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Sep 19

Night of Champions 2010

Posted on Sunday, September 19, 2010 by Paul in Wrestling

The WWE’s September pay-per-view doesn’t seem to be one of their top priority shows.  That’s perhaps understandable, since Smackdown is about to jump networks to Syfy in a few weeks time.  As a side effect, Syfy is booting NXT off the network, leaving it without a home in the USA.  The WWE apparently intends to keep making the show and streaming it on their website.  Good luck with that one.  Anyhow, you can see why they might want to leave really big, attention grabbing events for a few weeks down the line.

The gimmick with Night of Champions is supposed to be that every title is defended.  And that isn’t really such a big deal.  As a rule, pay-per-views always see most of the titles being defended.  It’s hard to imagine the company getting many extra buys simply by promising that both versions of the women’s title will be contested on the same show.  In fact, the proliferation of secondary titles (and the duplication of the world title) has generally damaged the drawing power of the company’s titles – something that they may be about to work on.  But more on that later.  And as it happens, this show includes one match with no title on the line, while they haven’t yet announced anything for the tag team titles.

Before going through the card, a couple of general points to bear in mind.  First, the Miz still hasn’t used his Money in the Bank title shot, which allows him to challenge for Raw’s version of the world title at any time.  Don’t be surprised if he shows up after the Raw title match to challenge the winner, particularly if he loses his US title earlier in the show.

Second, a weird ongoing subplot appears to be coming to a head, involving Raw’s lead announcer Michael Cole.  Cole is generally a standard babyface announcer, but for a while now he’s been inexplicably siding with Miz (a heel) at every opportunity.  The character now seems to be sliding into what is either a heel turn or full blown psychosis.  Last week’s NXT was a particularly baffling affair, as Cole spent the hour berating the entire premise and bemoaning the show as a waste of his time.  Which, perhaps unfortunately, was infinitely more entertaining than anything else in the broadcast.  Periodically he emphasised his displeasure by repeatedly banging a gong.  This is obviously heading somewhere, and since Cole will be the lead announcer on the pay-per-view, they’ll have to develop it somewhere.

1.  WWE Title, elimination match: Sheamus v. Wade Barrett v. John Cena v. Edge v. Chris Jericho v. Randy Orton. This seems to be the WWE’s way of getting rid of an awkward stipulation.  As the winner of NXT Season 1, Wade Barrett was supposed to get a match on PPV for the title of his choice.  Supposedly the original plan was for Daniel Bryan to win the season and then challenge his hated mentor, the Miz, for his United States Title.  When they went with Barrett instead, they faced the awkward fact that Barrett had no logical reason to challenge for a secondary title.   And as the leader of the Nexus faction, who are part of a major storyline, he has to be presented as a headliner.  But he’s not ready to headline in a singles match – besides which, Barrett v. Sheamus would be a heel versus heel match, and those never draw.

So, Barrett is getting his title shot as part of a six-man elimination match.  Since the Nexus faction are more or less outcasts among the wrestlers, I wouldn’t be too surprised if everyone else gangs up to get rid of him – though to keep him strong, he ought to hang in there for a little while.  I can’t see him winning; I don’t think he’s ready yet.

Who does that leave?  Chris Jericho has an on-again-off-again subplot where he’s threatened to retire if he doesn’t win the title.  Jericho’s character regularly threatens to quit and doesn’t follow through on it, but his contract is up for renewal, so it’s possible they’re building themselves an easy way to write him out.  Edge is mainly tied up in a storyline where he’s feuding with Raw’s anonymous general manager (who communicates exclusively via e-mail, and let’s all hope they resolve that storyline sooner rather than later, because it’s not working).  Multi-man matches are often a good way to get a title from one heel to another, but I don’t see any obvious benefit in moving the title to Jericho or Edge at this stage.

That leaves the two babyfaces in the match, Orton and Cena.  The WWE are clearly trying to push Orton as the big star, and he’s plainly going to win the title sooner rather than later.  But I don’t think this is the right time.  Six-man matches are a bit anonymous.  The title change will mean more if they do it in a singles match.  And a Cena win doesn’t really make sense when Orton is so clearly a higher priority – unless Miz steals the title immediately after, I suppose, since Miz/Orton might be a more interesting feud.

