10 Historically Significant Moments You Didn't Know Happened At WWE Night Of Champions
2. Mark Henry Becomes First African-American World Champion In Five Years
Other than CM Punk, there was no one hotter in the second half of 2011 than Mark Henry. He was putting Superstars on the shelf left and right and the next name on his list was Randy Orton.
Orton was fresh off winning the World Heavyweight Championship back from Christian at SummerSlam, but it wasn't long before he had to take on his next challenger in Mark Henry. In the weeks leading up to their scheduled matchup at Night of Champions, Henry got the best of his adversary at every turn, leading viewers to believe that there was a chance of Orton successfully retaining his title.
Thankfully, WWE resisted from going to their usual bag of tricks and instead had Henry decimate Orton for the World Heavyweight title. Needless to say, it was a well-deserved victory for the World's Strongest Man and a moment that was a long time coming.
For the first time in five years, SmackDown had an African-American world champion, and oddly enough, WWE hasn't had an African-American world champion since.