9 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE Night Of Champions 2015

1. Divas Revolting

OK, for everyone who has crowed about how improved Nikki Bella is in the ring, WWE presented Exhibit A against that claim at Night of Champions. The Divas Championship match between Nikki and Charlotte wasn€™t patently bad, but it clearly was dumbed down from the high level that Charlotte has shown in many of her matches against a variety of opponents (Natalya, Sasha Banks, Bayley). About 90% of the title match consisted of Charlotte lying on the mat and your longest-reigning Divas Champion in WWE history kicking, punching and wrenching on her knee. Sure, Nikki used a variety of good submission-style moves, and the psychology was good, but instead of a competitive back-and-forth battle like we€™ve seen on NXT, we got Charlotte hitting a spear out of nowhere and then ignoring the bad knee and slapping on a Figure Eight for the win and the title. And this should not get thrown at Charlotte€™s feet. She has shown repeatedly in matches that she€™s quite capable of putting on really good matches almost at will. It felt like it was decided that Nikki wouldn€™t be able to keep up and have a competitive see-saw match, so the solution was to just have her beat down Charlotte with submission moves (aka restholds) until a surprise comeback for the win. Sorry for everyone who was crowing about Nikki Bella, but this should solidify that she isn€™t in the same league. She has improved, but Sunday showed that she hasn€™t improved enough to rise to the occasion for what should have been an attention-grabbing, division-defining match.