Night Of Champions: A Night of Shock and Surprise

The just concluded WWE PPV Night of Champions provided us with some elements of surprise, shock and awe but more importantly a sign of life for the company’s women’s division.

So let me start of with those two titles. 

The WWE Women’s and Diva’s Championship Matches.

The match up of Michelle McCool and Melina, I think was the better of the two.  Which is to be expected as both women are veterans as compared to, say, Maryse. All four women put out a great match though, and I’m happy that it actually lasted more than five minutes each.

There were a lot of good spots and show of athleticism between the Michelle and Melina, and it started well even before the bell rang.  McCool is really good playing a heel, and she shines more now that she doesn’t have Alicia Fox at her side.

I don’t think this is the end of their rivalry, which is good because they’re bound to make the women’s division more significant.

The match between Maryse and Mickie James was good too, but I think the Women’s Championship was better.  Mickie was at her best and she deserved to get title, albeit, a little late since the honor of being the first to hold both women’s titles is already held by someone else.  Nonetheless, it’s great to see her as champ again.

As for Maryse, I guess she won’t be rejecting Miz too much now that she’s fallen off her high horse.  Maybe she’ll give him a chance now.  Or use him at least.  I just don’t think this is the end of her rivalry with Mickie either.

Now, here’s a shocker…

Unified Tag Team Champions: Chris Jericho and the Big Show

Nobody had even predicted it was the Big Show that was going to be Jericho’s partner.  I guess there were a couple of clues on last Friday’s Smackdown when Jericho spoke separately to two big men: Kane and Khali.

But I guess nobody expected he would choose someone from Raw’s roster. 

After Y2J introduced his partner, I knew Ted and Cody were going to lose.  The match was great though, and I’m not as disappointed that my boys lost.  They did great.  But really, one can’t expect them to win against Y2J and Show.

Now, what does it do for the division?  I think they would definitely give prestige to the titles as well as to the division.  Also, now that the champs are divided into two shows, we’ll be seeing a lot more of Show and Jericho.  But how are the other teams going to compete against them now?  I thought they were bringing in the younger guys into the picture for the tag titles. 

I think Ray Bogusz would be very happy with this team-up though.

And here’s another shocker…

Jeff Hardy as the new World Heavyweight Champion

Everyone has counted Jeff out from winning the title back from Punk, including me, with all the contract issues and all.  I like Hardy and I had hoped for him to win, I just didn’t think he would.  But boy, am I glad he did.  I guess he’ll be sticking around at least until Summer Slam if he still doesn’t sign a new contract.

Anyway, the match itself was good.  Not as exciting as I thought it would be being the last match on the card and all, at least until the last couple of minutes.  I would say it probably ranks third or fourth exciting match of the night.

Funny thing, they made Punk come out first when the champ’s supposed to come out last.  I guess they did that to emphasize the Hardy pop.  When Punk came out, he actually got little to no reaction from the audience.

Speaking of Punk, he did a promo right before the ECW Championship match.  He talked about how everyone should adhere to his straight edge lifestyle, going as far—or as low—as to hit on Jeff’s growing up in a single parent home, when we all know his mother died.

If there’s still doubt about his being a heel, it should most certainly be gone now.  I don’t know why there was in the first place.  (Okay, maybe I’m just still sulking about my experience.)

The ECW Championship Match

I picked Christian to win.  But still, I was surprised that Dreamer lost, especially as they were in Philly, the home of ECW and Dreamer himself.

Nonetheless, Tommy put on one hell of a match.  After the match, they hugged it out.  I guess that should be the end of their rivalry, at least for the meantime.  I think it’s time they face new opponents.  Maybe it’s time for Kozlov or Benjamin to get into the title hunt.

What about Dreamer?  I want him to take care of that Obama impersonator who’s not even funny.

The US and IC Championship

Let’s start with the 6-Pack Challenge for the US Title.  With Big Show winning the Tag Titles with Jericho, he was replaced by Primo Colon.  Which was good, because that makes them all almost the same size and no one can really fully dominate.

It was a very exciting match, with great spots and lots of different wrestling styles too, everyone registered.  Except for MVP.  For the life of me, I can’t remember any one thing he did except for the “ballin” move.

Jack Swagger did really great.  At one point, he suplexed Kofi, Primo and Miz off the turn buckle all at the same time.  That was an amazing show of strength and power, and I had to let out a little gasp and say “whoa!”. 

I thought Jack was going to win, and wanted him to win but Kofi retained.  I got no problems with Kofi, but I hope he and Jack starts something on Raw now. Or maybe a triple threat with the Miz, while the brothers Colons gets it on with their fued.

Oh, did I left out MVP again?  Sorry.

The IC Title match…hmm, what can I say?  Nothing really, as I wasn’t paying too much attention.  I expected a 619 to finish it and it did.

One thing though, what’s with Dolph tapping Maria’s head like a little puppy?  That annoys me.  If a guy did that to me, I’d be tapping his cheeks multiple times not too gently with my clenched fist.  (Sorry, for ranting.)

Anyway, Maria didn’t do anything to help Dolph or distract Rey, which is good.  I don’t think she’ll click as a heel diva.  I don’t think it’s the end between Rey and Dolph either.  Ziggy needs some more exposure, and I don’t mean his abs.

Now this should’ve been the main event, but I guess the people who book the matches think the fans would like to finish the night off with the result.

Randy Orton Still WWE Champion

I think it went really great.  At the start, Cena and Triple H had their way with Orton, but Randy still got the first pinfall attempt.  I thought I was going to see a double hangman’s DDT but the two faces countered it.

Cena and Triple H faced each other for a while, exchanging blows.  The audience went “yey” for Triple H and “boo” for Cena.  That was kind of expected.  Cena does get heat sometimes, especially against the likes of Triple H.

But here’s something remarkable.  When it was Orton’s turn to exchange blows with Cena while Triple H was out of the ring, the audience were still going “boo” for Cena and “yey” for Orton!  I love Philly. LOL

Orton tapped out while he was under a Sharpshooter from Triple H and a Face lock from Cena.  Damn, they were bending him like a pretzel.  Anyway, the ref didn’t know which submission hold Orton tapped out to, so he made no call.

And then Ted and Cody rushed to the ring.  Why didn’t anyone predict this was going to happen?  It was so obvious the boys were going to come out, as it was a no disqualification match.  I even read a humor of some kind that Batista was going to show up.  I’m glad that didn’t happen, and this did.  Legacy’s not breaking up yet, by the looks of it. 

As for the other two, I hope they face each other now and leave Orton alone for a while.  They could go do something like Triple H will blame Cena for getting involved when Orton was going to tap out to his Sharpshooter and vice versa.  And if that would happen, I would be so happy if either one of them turn heel.

I was watching with my dad and he was like, “I knew they were going to be there.  Now, those are real friends.  They come when you’re in need.”  Yep, my dad’s a bit of a mark. LOL