WWE Night of Champions 2015 Live Blog

ER: So I have watched maybe an hour total of WWE TV in the last couple months? I'm pretty uninterested in the product right now, which I don't think makes me very unique right now. As I understand it that's how many people feel right now. I mean as recently as last year I was DVRing Raw and Smackdown and watching all the PPVs, now I can't even remember the last time I watched Raw or Smackdown. Rachel watches Total Divas, but that is probably months behind actual current TV. So I don't know any of the current stories, don't know who current champions are, don't even really know the card. I'm basically going in blind. We'll see how that goes.

1. Cody Rodes/The Ascension vs. Neville/Lucha Dragons

ER: "You call them henchmen, I call them two dangerous cosmic dark horses", gawd fuck off Michael Cole. Boy, commercials during the pre-show match seem pretty pointless. And this match was nothing to blog about, that's for sure. The Ascension are still somehow a thing, Cody isn't very good without his brother, Dragons are really fun but seeing Ascension take their offense looks pretty ludicrous. Neville (arguably the worst ever "one word" WWE name ever) tags in towards the end and he and Cody don't seem to click very well. This was one forgettable TV match right here. Cole was abysmal throughout.

2. Ryback vs. Kevin Owens

ER: I thought this was really good. Steen goes after Ryback's arm and Ryback does an admirable job selling it throughout (loved little moments where he had it clutched tight to his body). Early we get a cool press slam spot with Owens taking a big drop to the floor. Steen trapping Ryback's arm and ramming it into the ringpost looked sick, Ryback really flew into it. Steen wrenched that left arm in a few painful looking ways, really bending it around. Ryback had some cool spots powering out of the arm work, and it didn't overstay its welcome. Finish was sort of cheap, but also really smartly set-up. Ryback had Steen up, Steen raked his eyes leading to a roll-up title win, but Steen smartly raked the eyes while the ref was behind him so it looked good. And I imagine it will lead to an immediate rematch (probably on Raw since they love doing that).

3. Dolph Ziggler vs. Rusev

ER: Oooooo we get some earring drama. God what has happened to this storyline? Match itself was really good with both guys bumping around for each other, Ziggler more obviously, a lot of big moves that hit, and then an amusing finish. Ziggler really flew into stuff, which is not very surprising if you've seen a Ziggler PPV match before. I was more surprised he leaned out of a Rusev boot before bumping off the apron into the railing. Rusev has a great looking spin kick. I dug how quick all of this was worked, and I actually dug Summer Rae's involvement. She throws her high heel and banks it right off Rusev's face (announcers speculated she was trying to hit the ref, but I have no idea what this storyline is so who knows what she was doing), but Rusev really got a shoe banked off his head which lead to Ziggler hitting the Zig Zag. Disappointed nobody said "Summer turned heel".

Between them using replay to show how Steen raked the eyes away from the ref, and how Dolph had his head smack off the mat, I have to give huge credit to whomever is directing this PPV. I've seen so many replays just expose something that looked good at normal speed, but tonight they're all specifically helping further get over the participants. There was a moment where Ziggler spikes him with a DDT and Rusev's head is clearly several inches off the mat, and I fully expected to see a replay of it, but they just moved on. Good work boys.

Between HD Terry Bradshaw and HD Ric Flair, I'm not sure which towheaded blonde good ol' boy is aging worse on my TV screen today.

4. New Day vs. Dudley Boyz (still going with that "z" spelling)

ER: As a jazz minor trombonist, I am 100% fully behind Xavier Woods using a trombone for ringside heat. Except it's clearly just getting them over as not heels. I had no idea the Dudleys were even back.  Quite the coup for WWE to nab the TNA hall of famers. Woods is kind of dangerously TOO "on" on the floor. He's got funny material ("they don't even have the same color camouflage, and I STILL can't see their legs), but he's kind of a constantly running faucet down there. He needs some more contained bursts. Here he's yelling during down time, but also yelling during the big moments of the match. It came off simultaneously entertaining, and more grating than Chris Tucker screaming his way through every second of Fifth Element. Director deserves more props for replaying Big E's nasty apron splash on Bubba Ray. That looked tough. Match itself was good. Dudleys still have gas in the tank, even D-von threw out some nice clotheslines (including a great flying one on Kofi), Kofi took a nice high backdrop, and (except for the limp finish) this was all super solid tag work.

