Tag: WWE Night of Champions

WWE Night of Champions 2023 match card: Rollins vs. Styles and more

WWE Night of Champions is set to crown the inaugural WWE World Heavyweight Champion, but that’s not the only big match on the card.

WWE Night of Champions has a little extra championship flavor to it this year.

That’s because the upcoming show from the Jeddah Super Dome in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia will feature the crowning of the first ever WWE World Heavyweight Champion, as Seth Rollins (Raw) and AJ Styles (SmackDown) won the right to represent their respective brands to compete for this brand new title (not to be confused with the previous World Heavyweight Championship, a.k.a. the Big Gold Belt). The winner will be exclusive to Raw, or at least that’s the plan WWE has announced.

Another big title match will see Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn defend their Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship … but not against The Usos. Instead, Roman Reigns and Solo Sikoa will go for the tag team gold, which could make the already tense Bloodline situation even more fraught if they succeed.

WWE Night of Champions will start at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT on Saturday, May 27. We’ll be updating this post with the latest matches as they are announced.

Last update: May 23, 2023, 11:15 a.m. ET.

WWE Night of Champions 2023 match card:

Why Sami Zayn is set to appear at WWE Night of Champions this year

The primary reason for Sami Zayn not appearing on most prior WWE Saudi Arabian cards seems to have been resolved for now.

Besides one match in 2014, Sami Zayn has not appeared in any capacity at a WWE show in Saudi Arabia. So it turned heads when WWE announced that he and Kevin Owens will defend the WWE Undisputed Tag Team Championships against Roman Reigns and Solo Sikoa at Night of Champions.

According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer, Zayn and Owens, who also has one prior appearance at a Saudi show, will appear at Night of Champions since the Arab League voted to reinstate Syria’s membership.

Kevin and Sami are wrestling Roman and Solo Sikoa and that’s going to be one of the two main events for the Saudi show on the 27th. And what basically happened there was, I guess, Saudi Arabia has opened up to where Syrians can come in, so, Sami can come in and decided that he would go and when Sami decided he would go, Kevin decided that if Sami is going to go he’ll go too.

On Nov. 16, 2011, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia prevented Syrians from traveling to the country and severed diplomatic relations due to the Arab Spring movement and the Syrian civil war. Consequently, Zayn, of Syrian heritage, was requested by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia not to appear on WWE shows in the country, despite WWE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia having begun their contractual relationship in 2018.

Allowing Zayn into Saudi Arabia probably means that this match configuration won’t change unless something happens over the next two weeks of WWE programming before Night of Champions.

Now, Zayn will return for the first time in nearly a decade to defend the tag titles in one of the show’s top matches. Seth Rollins and AJ Styles will also compete for the World Heavyweight Championship to headline WWE’s next premium live event on May 27.

World Heavyweight Championship tournament results: Seth Rollins advances from Raw

One half of the World Heavyweight Championship tournament final was determined on Raw in Jacksonville.

Monday’s episode of WWE Raw began the road to determining the World Heavyweight Championship. Two triple-threat matches took place with the winners of both battling in the main event of the show to decline who will compete for the title at Night of Champions.

Seth Rollins defeated Shinsuke Nakamura and Damian Priest to advance, as did Finn Balor over The Miz and Cody Rhodes (with aid from “Cowboy” Brock Lesnar), to recreate the first WWE Universal Championship match in Raw’s main event.

In a fun final match of the night, Rollins pinned Balor to advance to Night of Champions on May 27. Injured arm and all, he will have the chance to have world title glory at the end of the month.

With the Raw matches over, the second part of the tournament will take place on Friday’s episode of SmackDown, with two more intriguing triple threats and one more finals matchup to determine who goes to Night of Champions.

AJ Styles vs. Edge vs. Rey Mysterio is a dream match of two WWE Hall of Famers and another inevitably bound for induction. It’s a blockbuster match that could headline any weekly show or premium live event and should deliver all the goods on Friday.

Austin Theory vs. Bobby Lashley vs. Sheamus is potentially another hard-hitting match. Theory and Edge could have a rematch of their United States Championship bout from the day after WrestleMania 39, but any pairing makes for a solid main event to determine who will face Rollins at Night of Champions.

Who is in the WWE World Heavyweight Championship tournament? All 12 participants revealed

The field of 12 will be reduced to just two finalists by the end of the next episode of SmackDown on Friday, May 12.

Though reaction to the creation of the new WWE World Heavyweight Championship had been decidedly mixed among fans, the thought of a tournament to crown the inaugural titleholder — with the final to take place later this month at Night of Champions — was more positively received.

And while everyone loves a good tournament (there’s just something about brackets, you know?), and WWE announced the format for this one earlier this month, it didn’t reveal the 12 men who would be competing for the new championship — until today.

In a video published to its social media accounts and on WWE.com, the company confirmed the 12 participants in the WWE World Heavyweight Championship tournament Sunday afternoon.

From Raw:

  • Cody Rhodes
  • Damian Priest
  • Finn Balor
  • Seth Rollins
  • Shinsuke Nakamura
  • The Miz

 

From SmackDown:

  • AJ Styles
  • Austin Theory
  • Bobby Lashley
  • Edge
  • Rey Mysterio
  • Sheamus

Two triple threat matches will reduce the field from six to two on each show this week, with the winner going head to head to then determine a finalist from both Raw and SmackDown. Those show winners will then meet in the final at Night of Champions in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, May 27 for the right to be called the first ever WWE World Heavyweight Champion.

The final piece of the puzzle is to determine who is in each triple threat match, which would allow a bracket to be completed. WWE may or may not reveal one prior to the start of the tournament Monday night on Raw (and will be missing out on an opportunity to create even more buzz if it doesn’t), but should one come about, we’ll be sure to share it here on Wrestling Junkie.

May 27 WWE Saudi show, announced as King and Queen of the Ring, now Night of Champions

No word yet on whether every championship will be defended in Saudi Arabia, which was the original concept for Night of Champions.

It looks like the next WWE wrestlers to be named King and Queen of the Ring may have to wait.

The May 27 premium live event set for the Jeddah Super Dome was originally announced under that name, but it will now carry a different one instead. WWE revealed on Twitter that the show will be called Night of Champions.

No reason was given for the name change, but Impact Wrestling producer and Canadian wrestling legend Lance Storm had a thought.

The Night of Champions has been used by WWE for big cards before back in the pay-per-view era. Starting with Vengeance: Night of Champions in 2007, there was a Night of Champions event every year until 2015, The first three were in late June, but every show from 2010 to 2015 was held in mid to late September.

The original gimmick for Night of Champions was that every championship on the main WWE roster would be defended on the show. That seems unlikely to be the case now for several reasons; Sami Zayn, who is one half of the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Champions, doesn’t participate in WWE events held in Saudi Arabia, and Roman Reigns, who remains in possession of the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, feels unlikely to defend it again so soon after WrestleMania.

There’s also now an open question about what will become of the King and Queen of the Ring concepts. WWE fans seemed to be legitimately excited about the return of the tournament to crown a King and the first real Queen of the Ring. It’s possible they could find their way onto the schedule later in the year, as WWE has yet to announce any 2023 premium live event names or venues further out than SummerSlam on August 5.