Night of Champions (2023)

On March 6, 2023, the American professional wrestling promotion WWE announced that the King of the Ring event would be revived and rebranded as "King and Queen of the Ring" to incorporate both the men's King of the Ring tournament and women's Queen's Crown tournament, which would also replace the previously annual Hell in a Cell event. The event was scheduled to be held on Saturday, May 27, 2023, at the Jeddah Superdome in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and feature wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown brand divisions.[1][2] On April 13, however, it was revealed that WWE scrapped these plans for the event and tournaments and that this Saudi Arabian event would instead be the 10th Night of Champions, thus reviving the Night of Champions event, which had previously been held annually from 2007 to 2015.[3] According to Mike Johnson of PWInsider, the decision to change the event to Night of Champions was a creative choice to revive and bring the event to an international market.[4] It was also reported that the change was to please business partners in Saudi Arabia and add intrigue to the show with the crowning of a new world champion.[5]

In early 2018, WWE began a 10-year strategic multiplatform partnership with the General Sports Authority in support of Saudi Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia's social and economic reform program.[6][7] The 2023 Night of Champions will be the ninth event that WWE will hold in Saudi Arabia under this partnership and subsequently the first Night of Champions to be held in the country. It will also be the first Night of Champions to be held on a Saturday.[3] This will subsequently be the first Night of Champions held following the reintroduction of the brand extension in July 2016, where WWE again split the main roster between the Raw and SmackDown brands where wrestlers were exclusively assigned to perform.[8][3] In addition to airing on traditional pay-per-view worldwide and the WWE Network in international markets, it will be the first Night of Champions to livestream on Peacock in the United States due to the American version of the WWE Network merging under Peacock in March 2021.[9][3]

The event will include matches that result from scripted storylines, where wrestlers portray heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that build tension and culminate in a wrestling match or series of matches. Results are predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands,[10][11] while storylines are produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown.[12]

On the April 24 episode of Raw, WWE Chief Content Officer Triple H unveiled the brand new World Heavyweight Championship for the brand that did not draft Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns in the 2023 WWE Draft and that the champion would be crowned at Night of Champions.[13][14][15] During the draft, Reigns was drafted to SmackDown, thus making the World Heavyweight Championship exclusive to Raw.[16] To crown the new champion, a tournament was scheduled including wrestlers from both brands with a bracket for each brand.[lower-alpha 1] The first round and semifinals for each bracket were scheduled for the May 8 and May 12 episodes of Raw and SmackDown, respectively. The first round matches for each episode consisted of two triple threat matches with the respective winners advancing to the semifinals in a singles match the same night, with those respective winners advancing to the championship match at Night of Champions.[18] The 12 tournament participants were revealed on May 7 on WWE's YouTube channel.[19] Raw's bracket was won by Seth "Freakin" Rollins,[20] while SmackDown's bracket was won by AJ Styles, thus scheduling Rollins to face Styles in the tournament final for the World Heavyweight Championship at Night of Champions.[21][13]

At Backlash, Cody Rhodes defeated Brock Lesnar.[22] On the following episode of Raw, Rhodes participated in the aforementioned tournament for the World Heavyweight Championship. During the first-round triple threat match that Rhodes competed in, Lesnar interfered and attacked Rhodes, costing him an opportunity at the title. Lesnar subsequently challenged Rhodes to another match at Night of Champions and Rhodes accepted.[20]

In the main event of Night 1 of WrestleMania 39, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn defeated The Usos (Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso) to win the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship,[23] and retained them in a rematch on the April 28 episode of SmackDown.[16] At Backlash, The Bloodline (The Usos and Solo Sikoa) competed in a six-man tag team match in which Owens and Zayn were opponents; Sikoa won the match for The Bloodline, although there was friction between Sikoa and The Usos.[22] On the following SmackDown, Bloodline leader Roman Reigns praised Sikoa, however, he expressed his disappointment in The Usos due to them losing their titles and the inability to regain them. The group's manager Paul Heyman then announced that he was able to procure another tag team championship match for The Bloodline, however, instead of The Usos, it would be Reigns and Sikoa challenging Owens and Zayn for the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship at Night of Champions.[21] This in turn marks Zayn's first Saudi Arabian event since a WWE Live tour in April 2014 due to the relations between Saudi Arabia and Syria being restored after they had been suspended amidst the Syrian conflict that broke out in March 2011, which resulted in Zayn not working at any of WWE's Saudi Arabian events since. This additionally marks Owens' first WWE Saudi Arabian event since Greatest Royal Rumble in April 2018 as he had not worked any of the other events in support of Zayn.[24]

On the May 15 episode of Raw, Mustafa Ali won a battle royal to become the number one contender for Gunther's Intercontinental Championship at Night of Champions.[25]