WWE Night of Champions review: John Cena & CM Punk’s last dance

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WWE Night of Champions was the final time John Cena wrestled CM Punk and you know what? I’m okay with that.

By now, we should know the formula of a Cena main event. Let’s be realistic: at 48, he is battered and bruised. He can’t do a long match. He doesn’t like taking bumps. So, you’re only going to get one kind of match where he trades some basic offense with his opponent until people run down to the ring for interference to pad the runtime.

To be fair, everything was perfectly alright for the most part between these two and probably the best match they could have done in 2025. But this was hardly the kind of match one would hope for considering their history.

As per usual, a ref bump took place near the end. Seth Rollins came out and instructed his new squad of Bronson Reed and Bron Breakker to do his bidding, taking out Cena. After Penta came out and took out Breakker and Sami Zayn took out Reed, Cena and Punk were left in the ring. Cena attempted to repeat what he did at Elimination Chamber, going for a hug and a low blow. It didn’t work this time as Punk caught him and laid Cena out with the GTS.

However, wouldn’t you know it, that was when Rollins came in and ruined everything by hitting Punk with the curb stomp. Before he could cash in, Cena threw Rollins out of the ring and covered Punk to win the match. This was one of Cena’s better matches this year but standards are so much higher now, especially for main events, and most of his matches aren’t reaching that bar.

One of WWE’s plusses lately is that you can clearly see where the company is going. Punk and Rollins are very likely to do battle at SummerSlam while Cena will face Rhodes in a WrestleMania rematch for the WWE title. Cody needs to win if we’re going to have any good main events on WWE television this year and we need to kickstart Cena’s turn back as a babyface as we head into the final months of his career.

The heel run isn’t working, it’s not leading to good promos and matches, and it just feels like a compelling idea that ended up being a dud due to lack of creativity and performance.

Rhodes, as expected, won the King of the Ring final, defeating Randy Orton in the opening contest of Saturday’s show in Saudi Arabia.

This was the best match on a overall middling show. It was a standard, very good WWE main event style bout where both men kicked out each other’s big moves as the crowd in Riyadh cheered for everything. Orton orchestrated his own downfall, being pushed into a turnbuckle he had exposed.

Jade Cargill is the Queen of the Ring, pinning Asuka in what I thought was a short and rather uninteresting match.

It was just kinda there and didn’t get me into the idea of seeing Cargill challenge for the title. She’s been here for a while at this point and while she absolutely has the look and presence of a star, the work still isn’t there. She will take on Tiffany Stratton, which, well, I don’t know how that will go.

Solo Sikoa is the new United States champion, defeating Jacob Fatu thanks to the debuting TALA TONGA, fka Hikuleo, who chokeslammed Fatu through the announce desk.

This was okay, but Fatu at this point comes off as a far bigger star than Solo and it’s clear he’s outshined most of what remains of the Bloodline, so a title change here felt weird. There is bound to be a rematch here where Fatu regains the title but before that I think we may have a six-man tag for SummerSlam with Fatu likely teaming with Jimmy Uso and another family member to take on his three mean family members — maybe the one that just got a part in the upcoming Street Fighter movie.

The street fight between Raquel Rodriguez and Rhea Ripley was pretty good — your standard WWE weapons match where both worked hard.

Ripley won, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she and IYO SKY battle it out soon for the WWE Women’s World Championship as perhaps that’s the SummerSlam match. Rodriguez, meanwhile, needs a tag team partner and with Roxanne Perez’s interference on her behalf, it is likely these two will team together and become friends.

Sami Zayn defeated Karrion Kross in A Match That Took Place.

Nothing of note, though Zayn was obviously very over with the crowd. They keep pushing Zayn wanting to be a World Champion so much that I think that will be a title program for the fall, or maybe even a tease for the Royal Rumble.