ARN - Night of Champions 2015 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

WWE Night of Champions 2015

This PPV is coming off SummerSlam 2015 where Undertaker defeated Brock Lesnar via a questionable decision by the referee, Jon Stewart helping Seth Rollins defeat John Cena so Cena didn’t tie Ric Flair’s World Title record, and Becky Lynch, Charlotte & Sasha Banks all make their PPV debut.

News and happenings before we get to the PPV.

Observer 9/7/15

After 32 years, in a shocking move, the Lehigh County (Pennsylvania) Grand Jury indicted pro wrestling legend Jimmy Snuka on charges of third degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in the death of mistress Nancy Argentino.

The rumors about Snuka have been all around the business for years. What did you hear and what are your thoughts and memories on Snuka?

Hulk Hogan does the TV rounds after the controversy of him saying the “n-word” on tape got him wiped from the WWE at the time. Did you ever talk to Hulk about this and what was your reaction to this?

An obsessive wrestling fan who had been arrested twice the previous month at the WWE Performance Center for trying to meet Amy “Lita” Dumas at the Performance Center, was shot in the parking lot of the facility on 8/31 after local deputies attempted to arrest him.

Did you hear about this and do you know if any security protocols changed with the WWE after this incident?

WWE signs Asuka, Nikki Cross and Ember Moon all during this time frame. What do you think of these 3?

Sarah Stock is also hired by the WWE at this time. She does become an agent later on. Did you get the chance to work with her and what are your feelings on her?

They set up the Seth Rollins vs Sting main event for this pay per view by talking about how the one title Sting has never held was the WWE title. What did you think of the positioning here as this is Sting’s 2nd match for WWE and the first one was the WrestleMania match where he lost to HHH and here he is fighting for the title?

During this time they’re running the Rusev - Summer Rae - Lana - Dolph Ziggler angle. What were your thoughts on this and how furious was Vince when he found out that Rusev & Lana blew the gimmick by posting about their engagement on Instagram?

Observer 9/21/15

Over the past two weeks, the ratings for Raw were the two lowest for a non-major ratings impacted holiday (July 4th, Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve) since 1997.

How quick is Vince to react and change course after something like this? Is there immediate pressure on the producers to do more?

WWE NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS POLL RESULTS

• Thumbs up 130 (72.6%)
• Thumbs down 10 (05.6%)
• In the middle 39 (21.8%)

BEST MATCH POLL

John Cena vs. Seth Rollins 147

Wyatt Family vs. Reigns & Ambrose & Jericho 15

WORST MATCH POLL

Dudleys vs. New Day 49

Dolph Ziggler vs. Rusev 42

Kevin Owens vs. Ryback 33

Charlotte vs. Nikki Bella 24

Stardust’s team vs. Neville’s team 10

The show drew a sellout of 11,000 fans (announced as 14,369) to the Toyota Center in Houston.

1. Stardust & The Ascension beat Neville & Sin Cara & Kalisto in 9:43. Solid pre-show match. Stardust then pinned Neville with the Queens Crossbow, which is the move formerly known as Crossroads. 

***Cody obviously is with AEW as is Neville but the only person still with WWE is Kalisto. What were your thoughts on the match and the talent in the ring?

2. Kevin Owens pinned Ryback to win the IC title in 9:32. Ryback tried to press Owens over head, but couldn’t get it, but threw him over the top rope and Owens crashed on the floor, taking a nasty bump. Ryback came back, got Owens up for shell shock but Owens raked his eyes and pinned him with a schoolboy. **½

***Did you find Ryback’s reputation for hurting people was warranted?

3. Dolph Ziggler pinned Rusev in 13:44. Summer Rae was on the apron yelling and ended up taking a bump flipping into the ring due to Ziggler. Then she was kicked out of ringside by the referee. She took off one of her heels and threw it at the ref, who moved and it nailed Rusev. That distracted Rusev, who was pinned after the Zig Zag. Rusev was furious, and stormed out of the ring walking right past Summer Rae. Ziggler also walked out without her. It should be noted Summer Rae was wearing earrings and they pushed the idea those were given to her by Ziggler. The match had good heat. ***

