WWE kicked off today's (Sat., May 27, 2023) Night of Champions Premium Live Event from the Jeddah Super Dome in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia with the Final of the World Heavyweight Championship Tournament, as Seth Rollins and AJ Styles came together to decide who will carry the torch on Monday Night Raw each week. This was the first of what the company billed as a triple main event.
Not surprisingly, especially considering the interviews he did with Corey Graves leading up to this, it was Rollins who emerged victorious, taking the title presented to him by Triple H himself to hoist it in the air.
The two traded blows early on:
They worked their way up from there, digging deeper and deeper into their bag of tricks to try to get one up on each other. It was every bit an even match-up of two top stars.
Rollins appeared to tweak his knee on a dive to the outside, so Styles focused there with a calf crusher. But Seth worked his way out of that too, and they went right back to exchanging offense.
AJ just couldn't get the Styles Clash off, so he instead went with a Pedigree. Two count. A Phenomenal Forearm was countered with a superkick but when Rollins went for the Stomp, he couldn't follow through with the bum knee.
Then he hit the Pedigree, and was apparently okay enough seconds later to hit the Stomp anyway to get the pinfall to win the match. Weird break in logic in the finish aside, it was a strong match to start a new era for the red brand.
Get complete Night of Champions results and coverage of every match on the card right here.