Welcome to our live coverage of WWE’s Night of Champions pay-per-view live from Philadelphia, PA.

As always, we’re looking for your feedback on tonight’s show via email on the address below, via our MySpace page at www.myspace.com/ifight365, or via Twitter at www.twitter.com/ifight365.

If you’ve not already done so, you can check out our PPV preview at this link, and we’ll have live updates from tonight’s show throughout the night from 7.45pm EST/12.45am BST onwards.

- In a dark match prior to tonight’s PPV going live, Cryme Tyme beat The Hart Dynasty.

- With the usual video packages and ringside introductions out of the way, Chris Jericho and his mystery opponent vs. Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase for the Unified Tag Team Titles opens the show. Wow, now that’s a surprise. I expected the match to be on later in the show. Jericho came out alone. A video was shown of Edge undergoing surgery and vowing to come back. Jericho said it was wrong to choose Edge as a partner as he was left high and dry. He said his new partner was worthy of being a champion. That man is…The Big Show. No doubt at all from the pre-match promo that Edge vs. Jericho will happen when Edge returns. Show has a new blue and black singlet which looks terrible. Crowd reaction for him being Jericho’s partner wasn’t great, nor was the reaction to the match as a whole other than when there were chants for Jericho. Jericho locked the Walls in on DiBiase but Cody Rhodes distracted the referee and Big Show to hit a DDT. Jericho made the tag to Big Show which got a pop. He speared DiBiase and tossed Rhodes who skinned the cat. DiBiase ran into a Jericho codebreaker, Big Show then locked in the Colossal Clutch on DiBiase who tapped. An ok opener but disjointed in places and nobody came out of it looking particularly good.

- Backstage, CM Punk cut a promo asking the audience if they’re still behind Jeff Hardy despite everything he has told them. In Rock-like fashion, he took the mic from Josh Matthews and walked out into the crowd, asking how they can support a man who can’t support himself in Hardy. Punk asked all the Hardy fans to stand up, then said he doesn’t blame them for supporting Jeff but he blames their parents…or parent, since its obviously a single parent situation just how Jeff grew up. Some good heat for the straight edge promo and the Punk fully-blown heel turn continues.

- Tommy Dreamer (C) vs. Christian for the ECW Title is up next. Poor Tommy. Not much of a reaction in Philly, although the crowd react pretty well to Christian. Hi to anybody joining us for our live coverage who has had trouble watching the webcast on WWE.com this evening. Not a great amount of heat for this match, which was solid but far from being memorable. Finish came when Christian got caught coming off the top rope with a dropkick. Dreamer locked in a Texas Cloverleaf but Christian blocked it. They went through a series of near falls before Christian caught dreamer with a kick to the head then a dropkick from the top. He hit Killswitch and made the cover. 1, 2, 3 and we have a new ECW champion. Hands up who is surprise Dreamer lost in Philly? Nobody? Of course not…

- A Summerslam commercial aired, with Jeff Hardy being advertised. No mention of Shawn Michaels but I guess if he’s coming back as a surprise, blowing it on a 30 second ad makes no sense.

- Big Show and Chris Jericho were interviewed backstage. Show said they weren’t friends and it was a business decision. Jericho said they’d be the most dominant tag team in history. Jericho thanked Edge for making it possible.

- Kofi Kingston (C) vs. MVP vs. Carlito vs. Jack Swagger vs. The Miz vs. Primo for the United States Title is up next. With no Big Show involved with him now teaming with Jericho, Primo is the replacement. I guess we should consider this the next phase of the brother vs. brother feud. Miz by far got the best reaction of the six. Pretty much the match you’d expect with guys in and out of the ring with a couple of highspots thrown in. Carlito and Primo showed nothing to suggest they were brothers who had a problem with each other. Surely they should have just been beating each other up? MVP hit Swagger with the Playmaker but at the same time as Miz hit MVP with his finisher (the name totally escapes me). Carlito and Primo worked together again before Carlito hit him with the backstabber. Kofi hit Carlito with Trouble in Paradise and got the pinfall to retain the title. An ok match.

- Randy Orton promo backstage. He said he’d count on the ego of Triple H and John Cena to cancel each other out and help him to win.

- Michelle McCool (C) vs. Melina for the Women’s Title is up next. The goal here is simple: Don’t suck as much as Jenna Morasca vs. Sharmell did last week at TNA Victory Road. McCool dropkicked Melina off the ring apron as she made her entrance. That already makes this better than the Jenna/Sharmell match. Good spot on the outside where both were on the guardrail and McCool hit a DDT. Melina’s screaming fucking grates on me. JR called it a ‘Sharapova scream’ although when Sharapova screams I have no urge to throw the remote control towards the television. As a heel, it works. As a babyface, its beyond annoying. Match was ok but had no crowd heat. After a series of near falls, McCool retained the title with a cradle of sorts that basically saw Melina bent in half with McCool laid on top of her.

