Sunday Night Fury: WWE Judgment Day 2007

Sunday Night Fury: WWE Judgment Day 2007

Lashley sort of wins, leg injuries abound, Shawn Michaels gets concussed and John Cena goes giant killing

No time for love, Dr Jones. Let’s do this thing.

We’re in St Louis, Missouri. Hosts are Hall of Famer’s Jim Ross & Jerry Lawler for Raw, Michael Cole & JBL for Smackdown and Joey Styles & Tazz for ECW.

RIC FLAIR v CARLITO

This probably wouldn’t have been my choice for the opener. Or a match worth using up 15 minutes of PPV time on. Flair has had a few almost miraculous performances in recent years; against Edge in the TLC or the Triple H match, but in general he’s been on a downer for about a decade. His chops still look good but his punches look like shit. His mounted punches are horrendous. Carlito meanwhile spends the match going after Flair’s arm. Most of this is pretty straightforward; keylocks, hammerlocks and stomps to the injured body part. Carlito takes it up a notch by wrapping the arm around the ring post and dropkicking it. Then we start to get ropey as Carlito goes for a hammerlock slam but can’t keep the arm in place so Flair just leaves it there himself. Arn Anderson was probably shaking his head at that. I also don’t care much for Flair armdragging out of an armbar using his bad arm. Or the horrible lariat from Carlito that follows where the strike is far too low and Flair can’t sell it right anyway. I’ve said for some time that Flair doesn’t look great anymore and he’s not doing his legend any favours but this match is probably the best example of it I’ve seen in a while. I can’t imagine it’ll do anything for Carlito either because it just makes him look bad. Keep in mind that Kenny Dykstra won a series of matches against Flair and now he isn’t even on TV. Flair, in his comeback, goes to the chops. JR puts Flair over for landing on his right side on a backdrop to protect his left arm even though he always lands on his side because of the back injury. It’s just become more pronounced in his old age. Flair armdrags out of an armbar two more times, which is the last resort counter he really shouldn’t keep using. I’m pretty much stunned at this point by how long they’ve given this match. Flair clips the knee and with that one move gets himself that much closer to winning than Carlito has in the previous 14 minutes. Which makes you wonder why Carlito wasted so much time on working the arm. Flair works the knee over for all of a minute before strapping the Figure Four on and Carlito taps to it at 15.34.

Winner: Ric Flair via submission. *1/2. So Carlito couldn’t counter the Figure Four? One of the most straightforward and simple moves to counter in all of wrestling? One of the moves that Flair has been using for decades and has had little success with over the past 15 years? The only guy I remember losing to it in a big match was Chris Jericho. And I was equally appalled then. Carlito’s betrayal and the whole storyline that lead up to this is rendered somewhat obsolete because Flair didn’t teach Carlito a lesson. He got his ass handed to him for 14 minutes. Meanwhile Carlito looks like a right idiot for not finishing the match off with his weak offence.

BACKSTAGE Shawn Michaels is about to cut a promo when Randy Orton runs in and bashes his head against a fence. The bad concussion selling continues. Well maybe not bad but totally over the top and it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

ECW title – VINCE MCMAHON (c)/UMAGA/SHANE MCMAHON v BOBBY LASHLEY

Vince has the black wrestling doorag this evening. Lashley has a game plan here and that’s to go on the attack and finish this quickly. Shane wants to start but Lashley lays him out and goes after Vince knocking off the doorag. Vince’s hair is growing back nicely. Lashley makes a point of keeping Umaga on the outside. Shane is left to make the save. He gets a belly to belly. The release on that is way too early. Umaga accidentally splashes Shane. Lashley spears him. Shane is left for the Dominator and Lashley picks up the pin at a swift 1.14.

Winner: Bobby Lashley via pinfall. That was…brief.

POST MATCH Umaga thumbs Lashley in the neck. Vince grabs the belt and tells Lashley he didn’t beat the ECW champion, IE him, so he doesn’t win the belt. Which of course wasn’t the stipulation pre-match.

BACKSTAGE the doctor tells Shawn he’s incapable of wrestling. No reply from Shawn who stares away into space.

