{"id":1047,"date":"2011-09-18T09:12:36","date_gmt":"2011-09-18T08:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=1047"},"modified":"2011-09-17T21:08:17","modified_gmt":"2011-09-17T20:08:17","slug":"night-of-champions-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=1047","title":{"rendered":"Night of Champions 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Lest I risk driving it off the front page: it’s a podcast weekend. \u00a0The show is just two posts down!<\/a>)<\/p>\n

But now: WWE’s Night of Champions<\/em>, a one-match show if ever I saw one. \u00a0Ironically, that one match also happens to be the one that doesn’t fit the show’s gimmick, which is supposed to be that every title is on the line. \u00a0This isn’t the draw that the company seems to think it is. \u00a0The two versions of the world title – which should really be consolidated into one, especially given the continuing erosion of the brand split – are defended on every show anyway, so all they’re really promising is defences of minor championships like the Intercontinental Title, which not many people care about.<\/p>\n

At the top of the card, however, the curious CM Punk storyline rambles onwards…<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0No-DQ: CM Punk v Triple H.<\/strong>\u00a0 No titles; no championships. \u00a0Triple H was written back into the show a few weeks back when he replaced Vince McMahon as the storyline boss of the company (though, unlike Vince, he’s more explicitly accountable to a board of directors). \u00a0Theoretically that makes him a retired wrestler; in reality, it seems more likely that he’s going to work a reduced schedule.<\/p>\n

Despite being a publicly listed company, the WWE is still mostly owned by the McMahon family and Triple H (who married into the family) is indeed the heir apparent to Vince’s role. \u00a0The transfer of power hasn’t happened for real, but the company presumably figures that enough people know the plan for it to carry a certain degree of added credibility.<\/p>\n

CM Punk, meanwhile, is still in the awkward position of having to follow through on his new “voice of the hardcore fans” gimmick. \u00a0And that’s a difficult one to sustain, especially when the idea is that he voices the criticisms that online fandom has of the show itself. \u00a0You can’t keep that up indefinitely; and the audience reaction varies wildly from city to city depending on the mix of casual and hardcore fans in the crowd.<\/p>\n

At any rate. \u00a0On the last show, Summerslam<\/em>, Punk and Cena had a match to unify their versions of the Raw world title. \u00a0Punk won, but immediately got laid out by Kevin Nash, the lumbering semi-retired 1990s champion who’s also been written back into the show. \u00a0Alberto Del Rio then cashed in Raw’s Money in the Bank title shot to pin Punk for the title. \u00a0Since Punk and Cena are both owed title rematches, Cena’s getting his shot first. \u00a0That leaves Punk to wrestle…<\/p>\n

…well, logically, to wrestle Kevin Nash. \u00a0And indeed, that’s the match they initially seemed to be promoting, but for some reason there’s been a last-minute swerve to Triple H. \u00a0The story seems to be that Nash failed a medical check or something. \u00a0I can’t say I’m losing any sleep over it; Punk versus Nash would have been a dreadful match. \u00a0It’s too early for Punk and Triple H, but they’ll have a much better match, and at least there’s a tension there that makes sense: Punk is the obnoxiously abrasive critic of the company, Triple H is the company. \u00a0There’s also a secondary layer, which is that Punk accuses Triple H of being in cahoots with Nash, and Triple H insists he isn’t.<\/p>\n

This is a no-DQ match (presumably to give Nash an excuse to interfere, which makes Punk look like an idiot for agreeing to it). \u00a0There is also a very odd stipulation that Triple H has to quit as COO if Punk wins; again, it’s far too early for that stip and I doubt anyone really buys it. \u00a0It might<\/em>\u00a0make sense if they’ve suddenly decided that they need to get Triple H back into the mix as a regular main eventer, but I’d be surprised. \u00a0On the whole, I’m expecting Triple H to win with outside interference that he might-or-might-not be aware of, to further the storyline.<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0WWE Title: Alberto Del Rio v John Cena.<\/strong>\u00a0 Del Rio is a heel champion who won the title last month by ambushing Punk with the “any time, any place” Money in the Bank Title Shot he won on the show before. \u00a0But even though he won the title dubiously, the company seems keen to give him some degree of credibility. \u00a0He’s already defended it on TV against Rey Mysterio (who was also<\/em>\u00a0owed a rematch – don’t ask), and knocked off a couple of midcarders in reasonably credible fashion. \u00a0Despite this, the writers would also have us believe that he’s been running scared of John Cena; this feels a bit writing-by-numbers.<\/p>\n

