{"id":159650,"date":"2023-05-29T22:22:27","date_gmt":"2023-05-30T03:22:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=159650"},"modified":"2023-05-29T22:22:27","modified_gmt":"2023-05-30T03:22:27","slug":"wwe-night-of-champions-2023-hits-misses-belair-vs-asuka-rhodes-vs-lesnar-rollins-vs-styles-zayn-owens-vs-bloodline-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2023\/05\/29\/wwe-night-of-champions-2023-hits-misses-belair-vs-asuka-rhodes-vs-lesnar-rollins-vs-styles-zayn-owens-vs-bloodline-more\/","title":{"rendered":"WWE NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS 2023 HITS &amp; MISSES: Belair vs. Asuka, Rhodes vs. Lesnar, Rollins vs. Styles, Zayn &amp; Owens vs. Bloodline, more."},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-1489241956\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><h3>WWE NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS 2023 HITS &amp; MISSES<br \/>\nMAY 27, 2023<br \/>\nJEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA AT THE JEDDAH SUPER DOME<br \/>\nAIRED ON PEACOCK, 1:00 p.m. EDT, 12:00 P.M. CDT<br \/>\nBY FRANK PETEANI (@FrankPeteani), PWTORCH.COM CONTRIBUTOR<\/h3>\n<p><em>Announcers: Michael Cole and Corey Graves<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>WWE World Heavyweight Championship: Seth \u201cFreakin\u2019\u201d Rollins defeats A.J. Styles in the finals of the tournament to crown the inaugural champion.<\/h4>\n<h4>HIT<\/h4>\n<p>I\u2019m working on accepting this new championship. They can rationalize and explain it all they<br \/>\nwant, but I don\u2019t like adding a new world title. You can like it if you want. I feel how I feel. That said, I won\u2019t let it cloud my judgement.<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t think the match was memorable or a classic or anything like that, but it still worked overall for what they were trying to do. The announcers did what they could to make the championship feel important, as they have done on TV in the buildup.<\/p>\n<p>It had a \u201cground and pound\u201d feel to it instead of the typical high work rate many seem to look for these days. That\u2019s ok. Go watch championship matches in MSG in the 70s with Bruno Sammartino. They didn\u2019t look pretty or choreographed. There were some cool spots with A.J. hitting the reverse DDT and the reverse suplex sequence Rollins hit later.<\/p>\n<p>Unless I missed it, I didn\u2019t hear discussion about Rollins\u2019 history of knee injuries when he hurt his knee on that dive. Remember, he did have to relinquish the WWE World Heavyweight Championship back in 2015 when he hurt himself in a match against Kane.<\/p>\n<p>Rollins is the guy that makes sense to start out with this title but, I\u2019m curious to see the opponents they line up for him moving forward. Damian Priest? Finn Balor? Bronson Reed? Dominik? (You watch, the kid will be wrestling for the title before you know it.)<\/p>\n<h4>Trish Status defeats Becky Lynch<\/h4>\n<h4>HIT<\/h4>\n<p>It\u2019s a bunt single or an infield hit for you baseball fans. I wanted to go miss, but that wouldn\u2019t be fair.<\/p>\n<p>Despite my dislike for the story, I thought they had a good match overall. It\u2019s interesting seeing Trish wrestle in this era. Her prime years took place in a time where the focus wasn\u2019t on the women as it is now. It\u2019s funny too because they had good people back then (Victoria, Molly Holly, Jazz, Jackie, and the like) but women\u2019s wrestling felt more like an afterthought. Anyway, it took Trish a bit to get rolling and at times it looked they weren\u2019t working well together, but they got it right. The match felt about 3-4 minutes too long, but that\u2019s a minor quibble at best.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-2033282043\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>The finish was crap. Let\u2019s call it what it is, but let\u2019s see what comes of it. Zoey Stark is clearly going to get the WWE \u201csecondary push\u201d from Trish. Becky at some point must get her win back, and things are complicated with Zoey involved now. I\u2019m not confident with Vince looming around as he doesn\u2019t tend to follow up on things because he forgets, or he loses interest in a story. Hopefully they have something good in mind.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, it\u2019s ok that a returning legend gets a win. Conventional wisdom dictates Becky winning this match, which is fine and sensible. The problem is that becomes too predictable. This is fine, but as I mentioned, they must follow through on what happened in the finish.<\/p>\n<p>I still don\u2019t like Trish as a heel. It feels like she\u2019s playing a role. I felt the same way about Edge last year when he formed Judgment Day. I\u2019m also tired of WWE telling me about different women who \u201cpaved the way.