Night of Champions 2025: Cena and Punk Get One Last Match, Then Everybody Else Shows Up

The opener benefits from two wrestlers who know exactly how much patience a big-match crowd will tolerate before it wants the fireworks. Rhodes and Orton spend the first act circling history rather than sprinting through it: former Legacy allies, former mentor and student, two established main-eventers fighting for a SummerSlam title shot neither needs help explaining.

Orton's back becomes the central target and Rhodes gets just enough edge from working it to create a little friction with a crowd that adores both men. The RKO nearfalls are timed well, the Punt tease gives Orton one last chance to choose violence, and the exposed-turnbuckle mistake is a fitting bit of self-sabotage before Cross Rhodes ends it.

It is not a career match for either man. It is a very good tournament final with enough personality to feel larger than a bracket.

Ripley and Rodriguez are better when the furniture gives their size something to collide with. The match wastes little time pretending this needs to be graceful. Steel steps, a table, a belt and the ringside area all become useful without turning the fourteen minutes into a prop inventory.

Rodriguez gets one of her stronger main-roster performances because she is allowed to dominate stretches rather than simply stand across from Ripley and look tall. Roxanne Perez's interference creates the expected Judgment Day complication, but Ripley handles it quickly enough that the match keeps its shape.

The avalanche Riptide through the table is the correct exclamation point. There is nothing revolutionary here. There is also very little wasted motion.

The feud's idea is more interesting than the match. Kross has spent weeks trying to convince Zayn that the noble version of Sami is a story he tells himself, and that gives the match a psychological premise before the bell. Unfortunately, much of the thirteen minutes settles into control work that never feels as urgent as the promos promised.

Kross looks credible physically and the Kross Jacket gives Zayn something concrete to survive, but the finish arrives with surprising simplicity. Kross taunts him one time too many, Zayn explodes with the Helluva Kick and wins.

That result works for Zayn. It leaves Kross needing another chapter almost immediately, which is exactly what WWE gives them.

Jacob Fatu spends enough of this match looking like the superior athlete that the eventual title change feels less like Solo Sikoa conquering him and more like a committee meeting breaking out around him. JC Mateo arrives. Tonga Loa returns. Fatu survives. Then Talla Tonga makes his WWE television debut and finally supplies the interference heavy enough to end it.

The physical exchanges between Solo and Fatu are perfectly serviceable, but they never become the reason to watch. The match is structured around unveiling the next configuration of Solo's group, and once that becomes obvious, every nearfall feels like a waiting room.

Solo's first main-roster singles championship is historically useful. The route there is familiar Bloodline arithmetic: one Fatu, too many relatives.

Eight and a half minutes should have been enough for Asuka and Cargill to build a sharp contrast between speed, technique and power. Instead, the match repeatedly looks as though each woman is operating on a slightly different clock.

Asuka does what she can to create movement, attacking the leg and forcing Cargill to react rather than dictate. Cargill's bursts of offense have the necessary force, but the transitions are uneven and the crowd never invests at the level a tournament final should command.

The counter into Jaded is the correct idea for a finish. The execution is messy enough that the moment never becomes the coronation WWE wanted.

For a while, the last Cena-Punk match understands exactly why anybody wanted another one. They know each other's rhythms, they know which counters matter, and the crowd reacts to familiar sequences with the warmth reserved for a rivalry that helped define an era.

The nostalgia becomes less effective when the match starts stacking finisher kickouts simply because a final chapter is supposed to feel enormous. Punk survives multiple Attitude Adjustments. Cena survives the GTS. The escalation is recognizable WWE main-event grammar, but recognition is not the same thing as tension.

Then the ring acquires a population problem. Seth Rollins, Bron Breakker, Bronson Reed, Penta and Sami Zayn all enter the picture after the referee goes down. Cena stops Rollins' attempted cash-in, Punk and Cena briefly reconnect, Rollins blasts Punk with the briefcase, and Cena takes the pin.

The chaos is entertaining in isolation and useful for SummerSlam stories. As the advertised final chapter of Cena and Punk, it is a strange choice. Their last match ends with everybody else.