WWE No Way Out 2007

Date: 02/18/2007

Location: Los Angeles, CA 

Announcers: Michael Cole and JBL

The Setup 

This PPV was before WWE started doing Elimination Chamber before Mania, and we got some lame cards over the years. This one featured the Raw Mania main event (Shawn vs. Cena) vs. the SmackDown Mania main event in a weird tag match. This was SmackDown only when it was clearly the B show, and honestly, the rest of the show looked pretty bad and mostly meaningless on paper. The bad number wasn’t unexpected.

The Business

According to Wrestlenomics, the show had 205,000 buys worldwide and 135,000 domestic. That ranked third worst for the entire year, only ahead of the first non-ECW One Night Stand in June (Cena vs. Khali) and Cyber Sunday (Batista vs. Undertaker). To speak to the often-cold reception of this event before Mania, the worldwide buys were only down 6% from No Way Out 2006 (Angle vs. Undertaker). The Elimination Chamber and tying the winner into a Mania title match were necessary in the future. 

The show drew 14,000, according to prowrestlinghistory, which was good for a $750,000 gate.

The Results

Chris Benoit & The Hardys def. MNM & MVP in 14:19. Another good Hardys/MNM match, this time adding Benoit and MVP. Also, another loss for MNM. Benoit made Mercury tap to the crossface. ***1/4 

Cruiserweight Title Match: Chavo Guerrero def. Scotty 2 Hotty, Daivari, Gregory Helms (C), Funaki, Shannon Moore, Jimmy Yang, and Jamie Noble in 14:11. The match had good action, but it meant nothing to the crowd because they had SEVEN pinfalls in under fifteen minutes—your typical horrible handling of the smaller guys for the era. I don’t recall Chavo’s surprise win kicking off any renaissance period, but he finished Yang with a frog splash. **1/2 

Finlay & Hornswoggle def. Boogeyman & Little Boogeyman in 6:44. Always nice to see a talented wrestler like Finlay involved with the Boogey Man and little people. They were still doing this in 2007? And on a PPV? Finlay hit little Boogey with the Shillelagh for the win. 1/2*

Kane def. King Booker in 12:38. This whole Kane-Booker T program was so fucking lame. On TV, Booker had a key to the city presentation in Houston that Kane interrupted because monsters care about shit like that, I suppose. Hard to believe Booker took off for TNA later in the year. Kane won a flat match with a chokeslam. *

World Tag Team Title Match: Brian Kendrick & Paul London def. Deuce & Domino in 8:17. Deuce and Domino were abysmally performed, terrible gimmicks. The worst part is that it looked that way on paper. What a horrible waste of London and Kendrick. Kendrick won a solidly below-average match with a victory roll on Deuce. *1/2 

ECW Title Match: Mr. Kennedy def. Lashley by DQ in 15:27. It felt like they did nothing, but the loud “boring” chants made it difficult to hide. It went too long for where these guys were in their careers. Kennedy never seemed to grasp how to work to generate heat and just did moves and holds, with no reaction when he was in control of matches. To top it off, the finish came when Lashley grabbed a chair that Kennedy picked up and hit him for an awful DQ. 1/2 *

John Cena & Shawn Michaels def. Undertaker & Batista in 22:09. This lacked flow at times because all four men were babyfaces, but it turned out to be a very good main event. After watching the first few PPVs, Shawn was on a roll here in early 2007. While far from ‘97 dropping his pants to expose his junk or ass Shawn, he had a much sharper edge than when he was playing the more of the super white meat “making a comeback Shawn” or the merch whore DX version of Shawn. Batista finally turned on Taker, leading to a sweet chin music and FU combo for the finish. ***3/4

Additional Gaga

-Miz hosted the Divas Talent Invitational, which climaxed with Jillian Hall signing and getting beaten up by all the divas. Ashley Massaro won by coming out and pointing to her Playboy cover with bunny pasties that she exposed to the crowd. Not only did the women not get a match, but they also got this dreadful segment.

The Verdict

Thumbs Down 

This show fucking sucked outside of the main event and opener. There was too much busllshit and a dead ass crowd for either match to rescue this one. People were wise not to buy this one and save their money for Mania.