Predicting the match order at Night of Champions 2023

It’s one thing to predict the winners and losers at Night of Champions 2023, but how about taking a guess at the match order for the event?

Night of Champions takes place today (Sat., May 27) from the Jeddah Super Dome in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It begins at 12 pm ET with the Kickoff show leading right on into the main course at 1 pm ET on Peacock in the U.S., WWE Network everywhere else, or your local cable pay-per-view provider.

WWE has announced seven different segments for the main card of this event. Here is my subjective view of how important each of these seven segments rank, ordered from most important to least important.

1. Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn vs. Roman Reigns & Solo Sikoa
2. AJ Styles vs. Seth Rollins
3. Cody Rhodes vs. Brock Lesnar
4. Becky Lynch vs. Trish Stratus
5. Bianca Belair vs. Asuka
6. GUNTHER vs. Mustafa Ali
7. Rhea Ripley vs. Natalya

Main event

WWE is advertising a TRIPLE MAIN EVENT for this card, where almost all of the men’s matches come with the main event label, and none of the women’s matches do.

That’s all well and good for marketing purposes, but only one match can actually be the main event. And on this show, it should come down to either Rollins vs. Styles for the new World Heavyweight Championship, or Roman Reigns seeking tag team title belts on day 1000 of his reign as Universal champion.

Even though Rhodes vs. Lesnar main evented Backlash earlier this month, and at least has a small chance to do so again here, I don’t think it’s a good fit this time. A one-armed guy trying to fight Brock Lesnar doesn’t sound like a main event match. On top of that, a card called Night of Champions should have a championship match in the main event. Cody’s match would be a much bigger deal if he was the WWE Universal champion, but, you know, he lost at WrestleMania 39.

I think the decision between Rollins or Reigns for tonight’s main event comes down to whether or not WWE is booking Roman to win. If the guy who has already been holding onto championship gold for 1000 days is going to win another belt, I bet WWE puts it on last. Otherwise, the crowning of the inaugural world heavyweight champion will get that spot.

A lot of wrestling fans already have the perception that the new world heavyweight championship is a secondary belt or consolation prize, as it was created because nobody in WWE is good enough to beat part-timer Reigns. The quickest way WWE can validate that criticism is by not putting Rollins vs. Styles in today’s main event. If the match to become the first holder of the new world title isn’t a big enough deal to warrant the main event spot, that pretty much tells you all you need to know about where that belt ranks in the grand scheme of things.

I happen to think Roman wins in Saudi Arabia, so I’m putting him in the main event.

That gives me the following card:

Segment 1:
Segment 2:
Segment 3:
Segment 4:
Segment 5:
Segment 6:
Segment 7: Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn vs. Roman Reigns & Solo Sikoa

Opening match

Does Brock Lesnar have enough stroke to book himself in the opening match again if he’s not in the main event, so that he can get out of Saudi Arabia as soon as possible? He probably does, which means he could very well open this card just like he’s done multiple times before on these Saudi Arabia cards.

If not Brock, I could see merit to the rumor that WWE is considering putting the World Heavyweight Championship tournament final in the opening spot. It’s typically a coveted spot on any PPV card for the non-main event wrestlers.

I’ll come back to this decision later between these two matches for the opener.

Women’s matches

WWE rarely ever books consecutive women’s matches on PPV. In order to fill out a seven match card with a men’s main event, a men’s opener, three women’s matches, and no consecutive women’s matches, that means the three women’s matches have to go in Segment 2, Segment 4, and Segment 6.

Right away I’m putting Ripley in Segment 2. That’s a common spot for the least important match of the night, so it’s an easy choice.

It’s harder to choose between Belair and Lynch for the other two spots. This card is called Night of Champions, so I don’t think it’s a good idea to put a non-title match between Lynch and Stratus later in the night than both women’s title matches. Therefore I’ll put Belair in Segment 6 and Lynch in Segment 4.

That gives me the following card:

Segment 1: AJ Styles vs. Seth Rollins OR Cody Rhodes vs. Brock Lesnar
Segment 2: Rhea Ripley vs. Natalya
Segment 3:
Segment 4: Becky Lynch vs. Trish Stratus
Segment 5:
Segment 6: Bianca Belair vs. Asuka
Segment 7: Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn vs. Roman Reigns & Solo Sikoa

Everything else

GUNTHER’s match is an easy pick for Segment 3. It’s one of the least important matches of the night and should go early.

The only decision left to make is choosing between Segment 1 and Segment 5 for Styles vs. Rollins and Rhodes vs. Lesnar. It looks like this card as I’ve constructed it needs a longer match in the early going, so Styles vs. Rollins is a better fit than Rhodes vs. Lesnar for the opening match. Sorry Brock, maybe you can go home early next time.

Finalized card

So here is my final prediction for the match order at Night of Champions, along with guesses on the bell-to-bell match times:

Segment 1: AJ Styles vs. Seth Rollins (21 minutes)
Segment 2: Rhea Ripley vs. Natalya (9)
Segment 3: GUNTHER vs. Mustafa Ali (8)
Segment 4: Becky Lynch vs. Trish Stratus (12)
Segment 5: Cody Rhodes vs. Brock Lesnar (10)
Segment 6: Bianca Belair vs. Asuka (15)
Segment 7: Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn vs. Roman Reigns & Solo Sikoa (24)

That’s my prediction for the match order at Night of Champions. What’s yours?