WWE Unforgiven 2007
September 16, 2007
TD Banknorth Garden, Boston, Massachusetts
Announcers: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, John Bradshaw Layfield, Joey Styles, and Tazz
The Setup
The show was built around Undertaker making his return against the man who took him out several months ago, Mark Henry. Cena defended the WWE title against Randy Orton in a SummerSlam rematch, heightened by Orton punting John Cena Sr. Kahli defended the title against Batista (like SummerSlam) and Rey Mysterio, to hopefully make the match good.
The Business
Wrestlenomics has the show doing 210,000 PPV buys, which ended up being the fourth lowest in 2007 alone, so the angle with Cena’s dad and Orton didn’t do anything for business, ditto Taker’s return
Prowrestlinghistory has the show selling 12,000 tickets for a $550,000 gate in Memphis.
The Results
ECW Championship Match: CM Punk (C) def. Elijah Burke in 11:52 **
WWE Tag Team Championship Match: Matt Hardy (C) & Montel Vontavious Porter (C) def. Deuce & Domino in 9:19 *1/4
No Disqualification Match (for Carlito only): Triple H def. Carlito in 10:40 *1//
WWE Women’s Championship Match: Candice Michelle (C) def. Beth Phoenix in 7:17 *1/2
World Heavyweight Championship Triple Threat Match: Batista def. The Great Khali (C) and Rey Mysterio in 8:01 **1/4
World Tag Team Championship Match: Lance Cade (C) & Trevor Murdoch (C) def. Paul London & Brian Kendrick in 11:48 ***1/4
WWE Championship Match: Randy Orton def. John Cena (C) via DQ in 7:22 *
The Undertaker def. Mark Henry in 11:25 *1/4
Notable Happenings
Cena got DQ’d for not listening to the ref after what Randy Orton previously did to his father, but there was zero fucking legitimate argument for something that tame being the end to a world title match on a PPV. They did it to set up an LMS on the next show, but s Cena injury threw that out the window.
Taker’s return was built as a big deal for the show, so concluding with him winning his return match provided a happy ending. I totally forgot that Henry injured Taker and put him on the shelf for a prolonged period in storyline.
They added Rey to the Kahli vs. Batista program to make the match bearable, but it looks like that’s about done with Batista pinning Kahli in the three-way.
Triple H beat Carlito in a match where, basically, Carlito could legally do whatever he wanted, so it was a Memphis-style manager match in some ways. It looked fucking ridiculous, like Hunter was facing a child.
CM Punk and Burke seemed to have zero natural charisma together.
Beth dominated Candace, but Candace got the surprise roll-up victory. Candace isn’t good, but she really does try.
MVP & Matt Hardy were doing the reluctant tag team champions trope, and it wasn’t good or bad but merely there.
The Murdoch & Cade tag title match was the best match on the show, but the fans didn’t care about the match. There was seriously nothing interesting going on in either of the show’s tag divisions.
The Rating: 2.5/10.0
This was a dreadful fucking show, almost from the beginning. The Raw tag title match was the best thing on the show, but also had no heat. There were no other good matches, and as far as what they did to consumers, the WWE title match was unforgivable. It’s fucking insane that they were charging people $40 for something like this.
The Video
