The John Report: Judgment Day '07 Running Diary

Note: This is not a play by play recap of the show. You can go elsewhere on this site for that. This is a running diary where I give you my live thoughts (as well as match analysis and star ratings) for the show.

WWE Judgment Day
St. Louis, Missouri (Go Rams!)
May 20, 2007

I love this Ozzy Ozzbourne song, “I Don’t Wanna Stop” that is the soundtrack for this PPV. The opening video package was pretty cool featuring the main angles as well as this song. The announcers shown in order are the Raw guys then the ECW guys and then the Smackdown guys. The ropes in the ring are blue, so I guess it’s still kind of the Smackdown show.

Ric Flair vs. Carlito
The crowd is big time into Flair as expected. He got the big “first star of the night” kind of pop.

Flair started off dominating and then Carlito got control. At least he gets to be a heel again where he actually looks like he gives a damn.

For whatever reason Carlito’s working on Flair’s left arm. I guess they do that to allow Flair to come back with his chops, which the crowd loves of course.

I love how Ric Flair sells injuries. Hopefully he drops a few f-bombs because that’s always fun for the kids at home.

Ooh, nice dropkick by Carlito on Flair’s arm against the ringpost. There’s another offensive move that was nice. JR says if he wrestles this kind of match all the time he can be WWE Champion. In other words Carlito, you need to try harder.

Flair is coming back literally with like a dozen chops that look very painful. I wonder if he chops guys in the chest that want to go out with his daughters.

This match has really slowed down with Carlito working on the left arm for about ten minutes. All of Flair’s offense were those chops that he threw.

When I say he’s thrown 30 chops I’m not even over exaggerating. It might even be a higher number.

Took about 15 minutes for Flair to finally attempt the Figure Four after a very nice comeback. Tap city, population Carlito. Flair wins right in the middle of the ring.
Winner: Ric Flair via submission

Analysis ** Pretty average, by the book match that did a good job in getting the crowd into the show because it featured all of the usual theatrics that Ric Flair likes to do. Carlito showed good intensity throughout the match, so hopefully he keeps that up. I think since he’s a heel again that he’ll be able to do that. The company, with all its injuries, could really benefit from good performances from this guy in the future.

The video package showing Randy Orton’s kick to the face of Michaels was awesome.

Backstage, Michaels was about to do an interview when Orton attacked him and rammed him face first into some sort of object around the interview area.

Very long video package about the McMahons vs. Bobby Lashley feud. I think it has served its purpose as a way to get Lashley more over, but they’re going to need a heel that’s a wrestler to feud with Lashley sooner or later.

ECW Title: Vince McMahon (c), Shane McMahon & Umaga vs. Bobby Lashley
Hey, ECW announcers. Good to see ya. I love Shane’s theme song. Always have, always will. Umaga’s out next and I like his theme song too although I’m disappointed that there’s no Armando Estrada out there. Vince needs a new theme song. It’s been nearly a decade. I’m tired of the damn song.

Hey look, there’s that guy who goes to a lot of WWE shows and brings creative signs. I guess he’s using the money he won on Deal or No Deal well. Seems like a decent guy.

I’m a fan of Lashley, but am I alone in feeling that his intense look makes it appear as though he has to go to the bathroom badly? Maybe it’s just me.

To the shock of absolutely nobody, Lashley beat the hell out of everybody. What I didn’t expect was that he won the match literally in about two minutes. He cleared house, gave a spear to Umaga, gave Shane McMahon a running powerslam and now he’s the ECW champion. Wow, that was quick. A 1 minute match.
Winner: Bobby Lashley via pinfall on Shane McMahon

Post match, Bobby stared down Vince, so Umaga jumped him from behind and destroyed him with the Samoan Spike. Vince stole the belt.

Vince goes on the microphone to tell Lashley that he’s not the champion because he was unable to pin him. Thus, Vince is still champion. “This is just crap,” says Joey Styles. Kinda sums up the whole ECW brand doesn’t it?

Analysis: 1/4* Too short to be rated like a real match. I imagine this angle is done to build to a Lashley vs. Vince match at the One Night Stand show in a couple weeks. Much like his theme song, the Vince McMahon heel act is getting tiresome.

Backstage, the doctor tells Shawn Michaels that he can’t go out to the ring tonight. We hear nothing from Michaels. Of course he’ll end up having the match because who in wrestling ever listens to doctors?

CM Punk vs. Elijah Burke
Punk comes out to a good pop, which kinda surprised me because who watches the ECW show? I’d really love for Punk to be on one of the shows that people actually watch. Anyway, Punk’s got taped ribs because of some beating on TV while Burke has tremendous theme music. That’s really good.

