WWE Night of Champions Main Event Breakdown: CM Punk and John Cena turn back the clock

Peter Klein

John Cena is still the champ, CM Punk still hates Seth Rollins, and the WWE Night of Champions was still a weird night.  Peter Klein breaks down the Main Event from WWE Night of Champions and all that went into it, what he liked, what he didn't like, and where things go from here.    #WWENOC #WWE #WrestlingAnalysis #CenaVsPunk    🎧 Listen on: Apple https://apple.co/49NGm2L | Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/3QgazeHcSKSteZbBIubcuM?si=icY7NEBvT7yZadv_JFlT6Q  💬 Follow for live breakdowns: X.com/primetimepk | Twitch.tv/primetimepk  | Kick.com/primetimepk  🔗 Support the Show:   - Tip Jar: https://streamelements.com/couchpotatodiary/tip (fuels more content!)   - Partners: C of Dead http://cofdead403.ca/ | Swift Energy https://www.swiftenergy.gg/?ref=mriusnqm PROMO CODE: PKPrimetime for 25% Off!

Transcript

00:00So, yes, a reminder, Living Room Lariats, the new wrestling brand from Couch Potato Diary,

00:28we're still going to have wrestling breakdowns on the flagship Couch Potato Diary,

00:32but if you just want wrestling, Living Room Lariats is going to be the place to be working on getting in on other platforms,

00:37but right now, it is a Spotify exclusive.

00:40So, WWE Night of Champions.

00:43We may as well focus on the big championship belt at the end with CM Punk taking on John Cena.

00:52Firstly, I think you could make the undisputed belt an actual undisputed belt,

00:56but we will get into that later. That is a discussion again for another Living Room Lariats.

01:00Punk seemed genuinely surprised that the crowd was with him on this one.

01:05It felt like there was a lot during the build-up that might turn this crowd on him,

01:09but I think that for that crowd, Punk handled things very well

01:14and tried to do damage control as best as he could at the kind of kickoff event that they had out in Saudi on Friday.

01:20The John Cena sucks chants were loud, but they definitely faded as the entrance went on.

01:27This match didn't really hit the level of their past matches at all,

01:32but it was far better than I expected.

01:35This is easily the best match John Cena has had in this 2025 retirement tour.

01:40You play a bunch of the hits the way that you would expect them to,

01:44and you have some shenanigans toward the end,

01:47but even the part where you don't have the shenanigans,

01:49I thought this match was quite good.

01:51You then, you get into all the craziness,

01:54where Rollins comes out with Bronson Reed and with Braun Breaker

01:58and everything happening with those guys.

01:59They come out and attack CM Punk.

02:01Rollins looking for something,

02:03and then Charles Robinson comes sprinting down with another callback to WrestleMania 24,

02:09I believe it was,

02:10and instead of him sliding into the ring,

02:12John Cena hits the old alpha male Monty Brown pounce on that guy,

02:17and he goes flying away.

02:19And then it's where it gets a little convoluted,

02:22where Cena comes into the ring,

02:24and Rollins says,

02:25this has nothing to do with you.

02:27Which, look, I get like Rollins' whole big thing

02:32is that he wants to be in complete control

02:37and everything like that,

02:38and so it is all bigger than wrestling,

02:40but you have the Money in the Bank briefcase in your hand.

02:44You called for a ref to come down to the ring.

02:47John Cena is the only champion in the building at that point.

02:52How does it not have anything to do with him?

02:54And so that, it is, I want to get behind Seth Rollins so much,

02:59but there was always all these times where it just,

03:01it's this whole, it is bigger than me,

03:03it's bigger than wrestling and all this stuff,

03:05and I get annoyed by it at times,

03:08but this one, it just seemed at another level,

03:10where it's, oh, this is not about you.

03:11How is it not?

03:12It is literally almost entirely about him.

03:14He's the champion you would be cashing in on.

03:16Are you cashing in your Money in the Bank briefcase

03:18to make sure that Punk doesn't win the championship?

03:21Because that seems weird.

03:22Like, well, I pinned him, and so the match is over.

03:25So I'm not the champion, but neither is he.

03:26And so, mission accomplished.

03:28Obviously, that's not what's happening here.

03:29So that just, that felt like a real, like,

03:31ugh, type of a moment that just added to a little bit of the craziness.