5. Charlotte vs. Nikki Bella

ER: Charlotte has an impossibly non-existent butt. She's like Masa Chono. It's just lower back right down to legs. Charlotte apparently reminds JBL of Mildred Burke. Really? I guess he's seen tons of film footage from the 40s. Because obviously she's more of an Ed Strangler Lewis. I really liked this match, up until the finish. Nikki looked awesome here. Her leg work was really smart and well done, and she had a surprising amount of leg based offense. There was a great moment where Nikki kicked Charlotte's leg before suplexing her into the corner, then we had other cool stuff like a dragon screw from the apron to the floor. Nikki was relentless in this and was just all over Charlotte. But the finish kinda blew and really felt tacked on and totally independent of anything that had happened in the match. Nikki hardly took anything from Charlotte, but then Charlotte was able to effortlessly lock on her finisher, bridging up on her bum wheel for extra leverage. Felt like they suddenly had to go home and couldn't properly build to a real finish. Charlotte really doesn't do tons for me. Nikki however looked really really good. The strut postmatch was amusing but at this point I would be 100% fine with never seeing Flair on TV again. He just bums me out at this point.

6. Wyatt Family vs. Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns, annnnnnnnnnnnnd Jericho

ER: Some guy in a flak jacket jumps into the ring when they're about to announce the mystery opponent, Bray was really great with a "Is that your guy!?" reaction. Dean was trying to hold back laughter and that's probably not what they wanted, but I'm amused. Michael Cole is in full desperation "What a moment!" selling Jericho's participation. JBL mentions Jericho working for "Riki Tenryu" as a junior heavyweight. Match itself was plenty of fun. I had never seen Strowman before and he was a kick. I'm kind of a sucker for big lugs and this guy is pretty mammoth. Really impressed me standing next to Harper. That is a team I wouldn't mind seeing more of. I loved Strowman's finisher as it really looked like he was squeezing the life out of Jericho. Jericho's legs dangling was a great visual, like fucking Darth Vader choking out a dude. Luke Harper is so damn good, he really should have been given the ball. These teams work together nicely and it always just serves to piss me off that they broke up both teams as we could still be in the middle of awesome trios, with some new members being added or cycled out.

No matches have blown me away this show,  but everything has been good (outside of the meh pre-show match, but technically that shouldn't count against a PPV).

7. John Cena vs. Seth Rollins

ER: Surprised they're running each Seth match back to back, but we'll see where it leads. His white get-up is both cool, but also like one chest piece away from him being the White Ranger. I wish white tights in WWE meant the same thing as white tights in lucha. I think Rollins hits a demonstrably worse Slingblade than Tanahashi. This match was fine. They did some stuff I really liked, some stuff I disliked. I liked Cena's rana off a running powerbomb, with Rollins taking a nasty bump into the buckles. The big move overkill Cena certainly had a short shelf life of enjoyability. I'd be more interested in these guys toning things down instead of this PWG stuff. Although one point in their favor is that the matches only go half the length of PWG matches. So yeah, this was overall fun and didn't overstay.

8. Seth Rollins vs. Sting

ER: So I have no interest in Sting, he's never been a guy I liked, rarely saw WCW growing up so don't have any sort of nostalgia for him. But I really loved this. This is probably more entertained than I've ever been by a Sting singles match. Once he took that wild bump into the announce table I was fully on board. Then Rollins takes that lunatic bump off the top into the barrier. Sting flies into the buckles on a powerbomb, then must be insane as he does a really great crossbody off the top to the floor. I mean that was a great crossbody right there. Just splatted right into Rollins. At this point the match was beyond just "worth watching", it was actively really good. But then I'm not sure what happened with the medic coming in. Maybe I missed something. They were speculating on him maybe getting hurt on that corner powerbomb. But we just sort of had a major stop to the match, which had to have been due to actual injury, which kind of blows a hole into every single match where a guy has a hurt limb and makes Sting look wimpy for the entire match needing to be stopped. Everybody else has to "survive on their injury". Took a lot of steam out of the thing. I still got sucked back in as Rollins put over the Deathlock nicely but this was a weird way to end things.

And then Kane. Because of fucking course Kane. Kane is that fucking herpes sore you're constantly dreading flaring up. You know it's gonna flare up and you keep hoping it won't but you have fucking herpes and you're always going to have herpes.

(I don't have herpes)