The Greatest Match Ever: Cena vs. Umaga (Royal Rumble ’07)

John Cena vs. Umaga from WWE’s Royal Rumble 2007

This was a Last Man Standing match for Cena’s WWE Championship.

This was one of the greatest matches in professional wrestling history.

Everything about the presentation of this match from the pre-match hype video (yes, I am a fake music boy who enjoys Rise Against) to everything that happened in the ring was executed perfectly.

A few weeks earlier on a B-PPV, Cena ended Umaga’s undefeated streak via fruit roll-up. Umaga, enraged that this streak that he held so dearly was ruined, had injured Cena in the build up to the rematch. Cena’s ribs were all taped up as he made his entrance. You knew the story of the match before it even began, but it in no way detracted from what transpired.

Cena, looking to kill Umaga, came out hot early on. The intensity and urgency. The hatred. It was all there. It was clear that this match was going to be a barn-burner.

And then it happened. A maneuver that was so simple, yet so brilliant. Umaga cut him off with a simple kneeling punch to the taped ribs. From there, the match became perfect.

Umaga dominated the rest of the match. Umaga did it in his typical awesome and brutal fashion. The key to its success was not just on Umaga’s end though obviously.

Cena perhaps has never sold as well and as consistently as he did for Umaga on this night. From beginning to end, Cena looked destroyed. There was never any phony over-excitement. There was no Super Cena. There was just a bloody (literally) and desperate Cena who occasionally had enough adrenaline to fight back. That just made his comebacks all the more effective.

They timed each of the mini-comebacks as well as anyone could have done. Cena never even really had a prolonged comeback at any point in this match. He was just surviving and getting his shots in when he could.

Umaga’s downfall here was a mixture of bad luck and miscalculation. If Umaga just kept the match  going at the methodical pace he set early on, he would have had the match won.

Cena, whether on purpose or not, baited Umaga into a battle that escalated far too much for Umaga’s own good. Weapons were the equalizer for Cena. Big spots involving furniture took away Umaga’s strengths and gave Cena openings. Umaga kept getting tempted to go for the kill with weapons before it was time. Before the time was right.

That was made perfectly clear early on. Umaga was in complete control and then attempted to bring the steel steps into play. Cena managed turn the (metaphorical) tables though and tossed the steps at Umaga and almost won in under ten minutes in what would have been a total fluke.

Umaga (and Armando Estrada) did not learn the lesson though. Time and time again, Cena used the weapons to give himself life. It was so clear that Cena could not win on his own on this night. The weapons were his only chance.

It was poetic justice then for Umaga’s ego to of course to be his own undoing in the end. It was merely gravy that it was done in such a unique and barbaric manner.

The ring post was undone, and Umaga attempted to use a loosed turnbuckle on Cena. It was not completely illogical. He was facing the only man who beat him, and it seemed like Cena would never stay down for the ten.

Cena turned the tables as he did continuously throughout the match in similar moments.

Umaga wasting time with the turnbuckle allowed Cena to catch him with the FU. Cena then used the loosed ring rope to choke Umaga the fuck out. A bloody Cena choking the life out of Umaga is the defining image of Cena’s career (or at least it should be).

Umaga could not answer the ten count, and Cena retained. Cena, still bloodied and broken, never once acted like he hadn’t just been through a war. He looked shocked. (Shook, I dare say.) He looked like he barely knew what had just happened.

This was a brilliant story of endurance from Cena and miscalculation and ego getting the better of a monster.

 

My personal reaction to this match went way beyond the perfection that took place inside the ring or the crazy environment in which it took place. I do not know how anyone can watch Umaga and not immediately get sad.

Here in this match, it was made clear that he was potentially an all-timer in the making. Beyond all the obvious physical tools that he had, he proved in this match (and many other times throughout his final WWE run) that he “got it.” It’s the undeniable quality that separates the good from the great in professional wrestling.

To watch such a brilliant artist at work in this match and then to know that he died so young just a couple of years later is heartbreaking. To see someone so brilliant largely getting forgotten as the pages of history turn just makes it all the worse.

As awful as the professional wrestling business is and as unpleasant as so many professional wrestlers can be, you still want all of them to be successful and to be good people. You want them all to be beloved. You want all of them to remembered forever.

I miss you, Umaga. Forever.

I doubt anything could ever top this match for me. On a match construction level, it was textbook perfection. On an emotional level, it filled me with so much sadness in a way that only the tragedy of life can. This was everything. (******)