03:35And then you get the WrestleMania 40 type of a finish, right?

03:39Where you have Penta comes out, and he takes care of one guy.

03:42Sami comes out, takes care of another guy.

03:44Um, and then it is just these two left.

03:47Um, and, uh, you have Cena hit the AA onto Bronson Reed as well.

03:52And so it's starting to feel like, hey, maybe babyface, whatever.

03:55You wipe it away with the look from John Cena again.

04:00Um, I thought you were able to kind of turn that away.

04:03It did feel like, again, we are telling a bit of a story

04:05that some of the babyface tendencies are starting to creep back in

04:09with John Cena a little bit here.

04:10But, you are able to erase it at the end, um, with all of that.

04:16And then the finish, picking up the win, over CM Punk.

04:20It, um, there are some parts of this that worked,

04:23and there are some parts of it that didn't.

04:24And some parts of it where you can understand, again, the motivations,

04:27and some parts where you couldn't.

04:29As far as the match goes, Cena, he still gets to be a heel,

04:33and he is still the champion.

04:34Uh, Toxic in the chat saying,

04:36Cena is washed as a wrestler, LOL.

04:39Yes. Yes, he is.

04:40This was, this was the best match he has had,

04:43and it is, quite frankly, I think the best that you thought

04:45you would be able to get out of him.

04:47So, kudos to them for being able to do that.

04:50But, um, yeah, it is not pretty.

04:53And you're going to need a lot of these bells and whistles to get it done.

04:55I think a huge credit to Punk for being able to get that type of a match

04:59out of, um, out of John Cena as well.

05:02But even that, like, it wasn't like it was this Matt Classic.

05:04The reason it got to the levels that it kind of got to was it was just finisher

05:09after finisher after finisher after finisher after finisher after finisher.

05:11And we're kicking out of, like, five different finishers that all these guys have.

05:14And it was kind of like the first match of the night.

05:16They did that with Randy Orton and Cody Rhodes,

05:18and that feels like what this crowd kind of wanted.

05:21Um, so, you are able to get the most out of it.

05:25But yes, no, this is, we are not going to look back on this retirement tour

05:28as some of the greatest work of John Cena's in-ring career.

05:31That is for certain.

05:32Even by his standards, that is for certain.

05:34Um, you do get Rollins able to cost CM Punk the title.

05:37So there is that.

05:38But that felt like almost a bit of an accident, um,

05:41the way that that all played out.

05:42So I'm interested to see what the follow-up is for that coming up on Monday Night Raw.

05:46But, um, overall, the Rollins thing where it's the whole it's not about you,

05:52that just, it turned me off in a way that it shouldn't.

05:54And I think it is just specifically because I'm not a fan of that performer

05:58and that character that I just, it, it just, it irked me.

06:02I'm, I'm, honestly, if I'm to put biases on the table,

06:05I'm probably looking for ways for that character to irk me.

06:08And then he gave it to me and I couldn't get unirked.

06:10But I, I do still think, like, overall,

06:13you have a few stories you can tell coming out of this.

06:16It is an easy transition of Punk away from John Cena

06:19and into some kind of a Seth Rollins thing for SummerSlam, um, and, and all of that.

06:26So I think that there is a lot that you can do coming out of it.

06:29It was just a couple of the details that I didn't necessarily love.

06:32Overall, this show was okay.

06:34Some of the matches were great.

06:35This crowd was strange.

06:37Um, it was really quiet for stretches.

06:39And I don't know if there was just something going on,

06:41but they felt they had to make the crowds quieter

06:44or if there was a technical problem or what was happening.

06:46But it was quiet during a lot of these stretches.

06:50And you would get big pops for big moves and stuff like that.

06:53But aside from that, this crowd was there to pop for a couple of entrances

06:56and then pop for some big moments.

06:58And that was it.

06:59Uh, when the heels were going, there was no booing.

07:02There was nothing negative.

07:03It was just silence for a lot of stretches.

07:05And it felt like it took away from a lot of the matches at, uh, this particular show.

07:10So there are some interesting stories that can come out of it.

07:14And we will get into those at a later time.

07:18And we will get into those at a later time.

07:18OK.

07:22There are some more precipitation.

07:23Let's go!

07:24Let's go!

07:25This is time.

07:26Let's go!

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