Night of Champions (2011)

Night of Champions (2011)
Promotional poster featuring Randy Orton
Tagline(s)	It's a Night You Will Never Forget
Theme song(s)	"Champion" by Jim Johnston
Information
Promotion	WWE
Date	September 18, 2011
Attendance	11,000[1]
Venue	First Niagara Center
City	Buffalo, New York
Pay-per-view chronology
SummerSlam (2011) Night of Champions (2011) Hell in a Cell (2011)
Night of Champions chronology
Night of Champions (2010) Night of Champions (2011) TBA

Night of Champions (2011) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by WWE that took place on September 18, 2011^[2] at the First Niagara Center in Buffalo, New York.^[3] It was the 4th annual WWE Night of Champions event and the 11th in the WWE Vengeance overall timeline. Seven matches took place at the event. The event garnered 161,000 buys, which was down from 2010's 165,000 buys.^[4]

Background

See also: Professional wrestling

Night of Champions featured professional wrestling matches involving different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds, plots, and storylines that played out on WWE's television programs. Wrestlers portrayed villains or heroes as they followed a series of events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches.^[5]

The main rivalry from Raw involved the Undisputed WWE Champion Alberto Del Rio defending his title against former champion John Cena. The previous month at SummerSlam, Cena had lost to CM Punk, who also had a claim to the WWE Championship. After the match, Money in the Bank winner Alberto Del Rio cashed in his contract after Punk was assaulted by Kevin Nash and won the Undisputed WWE Championship. On the August 22nd episode of Raw, Punk and Cena faced each other to determine Del Rio's opponent, with Cena winning and gaining the right to a rematch after some interference from Nash.

Another rivalry from Raw involved the former champion CM Punk and the Chief Operating Officer of WWE Triple H in a No Disqualification match. After Punk became the Undisputed WWE Champion, he was attacked by Kevin Nash who, the next day, stated that Triple H had sent him a message saying to "stick it" to the winner regardless of who won, which gave Alberto Del Rio ample time to cash in his Money in the Bank contract and become WWE Champion. A vindictive CM Punk would take his aggression out of Nash, Triple H, and his wife Stephanie McMahon through constant verbal insults, especially to Triple H whom Punk believes instigated Nash's attack. On the August 29th episode of Raw, Punk and Nash were scheduled to be in a match at Night of Champions, but at the end of the show, Triple H had the match changed to feature CM Punk against himself. The following week on Raw, Triple H, after discovering that it was Nash that used his cell phone to make the text, fired him and changed the stipulation to be no disqualification. Punk in turn added his own stipulation that if Triple H lost to Punk, Triple H would have to resign as the COO of the WWE.

Reception

Night of Champions 2011 received mixed to positive reviews by the critics, with Dave Meltzer saying that the WWE had put on two awesome pay-per-view's, Money in the Bank (2011) and SummerSlam (2011) and Night of Champions could not follow them, and when the WWE seemed to take the good way, they turned back to the same, but that Night of Champions was a entertaining event. The Sun's Rob McNichol praised the match between John Cena and Alberto Del Rio, stating that Alberto proved to be a true champion, pulling off a valiant effort against Cena, but was too much to overcome, but also criticized the end, and awarded the match a 8.5 out of 10. McNichol also praised the Randy Orton vs Mark Henry match, saying that pulling Mark Henry to the main event status is a thing that the WWE had to do a long time ago, and adding that the match was better than expected, with Randy trying to take the man off his feet, and Henry dominating Orton from the beginning to the end, and awarded the match a 8 out of 10. He gave a positive review to the No Disqualification match between CM Punk and Triple H, stating that the match turned into a good brawl in the first fifteen minutes, but with all the interferences it seemed more a TNA match than a WWE main event match, but that the final sequences, with Punk kicking out cleanly to the pedigree made that a very entertaining match at all, awarding it a great 9.5 out of 10. Overall, he gave the event a 9.0 out of 10.

