Night of Champions (2009)

Night of Champions (2009) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), which took place on July 26, 2009 at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was the third annual event under the Night of Champions name and the ninth annual event under the Vengeance/Night of Champions chronology. Similar to the previous two events, the concept of the show was that every championship in the company would be defended. It featured talent from the Raw, SmackDown, and ECW.

This show was considered a supercard, which featured more than one main event match. The main event matches featured were: Jeff Hardy defeating CM Punk for the World Heavyweight Championship, Randy Orton retaining the WWE Championship against Triple H and John Cena, Mickie James winning the WWE Divas Championship against Maryse, and WWE Intercontinental Champion Rey Mysterio retain his title against Dolph Ziggler. The undercard, the remaining matches on the card, featured Chris Jericho and The Big Show defending the Unified WWE Tag Team Championship against The Legacy, Tommy Dreamer versus Christian for the ECW Championship, a Six-Pack Challenge featuring WWE United States Champion Kofi Kingston, Jack Swagger, Carlito, Primo, Montel Vontavious Porter (MVP), and The Miz, and Michelle McCool wrestling Melina for the WWE Women's Championship.

Background
Night of Champions featured professional wrestling matches that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds, plots, and storylines that were played out on Raw, Friday Night SmackDown, ECW on Syfy and WWE Superstars—World Wrestling Entertainment's (WWE) television programs. Wrestlers portrayed a villain or a hero as they follow a series of events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches. All wrestlers were from WWE's Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brands—a storyline division in which WWE employees are assigned to a television program of the same name.

[ The main rivalry from SmackDown heading into Night of Champions was between CM Punk and Jeff Hardy in their conflict over the World Heavyweight Championship. One month prior to the show, at Extreme Rules, Punk invoked the guaranteed title match he earned by winning the Money in the Bank ladder match against Hardy; he defeated him, and won the World Heavyweight title. The two had constant confrontations in the following weeks over the legitimacy of Punk's reign before they met at The Bash in a match that saw Punk get disqualified for striking the referee, leading to Hardy attacking Punk for what he saw as dodging competition (a title cannot change hands on a disqualification). On the July 2 episode of Superstars it came to light that Punk had suffered a storyline eye injury. Punk's rebuttal to Hardy's accusation was that he struck the referee due to his inability to clearly see a target. To clear up any dispute on to who the rightful champion was, SmackDown General manager, Theodore Long, announced another match between the two at Night of Champions, which was accepted by both competitors.

The main rivalry from the Raw brand is between John Cena, Triple H, and Randy Orton. Orton was without a contender for the WWE Championship, so on the June 29th episode of Raw, it was announced by the special guest host of the week, as well as onscreen, Batista, that the title would be defended at Night of Champions against the winner of a single-elimination tournament. The semifinals commenced that night with Triple H defeating Montel Vontavious Porter (MVP) and John Cena defeating The Miz (Mike Mizanin). Triple H and Cena faced each other on the following week's episode of Raw, only to see Orton's protégés, Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase, interfere in the match and attack both men. As a result, it was announced Orton would defend the title against both Triple H and Cena in a triple threat match at Night of Champions.

After winning the ECW Championship at Extreme Rules,Tommy Dreamer had been involved in a scripted rivalry with perennial ally, rival, and former ECW Champion, Christian (William Reso). The former champion was given a chance to get back into the title picture by having a match with Vladimir Kozlov (Oleg Prudius) to determine the number one contender. On the July 9 episode of ECW on Syfy, Christian won the match, thus advancing to Night of Champions to challenge Dreamer.

Edge and Chris Jericho had won the Unified WWE Tag Team Championship at The Bash in a triple threat tag team match from incumbent champions, The Colóns, and Rhodes and DiBiase (collectively known as The Legacy). Two weeks following the event on the July 6 episode of Raw, the special guest host for the night, Ted DiBiase (Sr.), announced that The Legacy would challenge Edge and Jericho for the titles. In the coming week on Raw, it came to light that Edge had legitimately torn his Achilles tendon, which required surgery, as well as sidelining Edge for a projected several months. It was announced on the next week's episode of Raw, Jericho had a storyline contractual loophole, which allowed him to choose a new partner to hold the titles with him if Edge were to be injured, thus allowing him to defend the titles at Night of Champions.

Following a defense of the WWE Intercontinental Championship on the July 10 episode of Friday Night SmackDown, Rey Mysterio was attacked by Dolph Ziggler (Nick Nemeth). The following week on WWE Superstars, Mysterio and Ziggler had a verbal confrontation over what transpired, leading to the announcement of Mysterio defending the Intercontinental title against Ziggler at the pay-per-view.

Pre-show
Prior to the show airing live on pay per view, the fans in attendance were shown an untelevised match tag team match pitting Shad Gaspard and JTG (collectively known as Cryme Tyme) against Tyson Kidd (T.J. Wilson) and David Hart Smith (Harry Smith) with Natalya (Natalie Neidhart) in their corner (the three are known as the Hart Dynasty); Gaspard scored his team the victory, pinning Kidd to the mat following a clothesline and back heel trip combination.

Preliminary matches
The show commenced with Chris Jericho and his mystery partner defending the Unified WWE Tag Team titles against Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes. It was revealed his partner was The Big Show (Paul Wight), who started the match taking advantage of his size on his opponents before tagging in his partner, who was double-teamed by the challengers. The match ended when Jericho caught DiBiase with his signature knees to the face dubbed the Codebreaker, which led to The Big Show placing himself over his downed opponent to sit on his back, applying a chinlock, causing DiBiase to submit to retain the titles.

Following was Tommy Dreamer defending the ECW Championship against Christian. The match was fought at a quick pace with both men being able to counter the other's attempt at offense. The action made its way out of the arena and to the floor of the arena as Christian threw the champion into the announcer's table. He made his way back into the ring in an attempt to dive onto Dreamer, who managed to dodge his opponent, who made his way onto the edge of the ring to execute flip dive known as the senton bomb onto his prone opponent on the floor. Once both competitor returned to the ring, they continued to counter each other's moves until Dreamer grabbed the challenger by the head in an attempt to drop him with a DDT, only to have Christian spin his way out to grab Dreamer's arms, and spin him behind his back before driving him on his face with a move called the Killswitch to pin his opponent and win his second ECW Championship.