Official Night of Champions Thread: 7/26/09

I said it countless times in the past few months - WWE needs more than three weeks to build a Pay-Per-View. Even that one extra week can make the difference between a mediocre event and a memorable event.

Judgment Day, Extreme Rules, and The Bash all failed to be compelling in any way, shape and form. They all came off as rushed, rather boring, and aside from a few good matches sprinkled in here and there, they were hardly worth watching.

Night of Champions, however, proved to be quite different, and I'm glad I took the time to watch it tonight. It was still far from perfect, however.

Unified Tag Title bout was actually a really fun match. I'm not a fan of Big Show, nor am I fan of Jericho opening a Pay-Per-View, but everyone made it work and made it enjoyable, despite it featuring two heel teams.

ECW Championship match was enjoyable, nothing too special, but worth watching. Glad to see Christian take the ECW Title back, though I think he may be above it at this point. Time to get the belt onto Shelton Benjamin and get Christian to Smackdown.

Women's Championship match didn't really hold my attention, I just can't enjoy Michelle McCool for some reason. I think heel divas are tough to pull off, and she doesn't quite do it. Especially with talents like Maryse running around, who is one of the better heel divas I've seen in a long while. Nothing to see here.

U.S. Championship match was excellent. A ton of fun to watch, it didn't feel too rushed, and everyone played their part perfectly. I would have liked to have seen a new champion, most specifically The Miz, but Kofi retaining is alright. Glad that these guys got a match on Pay-Per-View, because they all really shined tonight. Great stuff.

WWE Championship match was excellent. Great drama, great action, all around fun match. This is coming from someone who never wants to see a one on one match between Orton/Cena and Orton/H again. The lack of chemistry individually is made up for when they're all in there together. Finish was creative, and thank god Orton won. Excellent stuff.

I knew at this point that Hardy was walking away with the World Title, because there is no way in hell that match would have main evented otherwise, so things started to go downhill from there.

Diva's Championship was decent enough. I like Mickie James, but I think Maryse is incredible entertaining, I would have preferred that she kept the title.

Intercontinental Championship Match was solid. I loved the fact that there was some prestige brought back to the belt by making it a high profile match. Ziggler proved he can hold his own in the big leagues and Mysterio proved that he's right where he belongs. Impressive showing, the right man won tonight.

Once again, I was disappointed by Hardy/Punk. Not just the finish, but the match itself. I expect so much more out of these two. Week in and week out, they have incredible singles matches with other opponents, but when they get in the ring with each other, all bets are off. Not to say it was a bad match by any means, but I know it could have been a lot better.

That being said, the finish was horribly weak and the outcome was terrible. Putting the belt on Hardy so soon accomplished nothing. CM Punk's heel transition isn't even 100% complete and he needed the World Title to continue to make the full switch. Hardy winning, especially in the fashion that he did, made Punk look unbelievably weak and destroyed all credibility he had as a main event player, again.

I can't tell you how sick I am of seeing Jeff Hardy "overcome the odds" to win a match and have everyone be shocked. It shouldn't be shocking anymore, this was his third title win.

The fact is, both of Jeff's title reigns have been entirely forgettable (if you even count the second), and I have no doubt this will be the same. The man doesn't work as a champion, plain and simple. Not to mention, he's STILL unreliable after all this time. If its not the drugs, its the contract disputes. He's never a safe bet to put the title on.

Punk has been busting his ass far too long to have been treated that way tonight.

In the end, that was the event's only major downfall. That and Michael Cole's commentary, which was at quite possibly its worst ever. I honestly considered muting it several times.

"LOOK IT! LOOK IT! LOOK IT!"

He did that at least five times.

Chris Jericho says "Hi."

Punk can blackmail Jeff, saying give me another shot at the title, or I'll tell everyone (implying that he failed another drug test without actually saying it).

I thought he stole Santino's Singlet

Same. I though, "WTF, a 7 foot Santino!"

Or Punk can just blow up Juff's meth lab, rape his dog, and attempt to kill him. It worked for Matt.

He doesn't love Hardy, he just likes to be a dick toward Punk fans cause they hate him.

Hey, do not call Lita a dog!

rofl it would be too small but yeah, could stretch it pretty damn far