WWE Judgment Day 2007

Date: 05/20/2007

Location: St. Louis, Missouri — Scottrade Center

Announcers: Jim Ross; Jerry “The King” Lawler; Michael Cole; John “Bradshaw” Layfield; Joey Styles & Tazz.  

The Setup 

They did a lot of Cena vs. Michaels in various incarnations, so now that the wrestling was out of the ring, Vince called to the bullpen for a monster in the Great Kahli. It was kind of back to the Umaga formula, but with a much worse professional wrestler. 

Edge also defended the world title against Batista after he had just won it by cashing in MITB against Taker. 

The Business 

The show had 240,000 PPV buys, good for 8th place overall for the year. It was the fourth out of nine B shows, so pretty middle of the pack, but it was also up 15,000 buys from the first Umaga vs. Cena match at New Year Revolution. This is further proof that people aren’t buying shows for the wrestling. 

They drew 10,500 fans paying $575,000 according to Prowrestlinghistory.

Results/Ratings 

Ric Flair def. Carlito — 15:35 **1/4

3-on-1 Handicap Match for the ECW World Championship: Bobby Lashley def. Umaga, Shane McMahon & Vince McMahon (c) — 1:14 (Lashley pinned Shane; Vince remained recognized as ECW Champion).  NR

CM Punk def. Elijah Burke — 16:51 **3/4 

Randy Orton def. Shawn Michaels (referee stoppage) — 4:31 NR

World Tag Team Title Match: The Hardys (Matt & Jeff Hardy) (c) def. Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch — 15:03.  ***3/4

World Heavyweight Title Match: Edge (c) def. Batista — 10:38.  *1/4

WWE United States Title — Two-out-of-Three Falls Match: Montel Vontavious Porter def. Chris Benoit (c) — 14:10 (MVP scored both falls).  **1/2

WWE Championship Match: John Cena (c) def. The Great Khali — 8:15.  ***

Snap Bumps

-The Cena match was a pro wrestling miracle of biblical proportions and easily the best match in Kahli’s career. Cena was perfect because he was willing to sell to play the guy fighting from underneath, and let’s face it, even if you hate Cena, you know he’s good in that role. The STFU tapout was perfect because it felt like Cena just barely survived the match. Good stuff. 

-It should also be noted that Kahli also did the single best move of his career – a spinkick on Cena that actually looked good! “Holy shit,” I said aloud. 

-Kahli did a promo, and it worked because he doesn’t appear to be doing much but growling and screaming sounds. The guy could be threatening to rape me in the park for all I know. 

-Shawn needed knee surgery, and he was written off the show by being attacked by Orton in an interview and given a concussion. Shawn wrestled against doctor’s orders and took multiple RKOs, even doing a stretcher job with his wife crying (and badly acting) in the ring.  It was a good angle to get heat on Orton as the Legend Killer. 

-Batista and Edge was really bad. Batista’s knee was injured, but for some reason, Edge worked the arm and with the ferocity of a fucking sea tortoise at some points. There was a time where Edge was just lying on Batista’s arm, bending it the way it’s supposed to bend. Somehow, the knee played into the finish anyway, and Edge got a rollup when Batista injured it again during an atomic drop. Why?

-Between this match and the match with Kennedy at the Rumble, you can tell that Batista struggled with certain guys in straight world title matches. In this case, Batista is best when in there with someone who can bump and take his stuff. That wasn’t Edge in 2007.

-Lashley quickly won his six-man tag by powerslamming Shane, but Vince changed the rules and kept the title. It helped Lashley because he didn’t have to do much to be liked, but poor Umaga was going nowhere.

Je-The Hardys’ match was really fucking good.  Jesus, they go out there every show and have a good match the fans are into. I thought everyone looked good here, but Cade stood out. He was such a good bumper and seller for a guy his size and did some cool shit. He hit a rock bottom into a powerbomb on Jeff that looked tremendous. They were doing a storyline where Cade and Murdoch didn’t want to cheat against the Hardys, so this was a babyface match, but also what I would call an overachiever. 

-Punk and Burke sometimes looked a little clunky, but they were good overall. It looked like Elijah smoked the GTS, but Punk did a great job selling injured ribs.

-Flair and Carlito was a lot of Carlito working Flair’s arm and Flair’s overeliance on chops. Flair’s winning with a figure-four seemed like another fuck you to Carlito. 

-The Flair match happened because Flair tried to mentor Carlito briefly before he turned on Flair and Torrie. This was set up by Flair cutting an infamous promo on Carlito on a Raw where Flair basically spoke for the office and called him a lazy piece of shit. Clearly, since Carlito turned and lost clean to the guy they would force into retirement in a few months, it feels safe to say Carlito didn’t change many minds. 

-They finally finished the mediocre feud of Benoit vs. MVP in a match with “this is boring” chants as Benoit worked another knee injury on the show. To make up for being unable to beat Benoit in multiple matches, MVP scored a submission win and a small package pinfall because Benoit was injured. Whatever. The fans didn’t care about MVP at this point, who is not bad, but definitely not connecting. 

The Verdict

The world title and US title matches brought the show down after an excellent world tag title match, but Cena worked an absolute fucking miracle. Kahli should induct him into the HOF. It’s more of a classic Cena performance than a classic match, but it’s still worth watching. The Vince and Orton respective angles were pretty strong. The only bad thing was Edge vs. Batista, so I’ll give a slight thumbs up because the main event has to be seen.