very polished lately and this was another good match between them. Stardust pinned Jimmy after blocking the Superfly Splash for the titles, which is a fine ending for the seven month title reign.
Dolph and R-Ziggler did a spot for Mountain Dew.
Sheamus defending the US Title against Cesaro in a pretty awesome power brawl. There’s something cool about two monsters beating on each other for about thirteen minutes. Sheamus is at his best when he gets all fired up and starts hurting people. The same is true for Cesaro and it’s great to see two guys who can hit each other just as hard. I also liked the ending as it wasn’t a change of pace into a rollup or something but rather Sheamus hitting Cesaro with his big power move for the pin. You don’t get that enough anymore.
Big Show fired up Mark Henry before his match. That’s the end of Big Show’s involvement tonight.
Now we get to the bad part of the night: country band Florida Georgia Line jumped in on commentary for the Intercontinental Title match with Miz and Ziggler. The match itself wasn’t bad but I really do not need a band that has nothing to do with WWE other than appearing at Tribute to the Troops this year. They got involved by shoving Mizdow and that’s about it, other than the camera looking at them every few seconds. Miz won the title with a rollup and a handful of trunks but the wrestling took a long backseat to the low level celebrity nonsense.
We got a video on Reigns’ injury with some words from his doctor. Reigns will be out for several months, which might be the shakeup WWE has been needing.
Seth Rollins came out to brag about beating Reigns by forfeit before issuing an open challenge. Apparently Dean Ambrose was watching the show in a cab (which just happened to be sitting in the back) as he got out of said cab and charged to the ring to attack Rollins. This was the usual awesome brawl between these two until security got Ambrose down and handcuffed him. They’re doing a great job of only giving us a little bit of Ambrose vs. Rollins before they finally (and hopefully) lock them inside a Cell and let them just destroy each other.
Rusev basically squashed Mark Henry to make Jim Duggan cry somewhere. Henry was never really in control and wound up tapping out to the Accolade. Have Henry pass out or something but don’t have him tap out inside of five seconds.
Arguably the match of the night was Jericho vs. Orton which was a very nice surprise as I had no reason to care about this match coming in but they had me interested at the end. That’s a very hard thing to pull off but they managed to make it work. Orton caught Jericho coming off the top with an RKO for the pin. Odds are that sends Jericho back to the rock scene and there’s nothing wrong with that. These three month runs are as good as he’s going to get anymore and this worked fine. Jericho’s best match in this comeback too.
Brie Bella said she hopes Nikki doesn’t win because it will make her sister even worse. This would wind up being a plot point on Raw because this feud just has to keep going.
AJ won the title back, thankfully by making Nikki tap out. Paige vs. AJ is an interesting feud but they need to do something other than skip around and kiss the belt. Nikki continues to look great in her outfits and when she’s shaking her hips, but the Divas Title needs to either be the wrestling title or the stupid drama title. As long as they keep it off the Bellas and their stupid feud though, I’m good.
Cena beat Lesnar via DQ when Seth Rollins interfered and tried to cash in his briefcase. This sets up some future stuff with Rollins being placed into the main event scene and hopefully giving us a break from Cena vs. Lesnar. Their stuff has been good (including this match) but they’re reaching the point of overkill with it.
As for the match itself, Cena was far more competitive here and managed to avoid most of the suplexes. Lesnar managed to hit seven or eight but Cena got in enough offense to keep things competitive. He had Lesnar mostly beat when Rollins came in which is a solid idea and gives Cena a reason for a rematch later on. Something interesting about Lesnar: he’s viewed as this unstoppable monster but since his comeback in 2012, he’s only 6-4. That’s a great nod to his intimidation and Heyman’s promos.
Night of Champions was a good but definitely not great show. The main event was good enough and they did a solid job with some of the other matches. There’s some interesting stuff in the coming months and that’s something good for WWE after the months of repetitive stuff.
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You’re right, now that I think about it he was missing on Raw the night after Summerslam. I’m a bit less aggravated now.
I enjoyed the Cena/Lesnar match but felt like it was taking place a few months too early. John Cena was decimated at Summerslam, to the point where he’s become a huge underdog for the first time in his career. It would have been fun for him to have needed to build his confidence back up over a few months and then have last night’s match take place at Survivor Series, with Cena winning via DQ then. After that take the month of December off for the Cena-Lesnar feud (which they seem to be doing this month at HiAC) and have the blowoff match at the Rumble. Instead Cena bounces right back from the most brutal loss of his career and squashes the Wyatts the next night. Me no understand.
THe Wyatts thing ticked me off. That didn’t need to happen.
Of course not, but they refuse to show any chinks in Cena’s armor and make him a touch more interesting. Should he even have been in any condition to compete the night after that beating? Let alone squash the Wyatts?
Actually that was 8 days after Summerslam.
“..gives Cena a reason for a rematch later on.”
My only question: Is there really a need for another Cena-Lesnar match? I mean they have already had their trilogy (which has been much better than HHH-Lesnar one). What’s the need for a fourth Cena-Lesnar match in which the outcome will probably be Lesnar wins again to keep the belt till Mania. Give him some other bodies to feed on while he’s available.
In my opinion they should had a definitive ending to this match.
Well based on Raw it wouldn’t seem like Cena vs. Lesnar is happening at the Cell, which I kind of like. I’m all for having some others get shots in between, especially if they’re one off matches.
I was surprised a lot of my friends seemed to dislike the Cena/Lesnar ending because I thought it was damn near perfect. It keeps Cena from losing back to back, while one could argue Lesnar would of kicked out of that AA, and I was absolutely marking out hard when Seth hit the curb stomp on Lesnar, holy cow that was exciting!
After a full month of dull Raw’s, NoC was just what the Doctor ordered. I hope they can keep this up, Seth/Dean at HIAC should be HUUUUGE!