I like Punk’s offense a lot because it’s a more realistic style than most wrestlers. Too bad he has to go to the WWE style offense and bust out moves like chinlocks.

Nice two count on the crossbody by Punk. I love crossbody blocks.

Burke’s offense in this match has been limited to just punching the ribs of Punk.

Wow, Punk’s really earning the respect of the crowd with a nice Jericho-like springboard dropkick and then a Benoit-like suicide dive through the ropes. That got him two.

This match really is building to the big spots. They go slow for a couple minutes with Burke working on the ribs some more and then Punk comes back with a beautiful looking superplex that really got the crowd into the match.

Great nearfall as Burke kicks out of an enziguri kick. Nice shining wizard, but no bulldog follows this time. Burke hits the Elijah Experience (kinda like a STO), but that only gets two. Oh man! Punk was on the top rope with his face looking out to the crowd, Burke charged in and hit the Elijah Express, which is a running double knee drop to the back of the man’s ribs! Ouch!

Burke goes for the Elijah Experience again, but Punk counters and gives him the Go To Sleep (DVD into a knee to the face) for the victory after 17 minutes. Shocking that they got that much time.
Winner: CM Punk via pinfall

Analysis: **1/4 Good midcard match that definitely deserved its spot on the PPV. It was done as a way to showcase these two awesome athletes and in that sense it did just that. It especially made CM Punk look like a true star, which he is of course. It also made me really want both of these guys to escape the ECW brand because they’re not going to get better on that show with a thin roster. They need to be with the better workers.

Solid promo by Edge backstage that ended with him staring at Kristal’s boobs. I love that guy, but not as much as I love Kristal’s boobs.

Randy Orton vs. Shawn Michaels
Orton comes out first and since he’s from St. Louis he get a bit of a hometown pop. Nobody really likes him, though. He asked the ref to declare him the winner because Michaels gives up. Nope. There’s Shawn coming out the ring looking out of it like he used to look about a decade or so ago.

It will be interesting to see how this goes considering Michaels’ knee injury. This might be his last match for a long time.

About a minute into the match Orton hits a sick DDT while Shawn’s feet were in the middle ropes. What a bump. He kicked out.

Randy Orton looks about as intense as he probably does when he’s tearing up a hotel room in Europe.

Top rope RKO attempt got blocked by the eye gouging, which is a flawless way of countering any move. Ha, he hit the big elbow while stumbling all over the ropes.

Michaels went for the superkick, but instead of hitting it or coming close to hitting it, Michaels just fell down. The ref rang the bell and declared Orton the winner because HBK can’t continue anymore. Went 4 minutes only.
Winner: Randy Orton via referee stoppage

Then, in a moment defying logic, Orton hits Michaels with the RKO because he’s just…well…mean. Of course if somebody really had a concussion they wouldn’t even be on the plane or at the arena, much less in the match. I guess they can’t do an angle without putting somebody over.

There’s Shawn’s wife Rebecca to come in to do some crying to put over the seriousness of this whole thing. I guess this is their explanation for why Shawn’s going to be out with the knee surgery. I sure hope that it’s not a long term thing. He was on such a role and I’m really going to miss him in the ring.

He gets wheeled out on the stretcher to end the angle. Where’s the standing ovation from the St. Louis crowd? That was a hell of a performance by HBK. Nobody could do that better.

Analysis: N/R You got to love how great HBK was here. Of course it insults people who have concussions (think of Chris Nowinski who had to retire from them) and in reality there’s no way anybody with a concussion that bad would ever be in a ring. What’s also funny is that Orton is so deep in the doghouse they won’t even let him pin Michaels despite the fact that Shawn’s gone for a few months (at least). Way to go, hotel wrecker.

Yes, Great Khali promo! I love this man. Too bad he wasn’t doing it in English. “I want some competition” is arguably the greatest interview in company history. His translator asks him questions in his native tongue, whatever that is. By the way, Khali’s holding the belt despite not being the champion. He’s telling him to Just Bring It. Too bad he didn’t do a Rock-like promo.

World Tag Team Titles: The Hardy Boys (c) vs. Cade & Murdoch
For whatever reason the Smackdown guys are announcing the match featuring Raw’s tag titles and three of the four competitors being Raw guys. Brand extension? What’s that?

What’s there to really say here? It’s a typical Hardy match. Matt gets worked on for a few minutes, he makes the hot tag to Jeff and the crowd goes nuts for it. It’s not exactly new.