Conclusion: Sheamus probably retains, with some shenanigans in the eliminations to set up assorted matches among the other participants going forward, and probably leading to Sheamus v Orton next month at Hell in a Cell.  With these six, the match quality should be good – Barrett lacks the experience of the others, but he’s got promise and should do well with talented opponents.

2.  World Heavyweight Title, No Holds Barred: Kane v. Undertaker. This is the Smackdown title, and the main storyline on that show for the last few months has revolved around somebody beating up the Undertaker and leaving him in a coma, thus writing him out of the show while he took a break.  Undertaker’s brother Kane has been looking for the man responsible, and in the meantime has picked up the World Title.  On the Undertaker’s return, it transpired that Kane was the guilty party all along.  Not a huge surprise.  And so the Undertaker wants revenge.  But the big idea here is that Undertaker is still far from top form, and for once he’s going into this match as the weaker wrestler.

This convoluted piece of soap opera doesn’t seem to have clicked with live crowds, who weren’t too interested in knowing who did it.  It also seems to miss the point of the Undertaker’s appeal, which is that he’s invincible and always wins.  I’m not sure fans really want to see him wrestling as an underdog.  What’s not to say there isn’t some interest in seeing him wrestle a different role from normal (god knows his usual routine is very familiar by now), but I’m not sure it’s selling many tickets.

Undertaker and Kane have wrestled many times over the years, and the matches are rarely more than okay.  The storyline doesn’t seem to have run its course yet, so presumably Kane wins in order to set up a rematch.  But since it’s not taking, they might decide to abort and have Undertaker win here.

3.  United States Title: The Miz v Daniel Bryan. Raw’s secondary title is still held by the Miz – with a brief interruption over a couple of weeks in May, he’s held the thing since last October.  But if he’s going to cash in that title shot and become world champion, the US title needs to move on.  In theory, of course, he could simply hold both titles at once, but the WWE usually prefers to have secondary champions lose before moving up to the main event.

Miz was Daniel Bryan’s “mentor” in the first season of NXT, which was originally meant to build to Bryan winning and challenging Miz for his title.  Then Bryan got fired after the first week of the Nexus angle, apparently to appease somebody who was upset about him choking the ring announcer.  He’s now been re-hired and plugged back into the storyline he left behind – except that Miz now has a new and more loyal sidekick, Alex Riley.

The WWE has made a bit of a mess of Daniel Bryan, an excellent in-ring wrestler who doesn’t conform to their idea of what a wrestler should look like.  He tends to lose a lot.  But I think they do intend to put the US title on him – it’s a feud they’ve stuck with for months, however erratically – and the storyline has run for so long that it’s probably time to make the switch.  On paper, this should be a very good match.

4.  Intercontinental Title: Dolph Ziggler v. Kofi Kingston. Smackdown’s secondary title.  We’ve seen this match far too many times already and I don’t really understand why we’re seeing it again.  It’s a feud that never seems to die and never seems to move forward.  Ziggler, the heel, is currently the champion, and for what it’s worth, there’s a stipulation that the title can also change hands on a count-out or a disqualification.  (Normally titles only change hands on pinfall or submission, so a heel champion can retain his belt by getting himself disqualified intentionally.  The point of the stipulation is to guarantee that we’re not getting that finish.)

Ziggler was long overdue to win the IC Title, and needs it more than Kingston, so I expect him to retain.  The match… should be just like all the others, which is to say, okay.

5.  Women’s Title Unification Match: Melina v. Michelle McCool. This is a lumberjack match, which basically means the rest of the women’s roster will be at ringside.  Expect the obligatory chaotic brawl.

More importantly, this match unifies two versions of the women’s title.  From here on, it seems, we’ll have a single women’s champion who can appear on all shows, a format which has worked well with the tag titles.  Supposedly, the current plan – and everything can change – is to follow through with this by unifying the two world titles, as well as the two secondary titles.  That would leave us with just the World, IC, Women’s and Tag titles, and because champions would appear on more shows, even the secondary titles ought to mean  more.  The downside would be that there would be fewer “major” titles to headline live shows – but are people really going to live shows to see title defences?  I think it’s a very good move.  It’s particularly essential for the women’s division, which is so short of talented wrestlers that they can’t sustain two viable titles.

