WWE Night Of Champions 2009

One of the newer PPV incarnations from the WWE, taking over from Vengance, the event sees all the gold in WWE defended on the card - and thanks to the additional matches we usual see a couple of different faces from the usual status quo, though sadly it was not be for Jimmy Wang Yang this year

Night of Champions opened with the Unified Tag Title match, which saw Legacy challenge Jericho for the belts they won on their debut at the previous years event. Jericho had hinted previously that his replacement partner for the injured Edge would be evil - Smackdown had hinted towards Kane, but those who remember the Attitude Era hoped for Kai En Tai and their dubbed comedy stylings to make a welcome return - sadly instead we got the Big Show. Heel versus Heel matches struggle to work in WWE at the best of times, but adding the ponderous seven footer to the equation was the nail in the coffin. It wasn't dreadful mainly thanks to Show spending a fair amount of time on the outside, but you get the feeling Smackdown is about to get a whole lot crapper now since the awesomeness of Jericho will be cancelled out by the nearby presence of the seven foot salad dodger.

Since the raping of ECW of the draft and the raft of FCW alumni starting up on ECW, the Tommy Dreamer title reign has stalled badly - cutting short an interesting feud with Jack Swagger that also involved his challenger Christian. But with Night of Champions taking place in birthplace of all things Extreme, a decent reaction (which was quite an achievement with a crowd that was dead all night) for the ECW original was guaranteed, sadly thanks to limitations of Dreamer in a match without weapons and the like, the crowd didn't stay with them and as a result the title change didn't seem like big the moment it should've been. The result probably marks the end of Tommy Dreamer in a WWE ring for a while and with Christian looking likely to move on to challenge of Koslov, he'll be hard pressed to top the recent run of ECW title matches that he and Swagger had.

Thankfully due to the Big Show's conditioning, or lack of - there was no chance of him pulling double duty and entering the six pack challenge for the US Title. The logical replacement you would have thought must be Evan Bourne, on account of him being involved in the exchanges between Show and Kofi Kingston that set the basis for this match in the first place. But instead Primo was given the chance to step up, making the choice to draft Bourne to Monday night's look even stranger than before. The match itself too didn't make much sense either, seemingly made up of a couple of TNA-esque multi man spots and lots of flying about from Carlito to get the crowd going, even though he was supposed to be the big heel in the match.

Swagger and MVP were pretty much an afterthought in the match, which was a shame as their opening exchanges on Raw pointed to an interesting feud which now seems to have fallen by the wayside since the whole guest host gimmick started on Raw. Hopefully these two will be given the chance to build towards a match further down the line. In the meantime Kofi retained which was the right result in the end as a title change just for the sake of it benefits nobody in the end.

Next up, Michelle McCool defended her title against Melina again in a brutal match. McCool either has the most realistic offence in the WWE or once again she nearly killed Melina several times over during the match. In particular the opening splits spot looked like it was all different kinds of painful and it was later followed by a DDT on the guardrail later on. McCool retained, but seems short on future challengers for her to beat on.

The triple threat for the WWE title followed and whilst it being a pretty good match it suffered from a huge sense of deja vu thanks to the stale main event scene on Raw. Orton kept the title looking weak once again thanks to the predictable Rhodes and Dibiase run in - this was on top of tapping out in clear sight of the referee, which may lead to another rematch between these guys. Again. The fact that Orton still has the aura of a legit killer despite being booked like a total chump is a testament to the way he carries himself.

The Divas title match was the one clunker on the show and was arguably the worst match of Mickie James' WWE career. The match was sloppy and the crowd dead, surprising since Maryse is actually a great heel character. The title changed hands too which also was a puzzling choice since Mickie hasn't really done anything and Maryse is in the midst of a storyline with The Miz.

Given a surprisingly high spot on the card Ziggler vs Mysterio never quite hit the heights it needed to to take the former Spirit Squad member to the next level. The match itself was solid but lacked that spark to send above the likes of an extended Smackdown match - this was mainly thanks to Rey spending most of the time grounded as a result of Ziggler's restholds. Telling a story in the ring is one thing, but this was at the expense of entertainment. Hopefully in the future they give these two the chance to express themselves a bit more in the ring and work a more fast-paced match as Ziggler needs to some impressive outings to build on the potential he has shown so far.

Earlier in the evening, champion CM Punk had struck an awesome promo that basically boiled down to Jeff Hardy being at fault for America's ills. Going into the match it felt like we were finally seeing the real CM Punk, the man who works so much better as arrogant guy rather than ill fitting babyface character that he's portrayed for his entire WWE run so far. Defending against Jeff Hardy, Punk was made to look competitive, dominating large portions of the match, but the decision to put the belt back on Jeff was the wrong call.

A victory over Hardy for Punk would've done wonders to establish a new main event performer - something WWE is short on numbers of at the moment - even if Punk wins the belt back in a gimmick match at Summerslam, which is still likely due to Jeff's contract situation, undermining the 'better than you' character by taking the one thing that backs up his argument is symbolic of the poor choices the WWE are making at the moment, as it not only derails Punk, but renders John Morrison's two victories over the champ as redundant.

In the end Night of Champions was a solid PPV, with the second women's match the only poor match on the card - whilst giving nothing to complain about, it didn't exactly give you anything to write home about either.