Home ▸ SmackDown ▸ WWE Night of Champions review – 6/29/08

Well, for a while, folks on the World Wrestling Insanity message boards were calling me NostraJOEmas (or, NoJOEdamus if you prefer), because after 7 matches, I’d correctly predicted all 7, including Kofi Kingston taking the Intercontinental Championship from Chris Jericho.  My fellow WWI posters were asking me for lottery numbers and the dates of their deaths.  Then John Cena lost to Triple H.  SmackDown left Night of Champions the same way it came in – the home of two World Champions.  RAW’s top champion, Kane, lost his title to ECW’s Mark Henry.  So, that begs the question, where does RAW go from here?

But, that’s a story for another article.  Get analysis of Night of Champions after the jump!

The WWE Tag Team Championship kicked things off as ECW’s Miz and John Morrison defended against ECW’s Finlay and Hornswoggle.  Further proving my rant a few weeks ago about how Teddy Long shouldn’t have the authority to sign WWE Tag Team Title matches since the titles are property of SmackDown, J.R. and Mick Foley called this one.  The usual strategy for the Finlay family – Finlay beats the opponents senseless and leaves them for Hornswoggle to pin – didn’t quite work this time, as Miz and Morrison wound up with Hornswoggle alone in the ring.  Hornswoggle put up some decent offense against The Miz, but after Miz tagged Morrison that came to a screeching halt.  The champions retain by pinning Hornswoggle.  Pretty good match, considering that I’m not a fan of Finlay as a face, and that his partner was a midget.

Speaking of matches featuring all ECW guys with SmackDown commentary, apprently despite the fact that the ECW Superstars page lists the United States Championship as an ECW title now on WWE.com, it’s still technically SmackDown property as well, going by my logic in the last match.  It wasn’t a great match – it was good, but not great – and in the end, Chavo left Night of Champions empty handed as Matt picked up the win off of the Twist of Fate.

RAW’s Kane was up next, defending his ECW Championship against SmackDown’s The Big Show and ECW’s Mark Henry in a Triple Threat match.  An interesting thing that I noticed was that in the set design, the banner representing the ECW Championship had a new belt design, which looked a bit like the Cruiserweight Championship, though the grapics on the entrance screens showed the classic ECW title design.  Kane brought the classic belt to the ring, so I’m not sure what’s up with the banner.  I would’ve thought that if they were going to debut a new belt, we’d see the physical belt first instead of just a picture of it.  Mike Adamle really shined on commentary, especially this little gem:  (Kane is hurt on the outside of the ring, just in front of the ECW announce table) “Kane is still down out here in front of our broadcast… thing.”  Then Tazz tells him it’s a table.  It was hilarious!  Anyways, Kane and The Big Show can’t decide who’s going to pin Mark Henry – which ultimately leads to the lone ECW superstar in this match taking home the ECW Championship – only his second title in his 12 years in WWE.

The World Tag Team Champions, Cody Rhodes and Hardcore Holly were up next, scheduled to take on Ted DiBiase and his mystery partner – who apparently just texted Ted to tell him he’d be there in about 10 minutes.  The referee refused to postpone the match, and told DiBiase that if he didn’t wrestle now, he’d forfeit.  DiBiase decided he’d rather not forfeit and that he’d wrestle the match while waiting for his partner to show.  As he’s set to start things off with Cody Rhodes, he asks for Hardcore Holly instead.  Cody tags in Holly – and then DDTs him!  DiBiase slaps on the Million Dollar Dream and turns it into a modified russian leg sweep, picking up the win, and apparently making Cody Rhodes a two time World Tag Team Champion, and the only man in WWE history to ever win a title from himself.  Cody grabbed the microphone from Lillian Garcia, and as I’m pleading with him through my TV to not talk and ruin the moment, something miraculous happened.  Cody Rhodes spoke with an aura of attitude, and just a hint of personality, as he announced himself and Ted DiBiase the new World Tag Team Champions.  Will Cody’s heel turn mean that he might not be boring anymore?  Only time will tell!

JBL cut a promo from a luxury skybox – basically he should be on the show because he’s a champion in life.

Y2J then cut a promo, saying that he had to wrestle a surprise opponent, and that Shawn Michaels wasn’t there because he didn’t care about the fans.  Lance Cade was at ringside with him.  Jericho’s surprise opponent turned out to be RAWs newest superstar (literally!), Kofi Kingston!  A great back and forth match, but Jericho wound up putting Kofi in the Walls of Jericho.  Then HBK came through the crowd, distracting Y2J.  Y2J nailed HBK right in the eye.  As Jericho turned his attention back to Kofi, Kingston nailed the Trouble in Paradise to pick up his first championship in the WWE, making a prediction I made Wednesday afternoon come true.

Afterward, an injured HBK was helped from the ring, and officials had to prevent Jericho from attacking him.

A commercial for the Gillette Fusion razor (which is what I use, if anybody cares) was premiered, it featured John Cena and Mr. McMahon.  It was really entertaining.

Katie Lea dominated her title shot against Mickie James, focusing on Mickie’s right arm throughout the match – but in the end, the Champion proved why she has that title when she hit a Mickie-DT out of nowhere to pick up the win.

In a text messaging poll, 32% of WWE fans said that Batista would be the person to bring a title back to RAW tonight.  31% said it would be John Cena.  30% said that it would be both – and only 7% predicted it would be neither.  Time to find out!

Batista and Edge put on a clean, hard fought match.  Well, until Vicki Guerrero came to the ring along with Hawkins and Ryder.  Batista nailed a spinebuster on Edge, and as the referee was counting, he was pulled out of the ring by a miraculously recovered Vicki Guerrero.  Edge then pulled out the referee and knocked him out.  Vicki called for another referee, and her nephew Chavo came to the ring in a referee shirt.  Meanwhile, Batista picked up Vicki Guerrero and threw her over the top rope and onto La Familia.  In the confusion, Edge knocked Batista out with the World Championship, covering The Animal as Chavito counted three.

That means that 62% of the WWE fans who participated in the text messaging thing were wrong!

It’s all up to John Cena for RAW as he takes on Triple H for the WWE Championship.  Another back and forth hard fought match, both men looking for their finishers several times, with Cena kicking out of a pedigree at one point.  Cena kept looking for the STFU submission, but Triple H didn’t want to relive WrestleMania 22 so he kept finding ways to stay out of it, even reversing it into a crippler crossface at one point.  Actually, the crossface is pretty important here – because Cena showed his strength by nearly turning Triple H’s crossface into an FU.  Hunter wiggled free though, and hit the pedigree on Cena, ending the show with 93% of fans being wrong – including myself, and SmackDown having two world champions.

If you’re wondering what happened to the Divas Championship Match, apparently it’s going to be happening on SmackDown – which is weird, because a lot of people did think it would be a part of the pay-per-view.

So, since I’m apparently NostraJOEmas, I guess I should make a prediction – CM Punk may quite possibly take Edge’s World Heavyweight Championship in a couple of weeks, using Money in the Bankat Edge’s wedding.  That’s pretty much the only scenario I can think of, but I guess we’ll see in due time.  See you guys tomorrow with RAW coverage!

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