Night of Wrestling and Questionable Booking for WWE

Night of Champions seems to have had some really mixed results in terms of reaction to it. While in ring, the show seemed to come off reasonably well, the booking of the show caused people some headaches. Those that just wanted to see some good in-ring action were able to ignore the lack of logic to the booking and enjoy the show. Those who could not ignore those mistakes were unable to see past it and enjoy some good wrestling overall. 

A great example of this divide was in the match between Sheamus versus Cesaro. Everyone expected this to be a hard-hitting stiff affair. The end result with Cesaro losing left a bad taste in fans mouths that have been unhappy with how he has been booked since Wrestlemania.

If you looked at last night’s show in a vacuum not looking back or forward it is hard to debate, it was not a decent show at the very least. When you get into the long-term nature of these events is where issues arise. Like this feud with the Miz and Dolph Ziggler that has gone on to long with ridiculous side characters in Sandow and R-Truth. The commentary on the match was an infomercial for some hick country brand Florida Georgia Line that didn’t have the common business sense to know the name of the event they signed to appear at in December. This made the Intercontinental Championship match seemingly less important.  The constant flip-flopping of the title also doesn’t help matters. This could be just getting the belt back on The Miz prior to losing to a returning Wade Barrett who was the champion prior to him being injured. This ultimately would be acceptable in the grand scheme of things.

This was one of three titles that changed hands as the Uso’s losing to the Dust Brothers. Which realistically seemed to be coming with the Uso’s having long title run. Does this change my interest level in the tag-team division at all? It does not have me more interested in the division in the slightest.

The Diva’s title swaps hands again as A.J gets the title back winning the three-way title match. The match was decent even Nikki Bella pulled her weight in the match. The booking about having Nikki in the match made zero sense as Brie was at Night of Champions, but only cut an interview and had zero involvement in the match. Again, another case of a decent match with flawed booking that does not make sense.

One match that for my money failed on both levels was Chris Jericho and Randy Orton. The build to this match including a useless segment on the pre-show on the “Peep Show” that was pointless. While many will say this was a good match between to vets, I am sorry but that finish to this match was so poor it wiped away anything that happened prior to it. We had Jericho waiting forever on the top rope only to get “RKOed” when he jumped off for the finishing spot to the match. The catch RKO when we first saw it was an amazing move. It was anything but in this case as you could see it coming a mile away

Roman Reigns was rushed to hospital over the weekend legitimately and the WWE did the expected but welcomed segment as a result. Rollins took a win by forfeit over Reign who could be out anywhere from 6-12 weeks based on his recovery. Rollins issues an open challenge and out of a cab in the back that he did not pay for comes Dean Ambrose returning to the WWE after a month.  In storyline curb stomped through cement blocks, while in reality he was off filming a WWE films movie in which he plays a cop. Ambrose takes justice into his own hands and attacks Rollins all over the arena and security along with Triple H and Stephanie come out. Eventually security drags off Ambrose. One of the suits along with security was Jamie Noble who had quite the scuffle with Ambrose. There is irony in the one segment that was not pre-planned and came off as one of the best things on the show.

It is now time to move onto our main event with Brock Lesnar and John Cena in their re-match from Summerslam. We saw the predictable more aggressive Cena going after Brock but still not able to finish him whoever thought it was a good idea to have John Cena using the “STF” is headshaking. Cena has always made that hold look terrible and Brock breaking out of it only emphasized that.Steve Austin has also been a long time critic of Cena doing this hold badly. Rollins come up, breaks-up yet another “STF” attempt, and causes a DQ win by attacking Cena. He “Curb Stomped” the downed Lesnar and went to cash in his Money in the Bank contract only to be cut off by Cena negating his cash in as the bell never rang to start the match. Sadly, this is looking like we are heading to yet another Cena vs. Lesnar match. It seems clear the WWE has little confidence in booking Brock with anyone else. I have very little interest in seeing this match for a third time.

Perhaps Raw can sell me on this being interesting and this would have to put some strain between the relationship with Paul Heyman and Brock with the Authority and Seth Rollins.

In the end for me, this show taught me an example of why you need good booking to go along with good wrestling to make a show enjoyable. This was booked at times as an episode of Raw and at other times like it was a pay-per-view. It just did not get me excited for what is to come and the title changes that happened all seemed very flat and uneventful in nature for me.

Night of Champions is rapidly becoming the show you skip and just wait for Hell in the Cell to get the blow offs to main event feuds. This was all similar to how the Bryan and Orton feud was dragged out last year to get it to Hell in the Cell and a blow-off cell match; this also might speak to the need of having so many gimmick themed pay-per-views. While ones like the Royal Rumble and Money in the Bank seem to work things like Hell in a Cell and Elimination Chamber clearly do not. The need for a long feud to end in these structures is likely part of the reason they don’t and making it predictable that feuds will peak at this event. Elimination Chamber is a dangerous match that always seems to be a holdover to Wrestlemania with little drama attached to it.

In the end a show that really seemed to have some mixed reaction from the WWE’s core audience while a Lesnar vs. Cena re-match, I would venture to guess did little to expand the WWE audience with casual fans. WWE had really gotten some attention with the initial Lesnar win only to fail badly in the follow-up to it.

Just like they have failed to sell a network to the mass population outside of it's hardcore audience. 

