HISTORY OF NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS

Night of Champions is a pay-per-view event consisting of a main event and undercard that feature championship matches and other various matches. The first event was produced as a pay-per-view event for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), the former name of WWE. The inaugural event took place on December 9, 2001 at the San Diego Sports Arena in San Diego, California and aired live on PPV. In 2002, WWF was court ordered to change their name, which resulted in the promotion changing its name to WWE.[4] Earlier in the year, WWF held a draft that split its roster into two distinctive brands of wrestling, Raw and SmackDown,[5] and the ECW brand was added in 2006.[6] Before the draft, matches featured wrestlers from the roster without any limitations; after the draft, matches only consisted of wrestlers from their distinctive brands. The first Vengeance event to be produced under the WWE banner and with roster limitations was Vengeance (2002), which took place on July 21, 2002. The following year, WWE announced that PPV events, excluding WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, and the Royal Rumble, would be made exclusive to each brand; Vengeance was made exclusive to the Smackdown! brand in 2003 and in 2004 was made exclusive to the Raw brand. After three years of being produced as a brand exclusive event, Vengeance (2006) was the final Vengeance event that was brand exclusive, as WWE announced that PPV events from April 2007 onwards would feature all three brands of WWE.[7]