\u201d Wendi Richter paved the way, Trish paved the way, Stacy Kiebler paved the way, Torrie Wilson, Lita, Natalya, this one, that one. It feels like they use that for whomever they want to spotlight.<\/p>\n<h4>WWE Intercontinental Championship: Gunther (champ) defeats Mustafa Ali to retain.<\/h4>\n<h4>HIT<\/h4>\n<p>If I was grading this match on the overall story, it would be a miss. That would not be fair.<\/p>\n<p>Mustafa Ali has been treated like a joke throughout his time in WWE. Now suddenly when it\u2019s convenient for them and they need a contender I\u2019m supposed to look at him as a threat to Gunther? To top it off he wins a Battle Royal to earn this match. I know they do that from time to time but it\u2019s never good way to determine a challenger. At least have the guy beat someone of meaning. Then you want to give him offense against a very protected top-notch champion, and I\u2019m supposed to sit in my corner and color and not say a word? Ali has lost squash matches on TV before our very eyes. Okay, I said my piece.<\/p>\n<p>Like I said, it wouldn\u2019t be fair to grade this match a miss. Ali did look good with what they gave him. He is a good talent, but I might as well watch paint dry waiting for WWE to let him flourish. Start, stop, start, stop, how many times have we seen it? Anyway, the result was correct here and the match didn\u2019t overstay it\u2019s welcome.<\/p>\n<h4>WWE Raw Women\u2019s Championship: Asuka defeats Bianca Belair (champ) to win the championship.<\/h4>\n<h4>MISS<\/h4>\n<p>I wanted to like this match going in. It was fun seeing these two live at WrestleMania. It just didn\u2019t hit for me. Their match at \u2018Mania was much better. I feel bad saying as such because it looked like they worked hard, but it\u2019s a miss.<\/p>\n<p>The finish was quite clever on the part of Asuka. The problem is, and I think Zack Heydorn pointed it out on Twitter, the announcers need to be upset about it. They need to sell that someone cheated to not just win a championship but ended the longest reign of any women\u2019s champion in the modern era. Did WWE even care about that? No, what does Cole and Graves do? They celebrate it. Cole says, \u201cPlay Misty for Me Asuka.\u201d That doesn\u2019t work for me, I\u2019m sorry.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-2527110890\" class=\"pwtor-content-1 pwtor-entity-placement\"><!-- Tag ID: pwtorchcom_test_300x600 -->\r\n<div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __300x600\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Not to mention, the Raw Women\u2019s Championship still resides on Smackdown! Does that not bother anybody around here? I would have forgiven that if the match was a little better but, it wasn\u2019t. Swing and a miss here folks.<\/p>\n<h4>WWE Smackdown Women\u2019s Championship; Rhea Ripley (champ) (w\/Dominik Mysterio) defeats Natalya to retain.<\/h4>\n<h4>PUSH<\/h4>\n<p>This match was dead in the water heading in. Natalya has been treated as a joke and nowhere near credible for some time, and out of the blue she gets a championship match. I understand that\u2019s done in wrestling from time to time, but you\u2019re better off building Natalya up. I get that it features Rhea and makes her look dominant, but what does squashing Natalya even mean these days?<\/p>\n<p>With that said, the match was what it should have been. It shouldn\u2019t have gone longer. For that reason, I can\u2019t give it a miss. I just can\u2019t give it a hit. Welcome to the introduction of \u201cpushes\u201d on a Hits &amp; Misses report.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026. oh, and the Smackdown Women\u2019s Champion resides on Raw. I\u2019m not letting that go until it\u2019s fixed.<\/p>\n<h4>Brock Lesnar defeats Cody Rhodes via technical submission.<\/h4>\n<h4>MISS<\/h4>\n<p>This match had three problems going on. One, I still don\u2019t understand Brock\u2019s problem with Cody. If he or anybody explained it, I missed it. One minute he\u2019s happy go-lucky, high-fiving fans, and generally looking like he\u2019s having a good time. Next thing, he\u2019s attacking Cody? Why? Number two, this is not the story they need to be telling with Cody right now. He lost a big match at WrestleMania and won over Brock via a \u201cbanana peel\u201d at Backlash, a match where he runs away after the win. Number three, why would WWE let him wrestle with a \u201cbroken arm?\u201d (I mean I know Kurt Angle won a gold medal with a broken freakin\u2019 neck but, come on.)<\/p>\n<p>You must be careful with the underdog \u201covercome the odds\u201d story. The fans resented John Cena for years and they were even starting to do with Roman Reigns. That\u2019s where Cody is right now and obviously, we\u2019ll see how things shake out. If you want Cody to be at a main event level, he will have to beat Brock decisively. Right now, he\u2019s not there. He did kick out of the F-5 so, that\u2019s a good thing (not that I like kicking out of finishers but it\u2019s what\u2019s done, and Cody getting to do that matters).