- Randy Orton (C) vs. John Cena vs. Triple H for the WWE title is up next. Mixed reaction for Cena, biggest pop of the night so far for Triple H. Cena and HHH teamed up early on until Orton pushed Cena off the apron on to HHH on the outside. Cena went for an FU on Orton but HHH blocked it and sent Cena to the outside. Orton and HHH went at it with HHH blocking an RKO then hitting a DDT. Cena hit a legdrop on them both from the top rope which, well, appeared to pretty much miss them both. Orton got dumped to the outside with Cena and HHH left in the ring. Not much reaction to their staredown which doesn’t bode well if this is the main event at Summerslam. Crowd firmly behind HHH when they got going though. They both reversed each other’s finisher attempts before HHH hit a spinebuster and then hit the pedigree only for Orton to break up the count.

They went to the outside with HHH looking to hit the Pedigree on Orton on a table. Cena blocked that then locked in the STF on HHH on the table after Orton was tossed into the crowd. The match eventually got back into the ring with Orton going for an RKO on Cena, who blocked it and threw Orton away. Cena blocked a pedigree attempt and slingshotted Hunter into the turnbuckle and into Randy Orton. Cena locked in the STF on HHH. Orton tried to punt them while the move was on but missed it. HHH locked in the sharpshooter on Orton, then Cena locked in the STF on Orton while Hunter still had his submission locked in. Orton tapped out and the referee had no idea on what to do. Legacy then hit the ring and made the save for Orton (the match was announced as no DQ). Cena then got Cody Rhodes up for the FU but while he was still on his shoulders, Orton hit an RKO on Cena. He made the cover and got the 3-count, so him tapping out apparently didn’t matter since the referee couldn’t make a decision. Winner and still WWE champion: Randy Orton.

Good match overall. I guess they decided to put this on earlier in the card since Orton was going over.

- Backstage with The Miz and Maryse. Miz said Maryse is a tease and blew her off, saying she’s had her chance.

- Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler plugged Shaquille O’Neal as the guest host of Raw tomorrow night.

- Maryse (C) vs. Mickie James for the Diva’s Title is up next. Not particularly good at all and bad in places. I like both Maryse and Mickie but I just couldn’t get into this at all and there was zero crowd interest which didn’t help things. The finish saw Mickie block a DDT and hit a swinging DDT of her own. She made the cover and got the win. New Diva’s champion and a pop for the finish. WWE need to keep Maryse in shorter matches as she looked way out of her depth here.

- Backstage, Josh Matthews interviewed Legacy, who said even though they didn’t win the tag titles, they helped to cement their Legacy by helping Randy Orton retain the WWE title.

- Rey Mysterio (C) vs. Dolph Ziggler for the Intercontinental Title is up next. Big opportunity for Ziggler to impress here. Not a bad match but it wasn’t the breakthrough match for Ziggler that some thought it could be. He didn’t do anything particularly wrong, it just seemed…well, a little boring in places. The crowd thought so also although to be fair to the wrestlers, this crowd has been pretty shitty for most of the night ever since they found out Big Show was teaming with Jericho. Dolph dominated spells of the match here. The finish saw Ziggler hit Mysterio with a gutbuster from the top rope before Mysterio fought back and hit the 619 followed by a splash for the win. An ok match but not Ziggler’s best. Hopefully WWE won’t lose faith and abort the push as the guy clearly does have the potential to move up.

- CM Punk (C) vs. Jeff Hardy for the World Heavyweight Championship is up next. The bell rang to start the match at 10.38pm EST, so you know its not lasting long. If they were running late, why not just cut out the video package before the match? In the time they did have, they had a good match. Punk missed a dive to the outside. Hardy missed with a dive from the top rope to the outside and landed on the guardrail. Punk was happy to win by countout but Jeff got back in the ring just in time. Hardy was put in a Bow and Arrow as the crowd responded probably better than they had for anything else on the show. They went back and forth before Jeff hit Whisper in the Wind. He went to the top but missed with the Swanton. Punk locked in a dragon sleeper but Hardy got to the ropes. Punk landed some strikes but Hardy hit a Twist of Fate out of nowhere. He went for the Swanton but Punk got his knees up.

Hardy went for a Twist of Fate but Punk countered into the GTS, only for Hardy to kick out on two. Punk went from cocky and confident to frustrated and grabbed his title and went to walk to the back. Jeff caught him on the ramp and they went back to the ring. He hit a Twist of Fate and nailed the Swanton. 1, 2, 3 and we have a new champion – Jeff Hardy.

This could mean Jeff has signed a new deal. I guess we’ll find out next week for sure but it may be that he’s agreed to stay on until Summerslam. Time will tell!

Thanks for joining us for our live coverage tonight here at iFight365.com.

Phil Lowe
phil@ifight365.com