***Whoo boy is this some silly shit around a good match.

4. The Dudleys beat Big E & Kofi Kingston via DQ in 9:56 so the New Day retained the WWE tag titles. All the “Save the Tables” stuff is so goofy that it works. Xavier Woods was at ringside playing the trombone. The finish was a 3-D on Kingston and he was beat, but Woods ran in for the cheap DQ finish. The New Day set up a table and Michael Cole called them hypocrites since all they talked about was saving the tables. It was hilarious, because the table wasn’t set up right, so Devon, who had been laid out, quickly fixed the leg of the table. The Dudleys then made a comeback and put Woods through the table. Real good pop for the table break. The match was entertaining, as much for Woods’ antics as anything. **¾

How entertaining is The New Day in general? What did you think of the Dudleys in their return to the promotion?

5. Charlotte beat Nikki Bella in 12:41 to win the Divas title. Charlotte was limping, but put Nikki in the figure eight for the submission and Nikki tapped furiously with both hands. After the match Ric Flair came in and started crying as Charlotte was announced as champion. They treated the title change like it was a real big deal, which they needed to do. A lot of it seeming like a big deal had to do with Ric being there. She limped and strutted with him after the match, and then she started crying with him. One of the reasons both cried in this situation is that essentially Ashley is living out her younger brother Reid’s dream so when she’s successful it’s like it honors his memory. This was nothing like the NXT matches, but it was a level above most of the WWE women’s title bouts, and a lot of that was in this case due to Nikki’s work. ***¼

How special was it for you to be watching this segment and the Charlotte win after all you’ve been through with the Flair family?

They did a backstage segment with Ric Flair with Charlotte, Paige and Lynch talking about going partying in Houston to celebrate the title win.

6. Bray Wyatt & Luke Harper & Braun Strowman beat Roman Reigns & Dean Ambrose & Mystery partner Chris Jericho in 13:02. Excellent match. The crowd went crazy for the announcement it was Jericho and was chanting for him. He got a way bigger reaction than everyone else did here. Strowman put Jericho in the head-and-arm choke and Jericho went out. ****

Interesting to put Strowman at the time over Jericho. Shows how big the plans were for him in the beginning. Was he too green to be pushed this soon?

7. John Cena beat Seth Rollins in 16:00 to win the U.S. title. Another great match between them, but my God, Cena’s punches were horrible looking. Rollins tried an Attitude Adjustment, but Cena got out of it, used a reverse powerslam, a leg slice off the top rope and the Attitude Adjustment for the pin. Excellent, but not at the level of their SummerSlam match. ****

You’ve always been called John’s agent...but him & Rollins together in the ring were something special were they not?

8. Seth Rollins pinned Sting to retain the WWE title in 14:56. Sting did a plancha to the floor. He hit the scorpion death drop but Rollins got his foot on the rope. Rollins then came back and power bombed Sting into the turnbuckles, which was the injury spot. Sting went down, but got up and tried to continue, but collapsed coming off the ropes. The trainer and a doctor came to the ring and were checking on Sting while Rollins played to the crowd for distraction for about two minutes. Sting was motioning that he wanted the match to continue. The crowd got pretty hot when it was re-started. They went right to the finish. Sting immediately put him in a scorpion deathlock and Rollins went to the ropes. He went for it a second time, and this time Rollins cradled him for the pin. Sheamus then came out and laid out Rollins with a Brogue kick and motioned to cash in the briefcase. The crowd went pretty nuts for that. Then Kane came out and Sheamus backed off. Kane choke slammed Rollins. Sheamus was back to wanting to cash in, but Kane then choke slammed him. Kane gave Rollins the tombstone piledriver and the show ended. After Kane left and Sheamus got up, they were screaming at Sheamus to cash it in with Rollins selling on the ground, but he just went to the back. ***

How scary was it to see this happen in the ring? Did you know something was wrong immediately and what was the backstage area like when it happened? Did you talk to Sting afterwards about it and his feelings? What about Rollins?