Night of Champions (2023)

The 2023 Night of Champions was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by the American company WWE. It was the 10th Night of Champions and took place on Saturday, May 27, 2023, at the Jeddah Super Dome in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. This was the first Night of Champions held since 2015, and also the first Night of Champions to take place on a Saturday and the first held in Saudi Arabia, subsequently making it the ninth event that WWE held in the country under a 10-year partnership in support of Saudi Vision 2030.

The event was originally announced to be held as an event titled "King and Queen of the Ring", which would have revived the King of the Ring event series but with a rebranding, however, WWE decided to instead revive Night of Champions; King and Queen of the Ring would get rescheduled for 2024 at the same venue. This was the first Night of Champions held following the reintroduction of the brand split in July 2016 and the first to livestream on Peacock after the American version of the WWE Network merged under Peacock in March 2021. The event also replaced the previously annual Hell in a Cell event.

The original concept of Night of Champions (2007–2015) was that every main roster championship was contested. This theme was not retained for the 2023 event and instead celebrated the crowning of a new World Heavyweight Champion for Raw and also marked the 1,000th day for SmackDown's Roman Reigns as Universal Champion. Instead of defending his title, Reigns teamed with Solo Sikoa to challenge Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn for the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship in which Owens and Zayn retained. This was the final match of the night and was one of three matches promoted as part of a triple main event, the other two were the aforementioned World Heavyweight Championship match, which saw Raw's Seth "Freakin" Rollins defeat SmackDown's AJ Styles to become the inaugural champion in the opening bout, and a match between Cody Rhodes and Brock Lesnar, which Lesnar won via technical submission. Four other matches were contested at the event, the most prominent of which saw Asuka defeating Bianca Belair to win the Raw Women's Championship, ending Belair's record title reign at 420 days. This would be the last event for the women's championships to carry a brand name, as two weeks after the event, the Raw and SmackDown women's championships were renamed as the WWE Women's Championship and Women's World Championship, respectively.

The event received mostly positive reviews from critics and fans. The Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship match and the ending that followed were deemed highlights of the night, with praise also given to the World Heavyweight Championship match.

Production

Background

On March 6, 2023, the American professional wrestling promotion WWE announced that the King of the Ring event would be revived and rebranded as "King and Queen of the Ring" to incorporate both the men's King of the Ring tournament and women's Queen's Crown tournament, which would also replace the previously annual Hell in a Cell event. The event was scheduled to be held on Saturday, May 27, 2023, at the Jeddah Superdome in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and feature wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. On April 13, however, it was revealed that WWE scrapped these plans and that this Saudi Arabian event would instead be the 10th Night of Champions, thus reviving the Night of Champions event, which had previously been held annually from 2007 to 2015. According to Mike Johnson of PWInsider, the decision to change the event to Night of Champions was a creative choice to revive and bring the event to an international market. It was also reported that the change was to please business partners in Saudi Arabia and add intrigue to the show with the crowning of a new world champion. The King and Queen of the Ring event would be rescheduled for the same venue in May 2024.

In early 2018, WWE began a 10-year strategic multiplatform partnership with the Ministry of Sport in support of Saudi Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia's social and economic reform program. The 2023 Night of Champions was the ninth event that WWE held in Saudi Arabia under this partnership and subsequently the first Night of Champions to be held in the country. It was also the first Night of Champions to be held on a Saturday. This was subsequently the first Night of Champions held following the reintroduction of the brand extension in July 2016, where WWE again split the main roster between the Raw and SmackDown brands where wrestlers were exclusively assigned to perform. In addition to airing on traditional pay-per-view worldwide and the WWE Network in international markets, it was the first Night of Champions to livestream on Peacock in the United States due to the American version of the WWE Network merging under Peacock in March 2021.

The original theme of Night of Champions from 2007 to 2015 was that every main roster championship was to be contested. This theme was not retained for the 2023 event, as the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, the WWE United States Championship, and the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship were not contested. However, five of the event's seven matches were championship matches. The event also marked the 1,000th day for Roman Reigns as Universal Champion. He won the title at Payback on August 30, 2020, and later won the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 38 in April 2022 to become the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion.

Storylines

The event included matches that resulted from scripted storylines. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands, while storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown.

On the April 24 episode of Raw, WWE Chief Content Officer Triple H unveiled a new World Heavyweight Championship for the brand that did not draft Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns in the 2023 WWE Draft and that the inaugural champion would be crowned at Night of Champions. During the draft, Reigns was drafted to SmackDown, thus making the World Heavyweight Championship exclusive to Raw. To crown the new champion, a tournament was scheduled including wrestlers from both brands with a bracket for each brand. The first round and semifinals for each bracket were scheduled for the May 8 and May 12 episodes of Raw and SmackDown, respectively. The first round matches for each episode consisted of two triple threat matches with the respective winners advancing to the semifinals in a singles match the same night, with those respective winners advancing to the championship match at Night of Champions. The 12 tournament participants were revealed on May 7 on WWE's YouTube channel. Raw's bracket was won by Seth "Freakin" Rollins, while SmackDown's bracket was won by AJ Styles, thus scheduling Rollins to face Styles in the tournament final for the World Heavyweight Championship at Night of Champions.

At Backlash, Cody Rhodes defeated Brock Lesnar. On the following episode of Raw, Rhodes participated in the aforementioned tournament for the World Heavyweight Championship. During the first-round triple threat match that Rhodes competed in, Lesnar interfered and attacked Rhodes, costing him an opportunity at the title. Lesnar subsequently challenged Rhodes to another match at Night of Champions and Rhodes accepted. On the May 22 episode, Lesnar broke (kayfabe) Rhodes' arm. Although Triple H tried to dissuade him, Rhodes stated that he would still compete at Night of Champions.

In the main event of Night 1 of WrestleMania 39, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn defeated The Usos (Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso) to win the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship, and retained them in a rematch on the April 28 episode of SmackDown. At Backlash, The Bloodline (The Usos and Solo Sikoa) competed in a six-man tag team match in which Owens and Zayn were opponents; Sikoa won the match for The Bloodline, although there was friction between Sikoa and The Usos. On the following SmackDown, Bloodline leader Roman Reigns praised Sikoa but expressed his disappointment in The Usos due to them losing their titles and the inability to regain them. The group's manager Paul Heyman then announced that he was able to procure another tag team championship match for The Bloodline; however, instead of The Usos, it would be Reigns and Sikoa challenging Owens and Zayn for the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship at Night of Champions. This in turn marked Zayn's first Saudi Arabian event since a WWE Live tour in April 2014 due to the relations between Saudi Arabia and Syria being restored after they had been suspended amidst the Syrian conflict that broke out in March 2011, which resulted in Zayn not working at any of WWE's Saudi Arabian events since. This additionally marked Owens' first WWE Saudi Arabian event since Greatest Royal Rumble in April 2018 as he had not worked any of the other events in support of Zayn.

On the May 15 episode of Raw, Mustafa Ali won a battle royal to become the number one contender for Gunther's Intercontinental Championship at Night of Champions.