That Whisper of the Wind move barely touched Murdoch, but he sold it liked he killed him. That’s what wrestlers should do. Sell it, no matter how ridiculous it looks.

I laugh every time JBL says the APA were a great tag team. Most of their skits were great, like that one time they played strip poker with Trish Stratus, but if they’re a great team then Vince McMahon is a great World Champion because of his wrestling ability.

Man, Jeff continues to be crazy as he takes a flat back bump on the floor after Murdoch moves out of the way. Now it’s his turn to play dead for the second “babyface gets up by the heels for a while” spot of the match.

A few minutes go by and here comes Matt. This is straight out of 2000, man. Like exactly.

Nice move by Cade, busting out a Rock Bottom into a spinebuster.

Michael Cole just called Matt Hardy’s Twist of Fate a Side Effect. Oops. He hits that, then tags in Jeff for the Swanton and the victory after 15 minutes. Was it ever really in doubt?
Winner: The Hardy Boys via Jeff pinning Cade

Post match, the Hardy Boys extended their hand and their opponents shook them. Can’t we just forget all other teams and do a Best of 99 series with the Hardy’s against London & Kendrick? I’d watch.

Analysis: **1/2 This was the typical Hardy’s tag match whether it’s on TV, PPV or a house show. It’s a formula that always delivers the goods even if they’re not really given the chance to wow you. It’s just solid tag team wrestling. Would have been nice if they had something better to put here because this felt like filler.

There’s an ad for the One Night Stand PPV with the selling point apparently being that all matches (or most, I guess) will be under extreme rules.

The Raw guys tell us that HBK has left the arena and is on the way to the hospital. That’ll be truer in a couple days when he goes to get his knee looked at.

In ring, Tony Chimmel tells us to watch the Tron (I guess it only has one name now) for a video made by Edge that basically highlights how he came to Smackdown as the World Champion. Is his match next? Before the US title match? Something tricky must be going down here.

World Heavyweight Championship: Edge (c) vs. Batista
When was the last time the World Title match went before the US title match? Obviously the Cena match is going on last, but this one going before the US title match is a bit odd to me.

Man, I love how much JBL puts people over even though his calling Edge the “greatest superstar of all time” seems like a bit much. It’s what announcers should do, though. Put over your talent. That’s why I love JBL as an announcer. He’s the best in the business.

This match is really slow, like a typical Batista match. I think it’s going to take Edge some time to get used to working with him. The crowd’s not really into it since there’s barely a storyline here.

Edge just kicked out of the spear. How many people in this company do that move? Oh look, there’s another repeat move: a running powerslam by Batista. Probably a good thing that he doesn’t wrestle Lashley.

Then the match ends suddenly as Batista hits a spinebuster, then his knee hurts, Edge cradles him and it’s over just like that. They only got 11 minutes.

So Batista’s kicked out of so many moves from the Undertaker over the past few months, yet he can’t power off a guy holding his legs down for a few minutes? Weak finish, I’d say.
Winner: Edge via pinfall

Analysis: ** It was fine. I’m very shocked that Edge won this match clean because Batista hasn’t lost a match that clean in a long time. They worked the injured hamstring angle, but I was thinking it wold be a DQ type of deal. I’m not gonna complain. I think Edge is great while Batista’s act is boring me, so it’s fine by me.

Kristal asks all the WWE Divas who they think is going to win the Cena/Khali match. The award for best outfit goes to Michelle McCool, by the way. I have no idea who Brooke is – oh she’s one of the ECW dancing chicks. Some of the analysis by the women is so bad. Like really bad comedy. I think Kelly Kelly is arguably the worst talker in the history of wrestling. But at least she’s hot, right? Thankfully their fake breasts do a good job of getting me to lose my attention.

US Title Match – 2 out of 3 Falls: Chris Benoit (c) vs. Montell Vontavious Porter
I love this match. I love this feud. It’s the one I most want to see. It’s starting at 10:06pm, which hopefully means they get 20-25 minutes and a hot crowd.

They’re going really slow to start this one as expected. Again, JBL’s announcing style really helps this match.

The story going in is Benoit’s left knee is hurt because it was attacked last week on Smackdown by Finlay as well as MVP.

Benoit comes back with a Crossface, but MVP gets rope and Benoit gets beat on some more because his knee is still in bad shape. Oooh, MVP missed that running high kick that I love. That looks painful to even miss that move.

MVP gets rope again while in the Sharpshooter. The story going on is that Benoit’s too hurt to properly being able to apply these holds.

