Bang for Your Buck PPV Review: Night of Champions

WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match

Brock Lesnar (C) vs. John Cena

In the same way that The Dark Knight Rises may have been a “better” movie than The Dark Knight, it’s almost impossible to argue that the former was more significant than latter. The Dark Knight made us reevaluate what a superhero movie — and a blockbuster — could be.

Last month’s SummerSlam main event did the exact same thing. It told a very specific story by taking away all of the rules commonly associated with the genre. Beyond there being emotional depth and a larger theme at work in the proceedings, that match wasn’t about putting butts in seats for the moment, but a change in the way butts will be put in seats in the future.

The WWE is beginning to understand very strongly how to tell stories using the Network, instead of just focusing on what stories they should be telling. When there’s not nearly as strong a need for a definitive finish for a PPV — especially a relatively minor PPV like Night of Champions — you can actually tell a story that extends beyond the confines of a given night, and this change in the motivating force, alongside the nature of the medium itself is something that the WWE will likely be able to turn into massive success in the future.

But, they didn’t quite get there in this match. While Lesnar losing was almost guaranteed not to happen, the feeling when John Cena kept coming thisclose to beating him — or at least closer and closer and closer and closer after every “Attitude Adjustment” — was less of someone overcoming the odds as it was another line from the John Cena boilerplate. John Cena, for all his obvious gifts and contributions, hasn’t been half as interesting or important as he was as the sacrificial lamb during last month’s show.

That, in less than a month’s time, he gives his conqueror a run for his money — it’s important to note that it never really felt like Cena was going to lose during any specific moment even if him winning the match seemed far-fetched — doesn’t quite negate what Lesnar did. But it, like Batman’s fight with Bane after his chess match with The Joker, meant that no matter how spectacular the Beast looked, it was always going to fall short of when Batman seemed most vulnerable, even if he actually might have even less of a chance than we thought he did the first time.

John Cena’s greatest challenge has been narrative complacency. Last month, it seemed like he had nearly beaten it by letting the story actually go where it needed to. But after last night, it brought up the same question that’s been asked for the better part of the decade: Does it matter that “the Champ is Here”, if that champ isn’t John Cena? The quicker they can answer that question in the affirmative, the better off they’ll be.

Match .75

The Bottom Line

It goes without saying that this was not the best PPV of all time. But, given that it’s the month after they had everyone re-up subscriptions and it’s a month after one of the better shows of the year, so it could be worse. This had one spectacular match — Sheamus-Cesaro — one match that marked the arrival of a performer into the main event — Rusev-Henry — and the return of the next true star in the company, Dean Ambrose.

I won’t be showing my kids this show, but it’s one that shouldn’t be relegated to the world of Capitol Punishments and Breaking Points. This was a good show in what’s not-so-secretly been a fun PPV series, and for 9.99, that’s pretty much all you can ask for.

Overall PPV 4.2 | Match Avg.  .525 (.53 if you’re nasty)

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