Wrestling Review: WWE Night of Champions (2026)

Emanating live from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia inside the Kingdom Arena, the WWE presents Night of Champions. Three championships are on the line on this show, including Cody Rhodes defending the Undisputed WWE Championship against both GUNTHER and Sami Zayn in the main event, as Trick Williams battles Ricky Saints, and Tiffany Stratton defends against Jade Cargill, each for their respective United States Championships. Also on the show, after months of sneak attacks and betrayals, Seth Rollins and Bron Breakker will finally settle their rivalry inside of a steel cage, plus, both the King and Queen of the Ring finals will take place, as Oba Femi battles Jey Uso, and Liv Morgan faces Iyo Sky in the finals of their respective tournament blocks.

+ Cody Rhodes (c) vs. GUNTHER vs Sami Zayn (Undisputed WWE Championship): so here’s the deal with me: Sami Zayn fucking sucks, and I have never cared for Cody Rhodes.= across every company he’s in. I was absolutely all-in on GOONTZ bringing this home and starting another long title reign. This was frankly the only match which felt fitting of a big-time PPV, and the crowd seemed to feel the same. Sami Zayn was the clear favourite of the fans in the arena, with GUNTHER playing obvious spoiler for the big moments for the two others. On a binary scale of good or bad, of course this was good as three professional wrestlers wrestled, professionally, but I am such a devout Rhodes and Zayn hater that I could not overcome my own biases
+ Liv Morgan vs Iyo Sky (Queen of the Ring Final): I enjoyed this match a lot. I remember once upon a time hating the covered-up outfits of the women during these Saudi Arabia shows, but the women have risen to the challenge and (while I won’t say ‘look forward to’) I now appreciate them more and more. Iyo is so dang good, and I echo Michael Cole on commentary that she may be the best active woman wrestler in the world right now. She is certainly the best in the WWE. But it takes two to tango and Liv Morgan more than held her own in this one, and it made for an exciting contest

– Tiffany Stratton (c) vs. Jade Cargill (WWE Women’s United States Championship): Jade Cargill hit a rebound knee strike on the outside which could be her finisher if she wanted it to be. She also hit an incredibly impressive pop-up powerbomb. It’s a shame she is so very bad at the ‘music between the notes’ in these matches. Stratton, meanwhile, has not necessarily regressed but has absolutely not improved in the last few years the way I thoughts he might. This match had some stuff I expected elsewhere, but it was not very good
– Trick Williams (c) (w/ Lil Yachty) vs. Ricky Saints (WWE United States Championship): I am a big fan of both these two, but Trick Williams is on a whole ‘nother level; this guy is a mega-giga-ultrastar waiting to happen. I really wanted to like this match, but the crowd was very quiet and there was a lot of dead air between moves which was only amplified by the quiet crowd. These two were in a difficult spot, but I still hoped for more
– Seth Rollins vs. Bron Breakker (Steel Cage Match): gosh, I do not care for Seth Rollins. At a live show I attended recently, Breakker was far and away one of the most popular, and to see him stuck in what feels like endlessly treading water and spinning his wheels is killing me; thankfully, the WWE seemed to really set this match up as the very final meeting between these two. But… Breakker is simply not ready to be in these big matches right now. This was not good, and to make it worse, watching on Netflix caused Bron Breakker’s entire head to be blurred once he started bleeding. I dunno, whatever; the back and forth wins over the last month have lowered them both, and I just hope these two are ready to move on from each other
– Oba Femi vs. Jey Uso (King of the Ring Final): in my time away from the review game, Oba Femi has absolutely skyrocketed to the near top of my favourite list, to the point I was pulling for him to beat Cody Rhodes at the Saturday Night’s Main Event in December of last year. Conversely, Jey Uso does not a single thing for me; I do not find him fun to watch wrestle nor listen to him speak. I wanted Oba to win this, and were it up to me this would have been more of a squash than the Lesnar ‘Mania match was. Either way, I did not enjoy this match and I hope they have not written themselves into a corner with the current portrayal of Oba Femi

> I had a lot of audio issues from commentary (when it was meant to be working). Ads for US things bled through onto Australian Netflix, and the commentary volume was all over the place all night
> I have missed reviewing things. It’s good to be back.

Should you watch this event: Honestly, probably not. The only match which anyone will care about was the main event, and I’d argue every other match went the way you’d expect. This is not always bad, but when there is under 80 minutes of wrestling across 2.5 hours of a show taking place in Saudi Arabia of all places, there are surely better ways to spend your time.