The first pinfall went to MVP. Benoit had him on his shoulders after countering a move, but his leg gave out and MVP was able to hit him with the Playmaker for the three count. That took about ten minutes.

Following the first fall, MVP continues working on that knee. The crowd’s kinda quiet for this, which is not surprising. They’ve been a pretty good crowd, so I think they’ll wake up once Benoit does his comeback later on.

The running kick to the knee while it’s draped over the top rope! Awesome! I freakin’ love that running kick move.

Some fans started a “this is boring” chant because I guess they don’t understand what good wrestling is.

Nice submission by MVP, it looks like the Brock Lock move that Brock Lesnar once used. Benoit fought it off to get to the ropes, but that was pretty close right there.

The second fall goes to MVP after a cradle. It was a very odd finish because Benoit came off the ropes, MVP kicked him in the knee and cradled him tight for the win. Match was about 15 minutes.
Winner 2 falls to 0: MVP

Analysis: *3/4 They’ve had better matches. I think the best one they had was either the Backlash one or the one on Smackdown that MVP won. This was probably their worst. It was slower paced while lacking the Benoit comebacks that usually make his matches great. On the other hand, this match did an amazing job of putting MVP over because he just beat a former World Champion two to nothing in very impressive fashion. In that sense, it was very effective. I was just hoping for more in terms of match quality.

Long video for Khali/Cena, which was a good excuse for a much needed drink break.

WWE Title: John Cena (c) vs. The Great Khali
It’s 10:30pm as we start this one. Cena’s out first despite being the champion and he gets a huge pop. This feud definitely did its job in terms of getting the fans to be behind Cena. Khali’s out second with the belt despite not being champion.

I like the announcement of the competitors while they are in the ring rather than when they’re walking down the aisle.

It’ll be very interesting to see how much time they get (or how little time) and how it’s booked because with Khali being so raw you have to be careful with him.

The match is basically like every Khali match where he does a punch or kick, his opponent sells it like he’s dead and flops around the mat a bit for extra emphasis. Cena’s trying his best to play the pinball here.

JBL called Great Khali lifting his leg up and Cena running into it a “kick” even though it’s more like running into a wall, then saying the wall hit you rather than you hit it.

To kill some time, Khali puts on a vice grip that Cena powers out of. A couple of shoulderblocks send Khali into the ropes while tying his arms in there. Then he gets free and kicks Cena in the face. Like I said before, this feud has really been good for Cena’s future as a babyface champion because this crowd is very solidly behind him.

A little bit more offense from Cena as he dropkicks the ring steps into the knee, then drops a leg off the top onto the back of Khali’s head followed by the STFU. Khali taps even though his one leg looks to be under the ropes. Maybe that will be brought up in the future.
Winner: John Cena via submission

Analysis: 1/2* This was WWE’s continued attempt to make Cena into their Hulk Hogan by having him defeat the evil bigger opponent. For those of us that lived through the Hogan era the match followed that blueprint exactly. It’s not always about quality matches. Sometimes you just want to put somebody over really strong and on this show in this match that’s exactly what happened.

FINAL THOUGHTS
This was not a great show. Far from it. What Judgment Day 2007 did was tell the WWE fans exactly who are the people that this company wants to push moving forward. We saw impressive wins by John Cena and Bobby Lashley, who are arguably the top two babyfaces in the company for the future. We saw an impressive win by Edge as they build Smackdown around him from now on. There was also the huge win by MVP as he went over Benoit clean twice in one match, which elevates him a notch. The win by CM Punk was a good thing too although frankly I’m shocked that his match got over 15 minutes while the Smackdown title match got about 10. The other win was by Orton over a dead Michaels, but even that wasn’t a win because Orton’s in the doghouse so much. He was just kinda there for HBK doing an angle. The other wins were by the Hardy’s and Flair, both of them being done to give the fans something pleasing. It’s not really for the future. It’s more like a nod to the past.

Match wise it was below average across the board with nothing eclipsing even the three star level. I’m not going to remember anything in a day or so. It was just okay. Certainly not on the level of Backlash, which was one of the best WWE shows this decade. This is what happens when you have too many PPVs like WWE has. You have too many shows and you can’t make every one of them special, so all you end up doing is giving clean finishes without quality matches.

I’m not saying this was a bad show. The booking for the most part was fine. It’s just that from a wrestling perspective I expect more out of a PPV, so in that sense Judgment Day 2007 is a letdown.

Smell ya later,
John C. – oratoryjohn@gmail.com
MSN: oratoryjohn@hotmail.com – Do not email me here! Will not be read!

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