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Follow @TheDocLOP QUESTION OF THE DAY: Forced to choose a Wrestler of the Year with another quarter of 2015 still to come, who would you pick? The following is a case study of WWE’s product for the month of September 2015. Wrestler of the Month: Seth Rollins Is there any other choice? When Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman have been absent, Seth Rollins has been the undisputed focus of the product. Even at times when Heyman and Lesnar are around, Rollins manages to outshine them on TV, partly because he's there all the time and partly because he's just that good. Once Lesnar was written off TV after Summerslam, Rollins returned to being the focal point and he delivered time and again on the microphone. He's developed quite nicely over the course of his title reign and I quite appreciated the quality and variability in his character reactions to his respective challengers in September. He fought a rare two front war and approached each differently. He's found a nice balance between being the coward that was established in the infancy of his title reign and the arrogant prick that fueled his run from heel turn to champion between June of last year and late March of 2015. We must credit Rollins for managing to maximize his minutes; because he gets a lot of minutes on television and PPV. If you get that many opportunities to shine and don't make the most of them, then you'll be docked for it the same as you'll get praised for doing well in those situations. Good for him. In the race for Wrestler of the Year, I'll definitely be looking closely at MOTM and WOTM awards. ¾ of the way, Cena owns the former category and Rollins the latter. Should be an interesting 4th quarter. Previous WOTM winners: Brock Lesnar (Jan), Daniel Bryan (Feb), Seth Rollins (Mar), Sheamus (Apr), Dean Ambrose (May), Kevin Owens (Jun), John Cena (Jul), and Seth Rollins (Aug) WWE Night of Champions Review In a month like this when all and sundry wrote detailed PPV reports, I'll give the bulk of my thoughts on my weekly podcast, which if you have not checked out before, I suspect you'll find to be a half hour of enjoyable listening. Before I supplement those audio thoughts with my star ratings, I'll preface that I thought it was a solid show, but that the lack of more than one standout match hinders its rewatchability for me. The opener was perfectly acceptable wrestling, with Owens winning the IC Title a highlight of the evening. When Daniel Bryan won that title earlier in the year, I suspected that the plan was for him to hold it in similar fashion as John Cena held the US Title. I'm hoping that Owens can pick up the ball that Bryan was supposed to carry and do something memorable with WWE's second most prestigious all-time championship (** ¾). Dolph Ziggler vs. Rusev followed the curtain jerker with a nice mid-card match that was a step-up from what you might see from the two of them on television (an on-going theme that I've touched on throughout the year which I deem important in this day and age of so much weekly wrestling content). I continue to be surprised by the winner between these two on PPV. I would've thought Rusev would be 2-0 instead of 0-1-1 (***). I liked the decision to leave the Tag Team Titles on The New Day and also quite enjoyed the match that led to it. Similar to the Owens-Ryback encounter, New Day vs. The Dudleys did not get enough time to tell much more than an adequate tale, but what they did accomplish was quite engaging. I appreciated the change of pace stimulated by the Dudleys, though, after several months of very aggressive mid-card show-stealing types of Tag Title bouts that left little on the table for genuinely intriguing follow-up matches. I look forward to a feud that builds to the balls-to-the-wall effort (** ¾). I fall into the camp that was truly and utterly left wanting by the Divas Championship bout. As I stated on “The Doc Says,” you cannot sacrifice entertainment for psychology. There's a fine line between selling well and over-selling and Charlotte crossed it. Her strong suit is not hobbling around, overacting a leg injury; it's showcasing her unmatched athleticism in her division. A right time and place comes for the kind of match that they wrestled, but it wasn't two months into a Revolution that still feels out of place on Monday and Sunday and is better suited for Wednesdays. I'd call Night of Champions a missed opportunity for Charlotte and Nikki Bella to prove that they could steal the show (* ½). The Wyatt Family vs. Reigns, Ambrose, and Jericho carried into it a similar vibe for me as the Ziggler vs. Rusev match, in that neither pre-Night of Champions storyline was holding my attention. If I'm to follow the Samuel 'Plan formula of judging something for what it is rather than what I hoped it would be, though, then I admittedly thought that the 6-man tag was really good. The luster of Jericho being a surprised is gone for yours truly, but you can always count on Y2J to hold up his end of a better-than-average (at least) outing. I liked that he took the fall. I continue to hope, though, that there's something juicier to this plot and that promos from the babyfaces will be more in-depth than “I'll beat you up” because, without that emotional hook for me, these are just solid exhibition matches; and wrestling is decidedly about the combination of what happens in the ring and with what happens to make you care about it (*** ¼). Seth Rollins pulling double duty was the main reason to invest time in this show and I thought he delivered in spades. The match with Cena, as I'll discuss in greater detail later, was the best match of the night and one of my favorites of the year. I've always been a proponent of the idea that it's very difficult to have a four-star match in a quarter hour; I don't believe it has happened more than a couple of handfuls of times in the WrestleMania Era. In order to achieve the feat, so much has to go right and you have to walk away from the story feeling like you've been told a complete tale. Rollins vs. Cena was one of those rare matches (**** ¼). I appreciated that the end of the Cena match segued into the World Heavyweight Championship defense against Sting, as it heightened the titleholder's vulnerability. I've read a lot of disparaging remarks about the Rollins vs. Sting encounter and I must say that I wholeheartedly disagree with them. Had the injury – the driving force behind the naysaying – occurred mid-way through instead of at the climax, then I'd understand the jeers. However, Sting had worked so hard and connected so well on all the intricacies during the first 12-minutes that the injury occurring during the last two minutes did little to take away from the overall presentation. It fit within the story that Sting would struggle to finish. I give him credit for enduring as he did and executing a well-performed final sequence. That was a strong effort from champ and challenger (*** ¼). "The Doc Says" podcast can be found on iTunes or by clicking here for the latest episode of my special All-Time WWE PPV Countdown with Mizfan (of Global Impact: The Revolution). It will be available Sunday at 2PM ET
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