They’ve been planning to get the title onto Del Rio for months, and so I’d be surprised if he lost it too quickly. \u00a0Part of the mentality is apparently that they need more Hispanic stars, and they want to build Del Rio up so that they can turn him babyface down the line. \u00a0It might work. \u00a0Del Rio certainly has charisma and his matches are usually decent. \u00a0But he’s also something of a cartoon midcarder. \u00a0He’s a supposed Mexican aristocrat with his own Spanish-language ring announcer (who is, admittedly, awesome – his enthusiasm for proclaiming his boss’s name seems to know no bounds). \u00a0He feels slightly out of place among the main eventers who are, relatively speaking, less ridiculous than that. \u00a0And he’s been in the midcard for so long that he’s yet to acquire the aura of a main eventer. \u00a0Frankly, booking him as somebody who’s scared of John Cena isn’t the way to help that.<\/p>\n

Still, this should be a solid enough match. \u00a0Del Rio should win, but I expect some degree of shenanigans if only to protect Cena.<\/p>\n

3. World Heavyweight Title: Randy Orton v Mark Henry.<\/strong>\u00a0 The Smackdown main event is not so much a match as a demonstration of how little depth there is on that side of the roster. \u00a0Purely in storyline terms, it makes sense; Mark Henry, “the World’s Strongest Man” (he isn’t, but in his prime he was getting there), has been destroying people for several weeks now, he’s the most prominent heel for Randy Orton to defend against, and so they ought to have a match.<\/p>\n

But. \u00a0Mark Henry has been under contract since 1996, and while he looks great and has the right charisma, the bottom line is that the matches have never been up to much. \u00a0Every so often the company decides to have another go at pushing him, seemingly unable to believe that somebody so big might not be a potential main eventer – and it never takes. \u00a0I can’t imagine it being any different this time around.<\/p>\n

Orton surely has to win; the question is where they go from there. \u00a0There seem to be some tentative moves to position Cody Rhodes as the next challenger, which really does smack of desperation – midcarders don’t get much more midcard than Rhodes – but would probably make for a better match.<\/p>\n

4. \u00a0Intercontinental Title: Cody Rhodes v Ted DiBiase.<\/strong>\u00a0 Rhodes is currently the holder of Smackdown’s secondary title, with his curious gimmick of claiming to be deformed despite copious evidence to the contrary. \u00a0(In a nice piece of staging, rather than having him wear make-up, they’ve given him a slightly distortive transparent protective mask.) \u00a0This is actually a decent enough idea; having him hand out paper bags for fans to put over their heads, on the other hand, was a really stupid one, since it’s not generating any sort of heel reaction, and only detracts from his act.<\/p>\n

Rhodes and DiBiase used to be a tag team back when Randy Orton was a heel and they were his \u00a0sidekicks – a role that did absolutely nothing for them, since the writers forgot to ever have them beat anyone, so their function was to be beaten up by people who were after Orton. \u00a0After a half-hearted reunion on Smackdown, we now seem to have reached the belated Ted DiBiase babyface turn. \u00a0There was a point a few years ago when this could have worked, but I don’t see it taking now. \u00a0While he’s a solid enough wrestler, DiBiase just doesn’t seem to have the charisma and personality to connect with the fans in a big way.<\/p>\n

That being said… given the desperate shortage of heels on Smackdown, and the WWE’s curious conviction that secondary champions should always lose their titles before getting a shot at the world title, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if DiBiase won here. \u00a0It’s the wrong call – if Rhodes is going to feud with Orton, he should do it as Intercontinental Champion – but it’s the sort of wrong call the company is likely to make. \u00a0I expect a technically sound match that the crowd doesn’t really get into.<\/p>\n

