The 2023 Night of Champions () was a professional wrestling premium live event (PLE) produced by the American company WWE, held for wrestlers from the promotion's main roster brands, Raw and SmackDown. It was the 10th Night of Champions and took place on Saturday, May 27, 2023, at the Jeddah Super Dome in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and aired live at 8:00 p.m. Arabia Standard Time (1:00 p.m. Eastern Time). The original concept of Night of Champions (2007–2015) was that every main roster championship was contested. This theme was not retained for the 2023 event and instead celebrated the crowning of a new World Heavyweight Champion for Raw and also marked the 1,000th day for Roman Reigns as SmackDown's Universal Champion.

This was the first Night of Champions held since 2015, and also the first Night of Champions to take place on a Saturday and the first held in Saudi Arabia, subsequently making it the ninth event that WWE held in the country under a 10-year partnership in support of Saudi Vision 2030. The event was originally announced to be held as a PLE titled "King and Queen of the Ring", which would have reinstated the King of the Ring event series but with a rebranding, however, WWE decided to instead reinstate Night of Champions; King and Queen of the Ring would get rescheduled for 2024 at the same venue. This was in turn the first Night of Champions held following the reintroduction of the brand split in July 2016, which made it the first Night of Champions since 2010 to feature multiple brands during a brand split. It was also the first Night of Champions to livestream on Peacock in the United States, Disney+ Hotstar in Indonesia, Disney+ in the Philippines, and Binge in Australia. The PLE also replaced the previously annual Hell in a Cell event. This was also the first Night of Champions to be branded as a "premium live event", a term the company introduced at the start of 2022 to refer to its events airing on traditional pay-per-view and via WWE's livestreaming platforms. A Night of Champions was not held in 2024, but it returned in 2025.

Seven matches were contested at the event, five of which were championship matches. In the main event, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn defeated The Bloodline (Roman Reigns and Solo Sikoa) to retain the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship. This was one of three matches promoted as part of a triple main event, the other two were a match between Cody Rhodes and Brock Lesnar, which Lesnar won via technical submission, and the match for the aforementioned World Heavyweight Championship, which was the opening bout and saw Raw's Seth "Freakin" Rollins defeat SmackDown's AJ Styles to become the inaugural champion. In another prominent match, Asuka defeated Bianca Belair to win the Raw Women's Championship, ending Belair's record-setting title reign at 420 days. As a result of the 2023 WWE Draft that occurred before the event in April, this was contested as the women's championship of SmackDown with Raw having the SmackDown Women's Championship. This would be the last event for the women's championships to carry a brand name, as two weeks after the event, the Raw and SmackDown women's championships were renamed as the WWE Women's Championship and Women's World Championship, respectively.

The event received mostly positive reviews from critics and fans. The Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship match and the ending that followed were deemed highlights of the night. Praise was also given to the World Heavyweight Championship match.

Production Background

On March 6, 2023, the American professional wrestling promotion WWE announced that the King of the Ring event would be reinstated and rebranded as "King and Queen of the Ring" to incorporate both the men's King of the Ring tournament and women's Queen's Crown tournament, renamed as Queen of the Ring, which would also replace the previously annual Hell in a Cell event. The event was scheduled to be held on Saturday, May 27, 2023, at the Jeddah Superdome in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and feature wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. On April 13, however, it was revealed that WWE scrapped these plans and that this Saudi Arabian event would instead be the 10th Night of Champions, thus reinstating the Night of Champions event, which had previously been held annually from 2007 to 2015, in turn marking the first Night of Champions since 2015. According to Mike Johnson of PWInsider, the decision to change the event to Night of Champions was a creative choice to revive and bring the event to an international market. It was also reported that the change was to please business partners in Saudi Arabia and add intrigue to the show with the crowning of a new world champion. The King and Queen of the Ring event would be rescheduled for the same venue in May 2024.

In early 2018, WWE began a 10-year strategic multiplatform partnership with the Ministry of Sport in support of Saudi Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia's social and economic reform program. The 2023 Night of Champions was the ninth event that WWE held in Saudi Arabia under this partnership and subsequently the first Night of Champions to be held in the country. It was also the first Night of Champions to be held on a Saturday. This was subsequently the first Night of Champions held following the reintroduction of the brand extension in July 2016, where WWE again split the main roster between the Raw and SmackDown brands where wrestlers were exclusively assigned to perform, which made it the first Night of Champions since 2010 to feature multiple brands during a brand split. This was also the first Night of Champions to be branded as a "premium live event" (PLE), a term the company introduced on January 1, 2022, to refer to its events that are available on pay-per-view (PPV) and via livestreaming.

