WWE Night of the Champions 2010 Review

WWE Night of the Champions 2010 Review

By Phil Allely

The Night of the Champions PPV is a relatively new one to the WWE event schedule, it is a welcome one indeed. The idea behind this PPV is that every title in the company will be defended and thus we are pretty well guaranteed at least one title change.

Tings kicked off well with Dolph Ziggler defending his Intercontinental belt against fan favourite Kofi Kingston. Vicky Guererro and her NXT rookie Kaitlyn both gave Dolph the assist where they could in a decent opening match that saw a harder edge to Kofi’s character. There were plenty of reversals, near falls and signature moves before Ziggler capitalised on a Kingston botched move to retain his gold.

CM Punk was working in front of his hometown Chicago crowd and of course he played up to that fact in his battle against Big Show. Punk certainly got the crowd fired up here, berating the city, its people and anyone else he could think of. The match itself was fun, but Shows strength put Punk’s speed and agility down with relative ease. A KO punch stopping the Straight Edge Society leader in his tracks.

United States Champion The Miz may have been a worthy winner of the Money in the Bank case, but he was always going to fall short in his battle with Daniel Bryan, the former Nexus man has a point to prove to not only the WWE hierarchy, but the entire fan base. The bout itself was well laid out, each getting the chance to show their skills and repertoire, Miz certainly is a well polished performer these days. Bryan nailed the win and raised his first US title after locking on his LaBell lock submission move.

The WWE women’s division has been a bone of content with fans for a long time now, the quality of the matches and in-ring skills are of course a problem that we all know f and yet WWE seem loathe to solve them. The WWE Women’s and Diva Title unification match between Michelle McCool and Melina was a case in point.

McCool and Melina did try to pull a decent match out of the situation, but really it wasn’t going to set the screen or arena alight and they knew it. McCool winning both belts after some brawling and hair pulling. The fact that the belts are now deemed obsolete by the WWE shows how far the division has fallen of late.

The many months of hype, storyline building and well crafted segments finally paid off as World Heavyweight Champion Kane defended his treasured belt against his brother Undertaker. Undertaker’s recent injury induced hiatus seems to have given him some in-ring fire and determination and his latest feud with his storyline brother are certs to be the feud we all want to see when the promotion tours these shores in November. The match itself was a hard fought and wearing battle of the big men, both trading stiff shots, outside assaults and some great selling by both men. Kane reversing a Tombstone Piledriver attempt into one of his own for the win.

Putting a tag team turmoil stipulation on the World Tag team bout added something to the Hart Dynasty’s title defence. The pairings subsequent loss early into the match meaning that we were guaranteed new champs no matter what. The remaining teams of The Uso’s, Kozlov/Marello, Henry/Bourne and Rhodes/McIntyre all played their parts well here. Each putting in the work to keep the crowd warm after the previous match. McIntyre and Rhodes proving to be the better team as they put away Bourne and Henry for the win.

The shows finale was a great way to round of a very good event. The Six Pack elimination challenge for Sheamus’ WWE Title certainly had its fair share of memorable moments and set-pieces. Chris Jericho was the first to be knocked out of the match (much to his and the rest of his opponents apparent shock), he’ll now concentrate on his band Fozzy for a while.

Randy Orton, Wade Barrett, Edge, John Cena and Sheamus all worked hard to emphasise just how important the title is to them, many dropping to pinfalls though. The finale saw Nexus lay waste to Orton and face off against Cena, Orton was able withstand the assault though and hit an RKO on fellow survivor Sheamus to get the pin and well deserved belt.

Night of the champions was a far better effort from the WWE than expected, there are sill qualms about the PG emphasis and lack of blood or violence, but in-ring and storyline wise the company proved they can do it if they need to.