WWE Royal Rumble 2007

Date: 01/28/2007

Location: San Antonio, TX

Announcers: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, JBL, Joey Styles, and Taz

The Setup

After teasing Cena barely escaping Umaga at the last PPV, here he is getting a LMS match three weeks later. Besides the Rumble, we also had Batista defending the World title against Mr. Kennedy before he was dead as an act.

The Business

According to Wrestlenomics, this show had 525,000 worldwide PPV buys, down slightly from 585,000 in 2006 and 575,000 in 2005. Cena and Umaga really didn’t do anything at the box office since we’ve seen the result of their two matches and the PPV buys. He could have probably used a longer build.

Prowrestlinghistory.com lists an attendance of 13,500 for a $780,000 gate. 

The Results 

Hardys def. MNM in 15:27. This was the first Mercury match after the injury where Mercury’s face basically exploded in a tag team ladder match involving the Hardys. In hindsight, it was probably a huge mistake not to push MNM harder after that and to use it to give them an edge. I’m sure all the politics with Melina didn’t help. Jeff pinned Nitro with a swanton. ***1/2

ECW World Title Match: Lashley (C) def. Test by CO in 7:18. Who in the fuck thought it would be a good idea for Bobby Lashley’s first PPV title match to be against Test?  Test felt the same and walked to the back for the finish. Jesus, Lashley couldn’t even get the win. 1/2*

World Title Match: Batista (C) def. Mr. Kennedy in 10:29. For a guy who overthought realism to a fault, Kennedy’s basics, like punching, generally looked like shit. The crowd was so dead for the Batista match. I can’t remember an era where Ken Anderson ever even semi-consistently figured it out in the ring. Batista put us out of our misery with a Batista bomb. 3/4*

WWE Title Match/Last Man Standing: John Cena (C) def. Umaga in 23:09. This was tremendous and built incredibly well. Cena gigged and took a beating, but kept coming back. Umaga played the monster extremely well here. The finish, where Cena had to progress to choking out Umaga with the entire top rope in an STFU, was incredible. Umaga made himself turn purple, and it was an iconic image similar to Tully and Magnum at Starrcade. ****1/2

Undertaker won the Royal Rumble in 56:18 ***3/4

Rumble Notes

-They had an eightish minute mini-match between Shawn and Taker at the end of the Rumble, and it was outstanding. This was easily the longest “final two” sequence in Rumble history. 

-I thought the Rumble match itself flowed well, but the final four of Rated RKO, Shawn, and Taker was excellent. It was like a mini-tag, but both teams worked it well, like they couldn’t quite trust the other one, even the regularly teaming RKO. 

-They probably miscalculated how over Taker would be in his home state of Texas versus Shawn, who was from the city they were actually in (San Antonio). They expected a better response when Taker won, but the hometown crowd wanted HBK. Their response was flat. 

-Poor Sandman came out in the Rumble and hit a couple of guys with the cane, and then was immediately tossed by Booker. All of the ECW guys mostly looked like geeks. Shocking, right? Still, eliminations like that and the Sabu chokeslam through a table gave the match some color. 

-They did a Rumble elimination where Booker got back in the ring and eliminated Kane, which counted. I fucking dread that spot. Twenty-eight other guys are pussies for just walking to the back. 

-Edge was the Rumble Iron Man, coming in at number five and going 44:05. 

-The Great Kahli had the most eliminations with seven, but it didn’t stop them from having Taker throw Kahli out solo. 

Additional Gaga

There wasn’t a lot to mention here.

The Verdict

Thumbs Up 

Two out of three world title matches sucked, but the other one was fucking epic. Umaga looked like a force of nature, and watching him change colors to sell the strangulation finish put it over the top even more. Shawn and Taker helped bring the Rumble match to another level, and the Hardys/MNM was a good in-ring feud, even if MNM couldn’t win ever. This was a strong outing from WWE.