Listen, I understand that Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton, Jade Cargill, and Asuka are all working tomorrow and I wasn’t expecting any of them to wrestle tonight. I just wish there was like … something interesting we were doing with these matchups, instead of just sending everyone out for these lame babyface vs. babyface promo segments with no teeth and zero heat.

While Rhodes vs. Orton and Cargill vs. Asuka are obviously two very different cases, there’s actual history between both sets of opponents that they could be tapping into, and they’re just … not, really. Granted, the history between Cargill and Asuka involves both women having tag partners, but aside from Bianca Belair and Naomi, that’s about good as it gets with someone as relatively new as Cargill. Asuka was involved in Cargill’s first WWE match after her Royal Rumble debut, losing to her (as well as Belair and Naomi) at WrestleMania 40 alongside Kairi Sane and Dakota Kai; Asuka and Sane would then lose the women’s tag titles to Cargill and Belair, effectively service as the launching point for whatever initial success Cargill has had. There’s a story in there somewhere (Cargill is undefeated against Asuka, if nothing else) but for some reason it’s not being told. Instead, Asuka just came out for a promo segment with Cargill and did her traditional promo segment bits that the crowd remembers and loves, just to ensure Cargill will be booed when she wins on Saturday. Tremendous work, WWE.

As for Rhodes and Orton, there’s no need to explain the history there, and there’s certainly no room. This will be the 13^th televised singles match between the two, but the first in almost 12 years; they’ve tagged together four times since Rhodes came back to WWE in 2022, but they’ve never been on opposing sides. It’s a match fans have been waiting a long time to see, primarily due to the potential for a fascinating, psychological, textually rich feud. Instead, WWE is blowing this match on the King of the Ring finals, where there’s no time for any such thing. In this week’s jankily broadcast opening promo segment, Orton isn’t concerned with the history between he and Rhodes — he wants redemption for losing in King of the Ring last year, and he wants revenge on John Cena that would presumably come with the SummerSlam title match. Rhodes basically says “Yeah, well, I’m going to win anyway,” and then the segment is over. So Orton doesn’t really care at all about beating Rhodes, specifically, and Rhodes has essentially gotten zero promo time during this entire build and hasn’t had anything interesting to say when given the chance, so… who cares?

Again, I’m not saying I wanted these people wrestling tonight. But if this is all you’ve got, give them the night off and run a video package or something, because these promo segments are just actively harming my interest in Night of Champions.

Written by Miles Schneiderman