5. \u00a0US Title: Dolph Ziggler v Jack Swagger v John Morrison v Alex Riley.<\/strong>\u00a0 A fourway, perhaps because this is a relatively rare example of a heel\/heel feud, and the writers want to get some babyfaces into the match as well.<\/p>\n

Ziggler is the defending champion. \u00a0He’s a heel, as is his manager Vicky Guerrero. \u00a0Vicky is thinking of taking on fellow heel Swagger as another client. \u00a0Ziggler doesn’t like the sound of that. \u00a0So Ziggler and Swagger are feuding (in a way that tends to suggest it might be heading towards a babyface turn for Swagger, but we’re not there yet). \u00a0Essentially the last few weeks have seen Vicky waver about whether to align herself with Swagger, and misfiring attempts to get the two heels to work together as a team.<\/p>\n

Riley and Morrison… are basically midcard babyfaces with nothing else to do. \u00a0Conceivably one of them could get the title if the idea is for Swagger to cost Ziggler his belt. \u00a0But I suspect the better way forward for the title is simply for Swagger to win the belt by pinning one of the babyfaces, or even (perhaps) for Ziggler to be taken out of the picture and Vicky to then help Swagger win. \u00a0There are three decent wrestlers in this match, and the inexperienced Riley can be fine in the right context, so this could be alright.<\/p>\n

6. \u00a0Tag Team Titles: Air Boom v. Miz & R-Truth.<\/strong>\u00a0 Air Boom is the fan-voted name for Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne – thanks for that, fans – who won the tag team titles a few weeks ago. \u00a0Presumably somebody finally woke up and realised that the titles were inexplicably still held by David Otunga and Michael McGillicutty, who had only been given them in the first place because they were lackies of CM Punk in a since-dropped storyline.<\/p>\n

So now the titles are on a talented midcard babyface tag team. \u00a0The heel challengers are a makeshift team united by their insistence that they’re being overlooked by Triple H’s administration. \u00a0Miz is a former world champion, R-Truth has at least challenged for the world title recently… but there doesn’t seem to be any room for them at the top of the card any more. \u00a0So they’re making their own luck by challenging for the tag titles instead. \u00a0(And if this sounds more like the behaviour of a babyface team… well, yes, it is, but their whining about the new administration is supposed to make them heels by virtue of the irritation factor alone.)<\/p>\n

On paper this is a decent match, and it could go either way; the babyfaces might have been intended simply as a device to transition the titles onto a more credible heel team. \u00a0But I’d say they should be stretching out the feud a while even if that is the plan. \u00a0It’s not like the heels have anything else to do, and the tag team division needs a bit of stability with some reasonably credible champions. \u00a0Babyfaces to retain, then, but not necessarily in a decisive way.<\/p>\n

7. \u00a0Divas Title: Kelly Kelly v Beth Phoenix.<\/strong>\u00a0 The latest stage of the “Divas of Doom” storyline. \u00a0The waif-like Kelly successfully defended her title against Natalya last month, so this time she defends against Natalya’s partner Beth Phoenix. \u00a0All this is supposed to be part of a wider feud between (broadly) the credible female wrestlers and the ones who were plainly hired on appearance. \u00a0This has to lead to the heels winning at some point, but story structure suggests some sort of schtick where Kelly manages to beat them both individually before finally losing to some contrived two-on-one affair. \u00a0I don’t expect wonders from this.<\/p>\n

Worth buying?<\/strong>\u00a0 This one’s on Sky Sports in the UK, so it’s not an issue here. \u00a0HHH\/Punk sounds decent and a lot of the undercard is solid on paper. \u00a0Not so sure about Mark Henry in a semi-main event, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Lest I risk driving it off the front page: it’s a podcast weekend. \u00a0The show is just two posts down!) But now: WWE’s Night of Champions, a one-match show if ever I saw one. \u00a0Ironically, that one match also happens to be the one that doesn’t fit the show’s gimmick, which is supposed to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1047"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1049,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions\/1049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}