Money In Bank: Entertaining Despite Being Predictable

It has fairly easy for Money in the Bank to exceed my expectations because heading in they were very low. Daniel Bryan had some bad news for his recovery and basically admitted some of the things that had been reported about his recovery. He stated he had no idea when he would return and even implied he may require another surgery. Bo Dallas would come out and interrupt and give Daniel some cheesy inspiration to which Daniel responded that Bo was acting like a Bonner and he told Bo that on behalf of himself and fans he suggested BoLeave. Speaking of Bad News that would be for Wade Barrett whose injury on Smackdown was confirmed and the fact he would not participate in the Money in the Bank match. There would be no replacement but after that match took place no one would be complaining.

So here is a rundown of the show with thoughts on each match.

Usos vs. Wyatts: This was the opening match and it was really tremendous. I didn’t give the Usos much chance to win this match but they surprised me. It was a wild match that featured all kinds of crazy dived ever from Luke Harper. The Usos finished this match off with back to back splashes from the top rope that looked real cool and gave them the three counts and win to retain their titles. I would hope this feud continues but with a clean win not sure how it would be justified in storyline. It was all you would expect from an opening match.

Divas Title: Paige vs. Naomi: Rare we get a women’s match in this spot but with two female matches on the card these ladies got a chance to be in a good spot. The match was fairly entertaining and it really showed the athletic ability of Naomi. Paige really was being as usual booked as the underdog which I fail to understand. Paige did get some spots to shine in this match and did eventually get the win. Cameron was on the outside and the story was she was totally disinterested and almost wanted Naomi to win. She did go to check on Naomi after the match acting like she did care.

Money in the Bank Ladder Match: The match started with Dean Ambrose charging the ring and going right after Seth Rollins they brawled to the floor and Ambrose took him right into the time keeper area. There were tons of unique spots in this match far too many to mention but one that needs to be noted is Kofi Kingston. He was climbing the ladder and I don’t remember who send him off the ladder but what happened after was amazing. Kofi landed on the top rope and sprung off the rope and dove on the four other competitors that were on the floor.

Dean Ambrose would sell a shoulder injury and the doctor would come out and rule Ambrose out of the match and we were down to 5 competitors in the match. If you thought the injury was legit it would be proven later it likely was not. Ambrose would return and stop Rollins from getting the case. Ambrose would have his chance to get the belt and Kane would come out and lay waste to Ambrose leaving the path clear for Rollins. Seth would win the match as expected but what a match it was.

In general I loved how this match was booked with a real urgency on behalf of all the competitors to get to the briefcase. There were many spots with 3 or more on people on the ladder this was true in the WWE World Championship match later. It felt like this match had a new agent booking it or some influence that has not been there in the past. I liked the logic and psychology of both ladder matches.

Dean Ambrose showed his brilliant ability to sell in this match and I think he has become the number one guy at this aspect in the company. He was the most over superstar on this show and that is saying a lot as it was set up for Roman Reigns to be that guy. Reigns would get huge reactions later in the other ladder match but not to the level of Ambrose.

WWE World Heavyweight Championship Ladder Match: Heading into the match all signs pointed to John Cena winning this match which he eventually did but they did a good job of teasing he would not. If the truth is told the Money in the Bank match kind of overshadowed this match. It kind of speaks to the hungry of guys still trying to climb to the main event level and guys who were already there.

Randy Orton took a ladder shot to the head off a fall that split him open. He would have doctors take a look at the cut and did something to stop the bleeding for the moment. The one thing that stood out in this match was a huge run by Roman Reigns where he basically took out 5 or 6 of the competitors in succession. Reigns would make a push for the belt but Orton would climb ladder on same side. Reigns smashed Orton into the ladder opening up the cut from earlier. Wrestling Observer website would later report that Orton needed to have 11 or 12 staples to his head to close the gash. Reigns would be cut off by Kane. Just like in the Rollins match earlier Kane was there to make sure that Orton won.

However as Randy Orton was attempting to climb John Cena would take out Kane holding the ladder an Attitude Adjustment and than drag Orton down and give him the same and climb the ladder to grab the titles and win the match. Some of the crowd did pop even though Cena was booed loudly a few times earlier in the night. So if fans are forced to have Cena or Orton as champion some would prefer Orton. Anyway the expected finish and John Cena is now a 15 time Champion and if that wasn’t enough to make you puke Michael Cole in selling the win declared John Cena the greatest champion of all-time.

Other Matches: Big E took the loss to Rusev as expected and Big E continued the same preacher gimmick in a promo prior to this. The match was decent but still did little for Big E and continued building Rusev. Stardust and Goldust had a match with Ryback and Axel and got the uneventful win. The only note from this was Axel is wearing a singlet like Ryback that looks stupid. Summer Rae and Layla went at it with Fandango was the ref. His ref shirt was awesome, Summer Rae’s acting ability after she ended up losing was so bad I am convince Marine 4 has a chance to be the worst move ever. A bonus match with Adam Rose that saw him paired Damien Sandow. Sandow was funny and lost.

Only other thing of note was Bri Bella and Stephanie had an interaction in the back teasing the idea of a Bri vs. Stephanie down the line.

In general this show went much as I suspected it would in terms of results but I enjoyed it. I had low expectations heading in which included knowing John Cena would win. I am truly amazed that these guys still have ways to invent new spots in these ladder matches. I always feel like we have seen it all and than we get a ton of new stuff in matches like this.

What this means for Battleground in 3 weeks remains to be seen. It was about as good as you could have hoped for heading towards Summerslam given the cards they have been dealt.  I found it amusing the strong push for the WWE Network where the majority of the audience on PPV is foreign and not domestic. Is the WWE telling me to break the law and buy the network? If I am going to break the law to watch the show that might not be the choice I would make.

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