Smark Out Moment

It's time for Night of Champions, the pay-per-view where the belts are given priority - at least when it comes to gimmicks.


For what it's worth, the people that I'm hoping will win tonight are Alberto Del Rio, Draw (for Punk/HHH), Henry, Jack Swagger, Cody Rhodes, Air Boom, and Beth Phoenix. Only three title changes there, that's not too many to ask for is it? I'm particularly hoping that Henry wins the title.

If you want to talk to others about the ppv, check out the chat box on the right sidebar.

Nice looking set out there tonight, with the banners hanging up showcasing all the titles.

Tag Team Championship: Air Boom (c) vs. Awesome Truth
Miz and Truth come out singing the "You Suck" version of "What's Up". Air Boom come out to an actual graphic for their entrance video along with matching gear. There's a sign in the crowd that says "your mom was awesome" haha. Kofi and Evan are coordinating some high-flying moves rather well. They look like an actual tag team. Evan takes a beating. Kofi makes a comeback. Miz kicks out of the SOS. Truth and Miz double team Kingston. Kofi kicks out of a DDT pretty much at the three-count but just before it. Miz hits a DDT on Bourne but Kofi breaks it up. Now all four members are in the ring and the ref is getting distracted. Miz hits the Skull Crushing Finale but the ref is distracted with R-Truth. By the time the ref turns around, Evan kicks out. CONSPIRACY! Miz pushes the ref down and gets disqualified.

WINNERS: Air Boom via disqualification.
Not a bad opening match, and now that they have the referee thing, they can continue talking about the conspiracy angle. Not bad at all.

After the match, the Miz pushes the ref down once more. Truth picks him up and then hits him.

Here we go with the commercials. First, one for the Be a Star bullying thing, now Triple H's terrible new movie.

Backstage, the Miz and R-Truth are fuming. Matt Striker asks if they realize they might be fined for hitting the ref. Truth says he wasn't a ref, he was a conspirator.

Intercontinental Championship: Cody Rhodes (c) vs. Ted DiBiase
Completely dead crowd for Cody, no boos or cheers at all from what I can hear. Same for Ted. Cole just brought up Honky Tonk Man's championship reign. I say we need the Honk-a-meter back! I think Cody needs a gimmick change and maybe a face turn, and Ted needs...hm...I don't know what Ted would need but I'm not feeling his face turn (and apparently neither are the fans in the crowd tonight). The next match better start off fast and entertaining to wake this crowd up. What's weird is this isn't particularly a horrible match, it's just got no substance to it (not stubstance, Bret). The crowd makes some actual noise when Ted rips off Cody's face mask. However, two seconds later, Cody rolls Ted up and wins, retaining the title.

WINNER: Cody Rhodes via pinfall.
Boring match. I hope they don't continue this feud, or if they do, it upgrades from this.

Great, another commercial! PAY-per-view....goddamn.

Let's point out the Spanish Announcers Table (for future smashing).

Out comes Christian. He says he deserves one more world title match and wants to face the winner of the match immediately afterward. He insults Buffalo and how they've never won the Super Bowl, but he has, and he wants them to support him. Out comes Sheamus. This segment's just wasting time. Sheamus says he'd give his uncle's lucky green testicle to compete tonight. Sheamus says if he helps Christian get a title match and Christian wins the title, he wants the first title defense. He then kicks Christian. Pointless segment to waste time. Couldn't have used that time for a #1 contender's match for one of the titles instead?

Here's an Orton DVD commercial. Yaaaaaawn.

United States Championship [Fatal Four-Way]: Dolph Ziggler (c) vs. John Morrison vs. Jack Swagger vs. Alex Riley
Alex Riley jumps to the outside and hits the stairs on the way down. Swagger's controlling the match so far. Swagger gives Morrison a hip toss over the top rope to the outside. Riley hits his F5 finisher on Swagger, but Vickie puts Swagger's leg up on the ropes (saving it for Ziggler and/or Swagger). Morrison is flipped in a tree of woe and hits his head on the mat. Riley jumps up onto the ropes but Morrison gives him a German suplex from the bottom of the ropes after flipping up. Nice! Swagger runs up and tosses Ziggler off. Morrison counters Swagger into a DDT and then hits Riley with his C4-type move. JoMo goes for Starship Pain but Riley puts his legs up. Ziggler puts Morrison in the sleeper hold while Swagger puts Riley in the ankle lock. Morrison and Riley break out. Riley hits Swagger with a DDT, but Swagger kicks out. The crowd thought that that was the end of the match (as did I for a second there). Swagger puts Riley back in the ankle lock. Morrison gets a gutwrench power bomb for his attempt at breaking it up. Ziggler picks up the scraps and pins Morrison to retain the title.

WINNER: Dolph Ziggler via pinfall.
Good match. I want to see the four of these guys keep feuding with each other.

Backstage, Josh asks if Henry can pull it off if he hasn't in the past. Henry says he will and he wants Josh to interview him afterward.

Backstage, Vickie says the US champ works for her, Swagger and everyone else wants to work for her, and if HHH loses tonight, she knows she'd make a great COO. She then kisses Matt Striker.