Raw’s version of the title is held by Melina, recently back from injury, who’s currently working as a babyface.  On Smackdown, things are more complicated.  In theory, the champion is Layla El, who won the title in a three-way in May.  But Layla and Michelle McCool have been doing a heel gimmick where they’re basically intensely irritating girly girls (and overgrown primary school bullies).  As Best Friends Forever, they claim to be sharing the titles.  Michelle is not officially recognised as co-champion, but if Layla says she’s co-champion, she can’t really object to Michelle defending the belt on their behalf.

Now, in theory, this match was booked as “Melina versus one of LayCool”, with Michelle being selected at random to defend the title.  Except Michelle rigged the draw, and this seems to be heading towards a break-up with Michelle as the heel and Layla as the babyface (apparently keeping their NXT protege Kaval).  So the main storyline here is really between Layla and Michelle, with Melina as a backdrop.

Nonetheless, my bet would be that Melina wins, since Layla and Michelle have a perfectly good break-up feud that doesn’t need the title to make it work.  And then you can plug in Melina to complicate things.  As for the match quality… don’t get your hopes up.

6.  The Big Show v. CM Punk. Not a title match, and apparently just something to get the other Smackdown headliners on the show.  Punk’s Straight Edge Society faction appears to have imploded, with Serena being fired, Joey Mercury getting injured, and Luke Gallows not really amounting to much of a Society on his own.  So it’s time to reposition Punk as a solo act again.  A shame, because the SES worked well for him.

My feeling is that with his act being re-tooled, Punk could really use the win here.  But I suspect he’s a low priority right now.  I can’t quite imagine these two having a good match together; Punk’s style isn’t really suited for working with giants, and a style clash seems likely.

Worth buying? Not really.  Miz/Bryan is probably the most interesting match here, but the rest is decidedly forgettable.  A likely additional match, based on TV, would be the Hart Dynasty defending their tag titles against the makeshift heel team of Drew McIntyre and Cody Rhodes.  If that happens, I’d expect the heels to win, if only to freshen things up and allow the Harts to continue feuding with them.  Overall, though, this doesn’t feel like a show to shell out the money for.

Bring on the comments

  1. Henry says:

    Oh, I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if McCool won and used that as justification for taking the title away from Layla, as she would inherit an effectively new title. That too could be justification for a feud.

    And given McCool’s backstage standing, I consider it a foregone conclusion that she becomes the first ‘undisputed’ Women’s Champion or whatever the title ends up being called…

  2. Chad Nevett says:

    With Hell in a Cell only two weeks away, Kane/Undertaker seems guaranteed to continue and finish there. Same with a few other feuds. Not much time to build anew.

  3. Paul C says:

    I’d disagree regarding Jericho & Edge, those 2 could use the title considerably more than say Cena or Orton given how they have basically spun their wheels since coming over in the Draft. I think WWE will go for a swerve and have Jericho win with him signing a new contract on the hush-hush. Plus they could go with a fresh feud in Jericho/Orton. (And rumours are Edge will be going back to Smackdown with the network jump to give the show “star power”).

    Don’t get me wrong, I’d love Sheamus to retain but if he did it would probably once again be by a fluke and still remain a weak chump of a champ.

    They mentioned on a recent Observer that Taker/Kane had their first feud back when Bill Clinton was president. That face floored me! And this recent instalment has just been so boring. Everyone knows Taker will get the belt sooner or later.

    I’d agree with Henry above regarding McCool and her backstage pull. I fully expect her to win which would be annoying as she is a charisma black hole. The unification is needed but the division will still be rubbish given that Natalya & Beth Phoenix are the only 2 wrestler that could be classified as “good” (Serena was too but she sadly got cut).

    Yeah Miz/Danielson is the only thing I’m really excited for and I think he’ll drop the strap but they’ll hold off on The Miz cashing in until the end of the year.

    Thanks goodness this is a ‘free’ show on Sky Sports given the crappy build and general lack of excitement.

  4. odessa steps magazine says:

    i believe dave said survivor series is 13th anniversary of kane/UT feud.

    Its a shame there’s no room on the PPV for a Christian v Dos Caras/Alberto Del Rio match.

  5. I can definitely see the logic in unifying the Women’s championships and the World championships (and I’ve felt it was absolutely ridiculous splitting the Undisputed Championship up in the first place, so this is long overdue), but the IC and US titles…
    I think they might keep them separate and exclusive to each brand, just so they’ve got something to distinguish the shows from each other and give the mid-cards more to do.

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