<\/p>\n<p>As far as the match itself, I understood it for what they were trying to do. The steel plate in his elbow has been a thing they\u2019ve used before (\u201cCowboy\u201d Bob Orton, Lex Luger). They protected Cody with the pass out rather than him tapping out. I understand that. The issue is not what they\u2019re trying to do. The issue is, should they be doing this with Cody right now. The problem is, after Brock, what opponents do you have that you could feed to Cody to rebuild him after WrestleMania?<\/p>\n<h4>WWE Undisputed Tag Team Championship: Sami Zayn &amp; Kevin Owens (champs) defeat The Bloodline (WWE Undisputed Universal Champion Roman Reigns &amp; Solo Sikoa)<\/h4>\n<h4>HIT<\/h4>\n<p>The closing segment of this match is what makes it a hit. Given everything that had happened on TV between the Usos and Roman &amp; Solo you were waiting to see how things would shake out.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you, Corey Graves, for talking about the history of the Samoan tag teams (Wild Samoans and the Samoan Swat Team who became the Headshrinkers, SST managed by a young Paul Heyman).<\/p>\n<p>I enjoyed seeing Sami Zayn genuinely happy at the loud reaction for his entrance. Without getting into the point of contention Saudi Arabia has been, it\u2019s good to see. Paul Heyman introducing Roman &amp; Solo followed by Sami doing the same for he and Kevin were nice touches. Sami speaking in Arabic worked, even if a lot of us didn\u2019t understand what he was saying. The slow start to the match with Kevin tagging in Sami with the crowd doing the \u201cole\u2019\u201d chant was a perfect way to get things going.<\/p>\n<p>The match itself took a minute, but that\u2019s fine. With the drama of the finishing sequence lurking, I liked them working a slow pace. It makes the final minutes stand out. Now, I do have to say I\u2019m surprised they have gone in the direction of Jimmy being the one to stand up to Roman and not Jey. If we want to get technical, Jimmy did just kind of \u201cfall in line\u201d when he came back a few years ago. He was trying to get Jey away from Roman if you remember. I don\u2019t think they\u2019re tying that in, but it\u2019s at least worth mentioning.<\/p>\n<p>They have set up intrigue for television moving forward with the Bloodline story. I\u2019m glad they didn\u2019t Roman \u201call the belts.\u201d They did pin Sikoa here, who had been protected, but I don\u2019t think that hurts him overall.<\/p>\n<h4>Hits 4<br \/>\nMisses 2<br \/>\nPushes 1<\/h4>\n<h4>Closing Thoughts<\/h4>\n<p>I\u2019m never going to fully say I like these Saudi shows but I\u2019m not going to dump on them for the sake of doing so because they\u2019re in Saudi. That\u2019s too easy. I will say this was on the higher end of these shows. As Brandon LeClair pointed out in his Alt Perspective report, they did a nice job of folding this into WWE \u201ccannon.\u201d Shows of this kind in the past felt like glorified house shows that were not consequential to current WWE storylines. There\u2019s nothing I\u2019d re-watch, but I wouldn\u2019t run into the other room if someone had it on.<\/p>\n<p>With that said, the hits have it and this report is adjourned. Talk to you again in early July after Money in the Bank. Salute everyone!<\/p>\n<p><em>Follow Frank on Twitter @FrankPeteani. Thank you for reading!<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-3267179888\"><div id=\"pwtor-2925922807\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>WWE NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS 2023 HITS &amp; MISSES MAY 27, 2023 JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA AT THE JEDDAH SUPER DOME AIRED ON PEACOCK, 1:00 p.m. EDT, 12:00 P.M. CDT BY FRANK PETEANI (@FrankPeteani), PWTORCH.COM CONTRIBUTOR Announcers: <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2023\/05\/29\/wwe-night-of-champions-2023-hits-misses-belair-vs-asuka-rhodes-vs-lesnar-rollins-vs-styles-zayn-owens-vs-bloodline-more\/\" title=\"WWE NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS 2023 HITS &amp; MISSES: Belair vs. Asuka, Rhodes vs. Lesnar, Rollins vs. Styles, Zayn &amp; Owens vs. Bloodline, more.\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":159512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,52,28,27,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prowrestlingnews","category-opnionandanalysis","category-specialists_hitsandmisses","category-specialists","category-news_wwe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2023\/05\/FxJuaOMWwAA1BaU.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159651,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159650\/revisions\/159651"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}