Seth Rollins Wins WWE World Heavyweight Title At Night Of Champions 2023

Styles, Rollins battle it out for new world title at Night of Champions.

by Scott Carlson
Seth Rollins
WWE.com

Seth Rollins is the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion, winning the new world title by defeating AJ Styles at Night of Champions on Saturday.

In doing so, Rollins has become a five-time world champion, adding to his two reigns as WWE Champion and WWE Universal Champion. Of course, those two world titles are currently held hostage by Roman Reigns, who hasn't defended the straps since WrestleMania 39, and might not again until SummerSlam.

Rollins and Styles opened Night of Champions in the final match of a 12-man tournament to crown the new champ. The two had a solid and enjoyable, if unspectacular match, with both veterans hitting all their signature spots and trading false finishes.

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Triple H, who presented Rollins with the new title, announced the creation of a third world title because Reigns has held both existing world titles and only sporadically defended them. With the draft looming at the time, Hunter decreed that whichever brand didn't land Roman would become the exclusive home to the new World Heavyweight Championship.

Since its announcement, the title has been derided by many as being a secondary title, a consolation prize for the rest of the roster since Reigns has had a death grip on both world titles. It's also brought more into focus the questionable decision to not split the two titles up by having Cody Rhodes win one of them (or both and surrender one) at WrestleMania 39.

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Despite sharing a name with a previous WWE world title, it's pretty clear the company is not treating this as a continuation or restart of the old World Heavyweight Championship that existed from 2002 to 2013, but a new, separate and distinct title.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.