Results

#	Matches	Stipulations	Times[6]
Dark	Daniel Bryan defeated Heath Slater	Singles match[7]	5:13
1	Air Boom (Evan Bourne and Kofi Kingston) (c) defeated Awesome Truth (The Miz and R-Truth) by disqualification	Tag team match for the WWE Tag Team Championship[8]	9:55
2	Cody Rhodes (c) defeated Ted DiBiase	Singles match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship[9]	9:45
3	Dolph Ziggler (c) (with Vickie Guerrero) defeated Jack Swagger, Alex Riley and John Morrison	Fatal 4-Way match for the WWE United States Championship[10]	8:20
4	Mark Henry defeated Randy Orton (c)	Singles match for the World Heavyweight Championship[11]	13:07
5	Kelly Kelly (c) (with Eve Torres) defeated Beth Phoenix (with Natalya)	Singles match for the WWE Divas Championship[12]	6:26
6	John Cena defeated Alberto Del Rio (c) (with Ricardo Rodriguez) via submission	Singles match for the WWE Championship[13]	17:34
7	Triple H defeated CM Punk	No Disqualification match; If CM Punk would have won, Triple H would have to resign as COO of WWE[14]	24:10
(c) – refers to the champion(s) heading into the match

See also

• List of WWE pay-per-view events
• WWE Vengeance

References

1. ^ "Night of Champions 2011". Pro Wrestling History. http://www.prowrestlinghistory.com/supercards/usa/wwf/night.html#2011. Retrieved 2011-09-25. 
2. ^ "Light Strike presents WWE Night of Champions". WWE. http://www.wwelivetour.com/events/light-strike-presents-wwe-night-champions. Retrieved 2011-08-15. 
3. ^ "WWE presents Night of Champions". HSBC Arena. http://www.hsbcarena.com/events.asp?eventID=166. Retrieved 2011-08-15. 
4. ^ "WWE Reports 2011 Third Quarter Results" (Press release). WWE. 2011-11-03. http://corporate.wwe.com/documents/PressReleaseQ3201111.03.11FINAL_13_clean_000.pdf. Retrieved 2011-11-21. 
5. ^ "Live & Televised Entertainment of World Wrestling Entertainment". World Wrestling Entertainment. http://corporate.wwe.com/company/events.jsp. Retrieved 2010-07-18. 
6. ^ Eck, Kevin (2011-09-18). "Night of Champions thoughts". The Baltimore Sun. http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/wrestling/blog/2011/09/night_of_champions_thoughts_2.html. Retrieved 2011-09-20. 
7. ^ "WWE Night of Champions dark match result". Pro Wrestling.net. http://www.prowrestling.net/artman/publish/WWE/article10020820.shtml. Retrieved 18 September 2011. 
8. ^ "WWE Tag Team Champions Kofi Kingston & Evan Bourne vs. The Miz & R-Truth". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/shows/nightofchampions/2011/wwe-tag-team-title-match. Retrieved 2011-09-09. 
9. ^ "WWE Intercontinental Champion Cody Rhodes vs. Ted DiBiase". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/shows/nightofchampions/2011/rhodes-dibiase. Retrieved 2011-9-16. 
10. ^ "WWE United States Champion Dolph Ziggler vs. Edge vs. Shawn Michaels vs. Steve Austin". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/shows/nightofchampions/2011/fatal-4-way-us-championship. Retrieved 2011-9-12. 
11. ^ "WWE World Heavyweight Champion Randy Orton vs. Kaval". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/shows/nightofchampions/2011/randy-orton-mark-henry. Retrieved 2011-9-09. 
12. ^ "WWE Divas Champion Kelly Kelly vs. Kharma". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/shows/nightofchampions/2011/kelly-vs-beth. Retrieved 2011-09-05. 
13. ^ "WWE Champion Alberto Del Rio vs. R-Truth". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/shows/nightofchampions/2011/25031154. Retrieved 2011-08-23. 
14. ^ "Kevin Nash vs. Triple H". WWE. http://www.wwe.com/shows/nightofchampions/2011/punk-tripleh. Retrieved 2011-08-29. 

External links

• Official Night of Champions site