World Heavyweight Championship: Randy Orton (c) vs. Mark Henry
Orton is in control at the start of the match. He takes Henry's leg out, stomps all his appendages, and tosses Henry to the outside. Henry gets frustrated and brings the fight back to Orton. Booker says that Mark Henry is a man on a mission. No, we're not talking about Mabel here. Wrong black superheavyweight wrestler. Henry uses the ring post to stretch Orton out. Henry splashes Orton but he kicks out. Mark Henry hits the World's Strongest Slam. Orton kicks out. Henry goes for a Vader Bomb and gets a boot to the face from Orton. Orton starts psyching himself up. He hits the off-the-rope DDT on Henry. Henry grabs the ropes to break up the pinfall. Henry pulls Orton into the ropes and kicks Orton's leg out from under him (under his leg? Remember that anyone?) Orton goes for a random RKO but Henry blocks it. Henry hits the World's Strongest Slam and wins the match!

WINNER (and new world heavyweight champion): Mark Henry via pinfall.
Decent match, but I'm even more of a fan of the outcome. I was really rooting for Henry to win.

Out comes Josh Mathews to fulfill his agreement to interview Henry. Mark yells at the crowd, telling them not to cheer, cause they didn't support him before. He's not sharing this moment with any of them.

Backstage, Del Rio is complaining to John Laurinaitis about his tag team match with Rodriguez from Raw. Ace says he didn't agree with the decision HHH had made about that tag match. CM Punk comes to talk to him. John wishes him good luck. CM Punk asks if he means "best of luck in your future endeavors".

Divas Championship: Kelly Kelly (c) vs. Beth Phoenix
Crowd is naturally pro-Beth, since it's her home town. Basically it's about Beth being dominant but Kelly getting some quick counters. Eve and Natalya fight outside and Beth decides to take care of Eve as well. Kelly rolls Beth up twice but it's only a two-count both times. Kelly goes for her finisher and Beth flips her over, then clobbers her with a clothesline. The crowd starts cheering up Beth. Beth places Kelly on the turnbuckle. Beth then hits a Superplex onto Kelly. Beth takes too long to cover her, so Kelly kicks out. Beth goes to power bomb Kelly, but Kelly sunset-flips into a pin and retains the title (to a chorus of boos from Buffalo).

WINNER: Kelly Kelly via pinfall.
Not too bad for a divas match. But still...'for a divas match'.

There's a nice video package about the WWE championship.

WWE Championship: Alberto Del Rio (c) vs. John Cena
Del Rio comes out with no car. Cena comes out in it instead. The car gets 50% boos and 50% cheers (I'm assuming since it's associated with Cena). Before Justin Roberts can introduce them, Del Rio grabs the mic from him. He doesn't want Justin to announce him, he wants Ricardo to, "the right way", in Spanish. John Cena announces himself. Ricardo is thrown out from the ringside area. Boring match so far, with fans chanting "you can't wrestle". I said it in previous posts, but I'm not really feeling this title reign for Del Rio. It seems like it came at the wrong time. He's lost so much steam. This feud with Cena isn't helping, as in my opinion, they're not working particularly well in the ring together chemistry-wise, nor is the feud engaging in its storyline. I couldn't quite make out what he said, but Cena was just picked up on the audio pretty loudly. (I'm watching out for your future installment, Botchamania's "Everybody Talks Too Much" segment!) Typical Cena match. Del Rio's got most of the offense but Cena does a few big moves here and there. Ricardo comes back out and Cena knocks him off the ring apron. Why this isn't a disqualification, I don't know. Cena locks in the STF. Del Rio taps out. Wow, lame.

WINNER (and new WWE champion): John Cena via submission.
I said I think they've been screwing up with Del Rio's title reign, but that didn't mean I wanted them to just job him out on his first title defense to Cena once more. Transitional champion where he didn't even get the focus of Raw in those weeks he held the title. What a shame. As far as this match, I thought it was pretty bland.

No Disqualification: Triple H vs. CM Punk
Punk attacks HHH while he's doing his spit pose. They're battling outside for starters. HHH shoots Punk into the entrance set. Punk's dominating most of the match, particularly once he gets a chair and does the obligatory single shot to the back. WWE has gotten so boring with chair shots since they've been wanting to be safer. It almost makes it pointless to do them. Spinebuster, kick out. Hunter tosses Punk into a chair set up at the turnbuckle. He later hits Punk in the knee with the chair at the ring post. Punk elbow drops HHH onto and through the Spanish announcers table (told you). Out come the Miz and R-Truth. They attack both Punk and HHH. Miz hits the Skull Crushing Finale on Triple H. Truth hits the 305 (excuse me, Paydirt...excuse me, whatever Truth calls his finisher) on Punk. They drag Punk on top of HHH but Hunter kicks out. Now they're pushing around Scott Armstrong (referee for those who don't know). Armstrong hits Miz back, but Truth clocks him from behind and they double-team him. Out comes John Laurinaitis. Punk and HHH get up and beat down Truth and Miz, tossing them to the outside (with Truth falling on Armstrong). HHH hits a Pedigree but no ref can count it. A new ref comes down, but Laurinaitis tells him to check out Armstrong instead of counting the pinfall. Punk hits the GTS on Hunter and Laurinaitis tells the ref to now go count it. Truth breaks the count. Truth gets a GTS for his efforts. Why would Truth break the count if he wanted Punk to win the match? Triple H hits another Pedigree but Punk kicks out. Laurinaitis gets out his cell phone and out from the crowd comes Kevin Nash. Nash hits both Punk and HHH. Nash goes to give HHH a power bomb, but Punk saves him. Nash then power bombs Punk. Nash takes everything off the table. Triple H hits him with a sledgehammer. HHH hits another Pedigree and beats CM Punk.

WINNER: Triple H via pinfall.
Up until Miz and Truth came out, this match was boring. After that, it became so weird that it didn't make much sense. It raises some interest but I don't think it was particularly "good".