Triple H declared that CM Punk had took his feud with him personal when he went after his family. Because of that, he said he doesn’t want to beat Punk; he wants to hurt him.
For that reason, Triple H announced that the match between the two at Night of Champions will be No Disqualification.
Punk said he would accept this new stipulation, but only if Triple H agreed to resign as Chief Operating Officer should he lose the match, which Triple H agreed.
This came after Punk defeated R Truth, having to deal with him and The Miz.
Punk looked to take control with a superplex, a running knee in the corner and a bulldog, but Truth countered the Go To Sleep with a face buster.Punk dodged Truth’s scissors kick and kicked Miz away when he tried to trip him up. Miz tried going after Punk, only to be ejected by the referee. Truth tried to get Punk from behind as this happened, but Punk recovered and hit the GTS for the win.
On the same night, Triple H did what some considered unthinkable and fired longtime friend Kevin Nash, despite Nash’s earlier threat that he had a guaranteed contract. Triple H revealed security camera footage from SummerSlam revealing that Nash had set up the whole attack on Punk himself, having sent the text message himself from Triple H’s phone. This announcement came after Nash confronted Punk again and declared WWE wasn’t big enough for the two of them.
While Triple H has his own issues, it was SmackDown General Manager Theodore Long who made the match of the night, putting John Cena, Sheamus, John Morrison and Alex Riley against Christian, Wade Barrett, Jack Swagger and Dolph Ziggler.in an eight man elimination tag team match.
Morrisson was the first to go, though it took two men to do it — Ziggler’s sleeper hold and Swagger’s ankle lock to make him tap out. Swagger then made Riley tap to the ankle lock after hitting the Swagger Bomb. After a long battle with each other, Sheamus took out Barrett with the Brogue Kick. But when Christian slapped Sheamus in the face, Sheamus chased him out of the run and nearly out of the arena, getting them both counted out. That left Cena against Swagger and Ziggler.
Cena actually got both men with side slams and followed with a double five knuckle shuffle, but Swagger got Cena and hit the Swagger Bomb. But Ziggler then tagged himself in, and Cena quickly beat him with the Attitude Adjuster. Swagger went for the ankle lock, but Cena countered it into the STF to finish off the match.
After the match, Alberto Del Rio tried to surprise Cena, but Cena got the WWE Champion with another AA and chased his Night of Champions opponent from the ring.
Natalya and Beth Phoenix continued there mission against the other Divas, as Phoenix beat Eve to become the number one contender for Kelly Kelly’s Divas Championship.
Beth showed how aggressive she could be, throwing Eve into the ring post and then snapping her arm against it. Eve tried fighting back with a modified Rolling Thunder, but Beth ducked her spinning kick and quickly went to the Glam Slam for the win.
The fan-proclaimed “Air Boom” had one of their biggest challenges to date, as Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne took on The Great Khali and Jinder Majal.
Majal worked on Bourne with multiple knees with Bourne down, but Bourne managed to roll away and tag in Kingston. Kingston immediately picked up the pace with his flying clotheslines and kicks, but Khali pulled down the rope to make Kofi fall out to the floor. Khali then looked to hit Kingston with a chop while Majal held him in place, but he hit Majal instead. Kingston quickly tagged in Bourne, who hit Air Bourne for the win.
Jerry Lawler has called Mike McGillicutty and David Otunga boring for weeks. Now he finally stepped out of the announcers table to face them with Zack Ryder.
Otunga and McGillicutty double-teamed Ryder in their corner for a good portion of the match. But when Otunga went after Lawler, that gave Ryder the chance to hit a modified suplex and tag in Lawler. Once Ryder cleared McGillicutty from the ring, Lawler delivered his fist from the corner rope and tagged back in a pleading Ryder, who quickly hit the RoughRider to finish off Otunga.