Night of Champions Thoughts & Opinions

Below is an account of what I took away after watching WWE's Night of Champions pay-per-view.

Air Boom (c) vs. Awesome Truth (Tag Team Titles)
I was really looking forward to this match and for the most part, it delivered. Let me go on record as saying that I think that The Miz and R-Truth as a tag team have a legitimate chance of becoming this generation's Edge and Christian as a comedy tag team that are taken seriously in the ring and that we are always happy to see grab a mic, which will be often. I also think it's awesome that the tag team division has been revitalized for the very reason that guys like Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne won't get lost in the shuffle as often. Although the match was thrown out, the ending totally made sense and I was fine with it considering that they're trying to sell the conspiracy angle for Miz and Truth. The moment Bourne tagged in without actually tagging in, I got all excited and yelled conspiracy!, and then later when Miz and Truth had a legit tag that went unnoticed. Loved the story of the match and where this is going for both teams.

Cody Rhodes (c) vs. Ted Dibiase (Intercontinental Title)
Honestly, I fast-forwarded through this. Absolutely no interest in Rhodes at all. Don't understand why he has to sound like the emperor from Star Wars, or Kane from a few years back. He doesn't even need the mask anymore and the gimmick is getting real old. Always thought Dibiase had potential, but they've done nothing with him and this match had just been thrown together. I didn't watch it, because I'm basically just shrugging my shoulders at this whole situation.

Christian/Sheamus In-Ring Promo Segment
It sucks that Christian wasn't on the card (and on an unrelated not, Bryan Danielson for that matter, too), but what can you do. Christian, as always, was great on the mic and it was interesting to basically see the whole crowd on his side for "one more match" when obviously they're not supposed to. I honestly don't really like Sheamus, and fast-forward all his matches, but even the unbiased side of me thinks he's really terrible as a babyface. He's not funny, not interesting, and unless you're Irish, which, considering all the nationalities that make up a WWE audience, there's not a big percentage, his promos about his motherland aren't really that compelling. This Sheamus as a face thing just isn't working out.

Dolph Ziggler (c) vs. Jack Swagger vs. John Morrison vs. Alex Riley (US Title)
Pretty decent match here. Even though it seemed like an obvious prediction going in, I really thought Swagger was going to win to add that dynamic to the Ziggler/Swagger/Vickie triangle, so it was interesting that they kept the title on Ziggler, whom I am a fan of. It would be really nice to see Dolph get a drawn-out, well written feud soon. With Vickie's post-match backstage promo taking credit for Ziggler's win, it would appear that Dolph's time dealing with her may be running out soon, anyway.

Randy Orton (c) vs. Mark Henry (World Heavyweight Championship)
I have to say that over the past year, Orton has probably become my most unliked guy in WWE. And by that, I mean that when he comes on TV, I go, "ugh, this guy is so f'n boring, I can't take it anymore." See, at least with Cena, he might be corny as all hell, but at least he's somewhat interesting in the fact that the crowd is always hot one way or the other when he's in the ring doing something. Orton is just flat out boring. So when Mark Henry won, it was awesome to see shots of stupid girls in the crowd looking bummed out. Anyway, as for Henry, I gotta say...I'm kinda, sorta, maybe buying it. I wasn't at all until that final promo on Smackdown, which wasn't great by any stretch, but was more than solid enough to get behind him a bit, which is about four hundred times more than I could ever say for any Mark Henry storyline push. The title match itself was not exciting, but booked excellently, with Henry being dominant and winning clean, and his post-match promo was very good as well, especially when he said he wasn't sharing the moment with "none of ya'll!" With a little more mic time, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but Mark Henry has potential to be a halfway decent champ.

CM Punk/John Laurinaitus Backstage Promo
I'm skipping past the Del Rio portion and only mentioning this segment because I thought it was awesome when Punk used Larry David's "pretty, pretty" line when saying that "that almost sounded pretty, pretty sincere". Seriously, I've checked to see if Laurinaitis had an IMDB page three times the past few months just to make sure that he doesn't actually play Marty Funkhauser on Curb Your Enthusiasm. It's awesome Punk is acknowledging the obvious, and hilarious, similarities.

Kelly Kelly (c) vs. Beth Phoenix (WWE Divas Championship)
Ugh, they dropped the ball hardcore here. Believe it or not, this was one of the top three matches from a storyline perspective that I was looking forward to seeing (which actually speaks high to what WWE has been doing lately with its lesser divisions), and they blew it. Look, I've always thought Beth Phoenix was a top tier women's talent, and this whole Divas of Doom angle has been the first time I've been interested in a women's division storyline since...Trish Stratus was around? With Beth losing to Kelly two straight pay-per-views, and Natalya losing to Kelly on a Raw in between, they've just completely OBLITERATED any credibility and momentum that the team had. What a waste and terrible to decision to keep the title on Kelly. Worst moment of the night.

Alberto Del Rio (c) vs. John Cena (WWE Championship)
It's not often I root for Cena in a storyline (and even here, I'm using the word "root" loosely), but I'm just not buying what Del Rio is selling, and I don't think anyone else really is either. As a person who generally roots for heels, I wanted to like Del Rio, but I just don't. The guy offers nothing either on the mic or in the ring of any interest. Even though I technically want Cena to win this feud, it's hard not to sit in disgust and watch Cena get that title back again after just losing it for the millionth time. At this rate, Cena is going to pass Flair by next June.

CM Punk vs. Triple H
Just like the events during this match, my attempt to write anything coherent is jumbled. No complaints really, and the match itself was pretty decent, and I totally get and even buy everything they were trying to accomplish storyline-wise, but everything was a bit complicated and busy is all. Just so many moving parts between the two competitors themselves, Miz and R-Truth, the two referees, Marty Funkhauser, then Kevin Nash, all the while Trips and Punks are going back and forth between fighting outsiders off and having their own match, it was just a bit much. Thought it would have been much more interesting if Trips lost and in the process lost the COO gig, but I'm not going to complain and do armchair booking between "they should have done this so they can do that", because I'm sure they've got it covered. Plus, the match left a lot of questions to be answered on Raw.

Overall, I thought it was a pretty good PPV. Nothing spectacular, but very solid. Plus it kept all the storylines moving forward. Let's see where they go from here.