The original theme of Night of Champions from 2007 to 2015 was that every main roster championship was to be contested. This theme was not retained for the 2023 event, as SmackDown's Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, SmackDown's United States Championship, and the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship, which was available to both brands, were not contested. However, five of the event's seven matches were championship matches. The event also marked the 1,000th day for Roman Reigns as Universal Champion. He won the title at Payback on August 30, 2020, and later won the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 38 in April 2022 to become the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion.

Broadcast outlets The PLE was broadcast on traditional PPV outlets worldwide. It was also available to livestream on Peacock in the United States, Disney+ Hotstar in Indonesia, Disney+ in the Philippines, Binge in Australia, and the WWE Network everywhere else. This marked the first Night of Champions to air on Peacock, Disney+ Hotstar, Disney+, and Binge, after those country's respective versions of the WWE Network merged under those services in April 2021, January 2022, November 2022, and January 2023, respectively. With the event being held in Saudi Arabia, it aired live at 8:00 p.m. Arabia Standard Time (1:00 p.m. Eastern Time).

Storylines The event included seven matches that resulted from scripted storylines. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands, while storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown.

On the April 24 episode of Raw, WWE Chief Content Officer Paul "Triple H" Levesque unveiled a new World Heavyweight Championship for the brand that did not draft Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns in the 2023 WWE Draft and that the inaugural champion would be crowned at Night of Champions. During the draft, Reigns was drafted to SmackDown, thus making the World Heavyweight Championship exclusive to Raw. To crown the new champion, a tournament was scheduled including wrestlers from both brands with a bracket for each brand. The first round and semifinals for each bracket were scheduled for the May 8 and May 12 episodes of Raw and SmackDown, respectively. The first round matches for each episode consisted of two triple threat matches with the respective winners advancing to the semifinals in a singles match the same night, with those respective winners advancing to the championship match at Night of Champions. The 12 tournament participants were revealed on May 7 on WWE's YouTube channel. Raw's bracket was won by Seth "Freakin" Rollins, while SmackDown's bracket was won by AJ Styles, thus scheduling Rollins to face Styles in the tournament final for the World Heavyweight Championship at Night of Champions.

At Backlash, Cody Rhodes defeated Brock Lesnar. On the following episode of Raw, Rhodes participated in the aforementioned tournament for the World Heavyweight Championship. During the first-round triple threat match that Rhodes competed in, Lesnar interfered and attacked Rhodes, costing him an opportunity at the title. Lesnar subsequently challenged Rhodes to another match at Night of Champions and Rhodes accepted. On the May 22 episode, Lesnar broke (kayfabe) Rhodes's arm. Although Triple H tried to dissuade him, Rhodes stated that he would still compete at Night of Champions.

In the main event of Night 1 of WrestleMania 39, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn defeated The Usos (Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso) to win the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship, and retained them in a rematch on the April 28 episode of SmackDown. At Backlash, The Bloodline (The Usos and Solo Sikoa) competed in a six-man tag team match in which Owens and Zayn were opponents; Sikoa won the match for The Bloodline, although there was friction between Sikoa and The Usos. On the following SmackDown, Bloodline leader Roman Reigns praised Sikoa but expressed his disappointment in The Usos due to them losing their titles and the inability to regain them. The group's manager Paul Heyman then announced that he was able to procure another tag team championship match for The Bloodline; however, instead of The Usos, it would be Reigns and Sikoa challenging Owens and Zayn for the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship at Night of Champions. This in turn marked Zayn's first Saudi Arabian event since a WWE Live tour in April 2014 due to the relations between Saudi Arabia and Syria being restored after they had been suspended amidst the Syrian conflict that broke out in March 2011, which resulted in Zayn not working at any of WWE's Saudi Arabian events since. This additionally marked Owens's first WWE Saudi Arabian event since Greatest Royal Rumble in April 2018 as he had not worked any of the other events in support of Zayn.

On the May 15 episode of Raw, Mustafa Ali won a battle royal to become the number one contender for Gunther's Intercontinental Championship at Night of Champions.

On Night 2 of WrestleMania 39, Bianca Belair defeated Asuka to retain the Raw Women's Championship. During the 2023 draft, both were drafted to SmackDown. On the May 12 episode of SmackDown, during Belair's celebration on becoming the longest-reigning WWE women's champion of the modern era, Asuka, in her first appearance since WrestleMania, interrupted and shook Belair's hand, only for her to spit green mist on Belair, officially turning heel. On May 18, it was announced that Belair would defend the Raw Women's Championship against Asuka in a rematch at Night of Champions.