CM PUNK v ELIJAH BURKE

The immediate problem with these ECW guys is they have two guys who aren’t established working each other. So the crowd aren’t too bothered about it. Punk gets some nice early support but as soon as the match is going the crowd lose interest. That and they’ve not gained any crossover onto the main shows (Smackdown and especially Raw, the federation’s flagship). Lashley has been on Smackdown and got over by appearing on Raw. Punk’s been on Raw, what, twice? Burke I don’t remember ever making a Raw appearance. Now they have a chance to get over on wrestling alone but unfortunately for them the match they’re in is slow paced, which is the hardest kind to get over with the crowd. Punk has taped ribs and that becomes the entire focus of Burke’s offence with Punk almost using any offence to keep Burke off the ribs. His kicks in particular keep Burke at leg’s length. Burke has the benefit of having great looking strikes. His punches are very effective much like Punk’s kicks, which means every time these guys go to the striking the match gets better. The commentators talk about the pros and cons of having tape on the ribs. It’s a target and yet the injury might need the tape. Crowd gets somewhat restless even when Punk is in charge because the pacing is slow. Punk keeps the crowd mildly amused with a stalling vertical suplex for 2. Burke goes to town on the ribs for that. This has been surprisingly uninventive for a Punk match. He busts out a high crossbody to keep the crowd amused. They were on the verge of getting bored again, which is where Punk has now twice saved face by hitting a high spot as the crowd were getting bored. Burke doesn’t realise what spot Punk is going for in the corner and therefore can’t manage to throw him out of the ring as he goes for the high knee. Punk almost throws himself out. Punk slides back in and goes to his standard headlock. Punk looks for the finish but Burke gets the ropes so Punk springboard dropkicks him outside. Tribute to Jericho there. Burke is outside so Punk gets up a head of steam and hits a tope. Now they’re starting to hit stuff the crowd is happier with. Punk tries to use the ropes again but Burke drags him off so he lands on those bad ribs. Burke lays a huge kick into the ribs, which gets an “OOOOH” from the crowd. Burke with a bodyscissors to slow the pace again before hitting a vertical suplex into a back suplex for 2. Some of the crowd gets disinterested and starts chanting at “JBL”. Punk goes shoot style and strikes out of the mount. To the ropes where Punk executes a superplex. A lot of Punk’s spots have resulted in him hurting himself by landing hard on his ribs. Punk with an Enzuigiri and you can feel the crowd is now into this. Punk connects with the corner knee but can’t get the bulldog because Burke wraps his arms around the bad ribs and runs him into the buckles. GTS is countered into the STO (the Elijah Experience apparently), which gets 2. Crowd, much like me, don’t realise it’s meant to be a shock kick out. Punk gets set up on the buckles and when he’s sat there Burke hits the Elijah Express, which drops him into the tree of woe. That was fun. Punk switches standing though and the Go 2 Sleep finishes at 16.51.

Winner: CM Punk via pinfall. **3/4. There was something about that match that didn’t set right. The ribs seemed inconsistent. They didn’t prevent Punk from doing anything even when Burke got great shots in there. Burke probably isn’t ready for such a long match and it’s high time they put Punk in with someone he can learn from. Punk has at least shaken any hint of stage fright he had initially. He looks confident in there now.

BACKSTAGE Kristal interviews Edge who reckons the days of the Mighty DAVE~! are over and this is now the Rated R Era. After all he can’t come over from Raw to take the belt and just lose it right away.

RANDY ORTON v SHAWN MICHAELS

Shawn looks like he’s on drugs, perhaps just channelling past experiences. Shawn’s “concussion” means he looks glassy eyed into the distance and doesn’t move much. Orton starts out by punching him right in the head and it looks over from that but Orton wants more and hits that rope DDT for 2. If they really wanted to sell the concussion then that’s a pin. You could say his body was working when his head wasn’t. Lawler puts the kick out down to instinct. Shawn mounts a miracle comeback but can’t hit the superkick because he only makes it two steps across the ring. The problem is that’s funny. He just keeled over and I laughed. And so did everyone else because it’s so OTT. Ref has seen enough and calls it at 4.32.

Winner: Randy Orton via ref stoppage. ½*. I like the ideas at play behind this and Shawn couldn’t work a regular match because of his bad knee but the actual match was a waste of space. Shawn’s done head injuries before. I’m sure the WWE still has the footage of 1995 when he ran the whole angle with the Owen Hart kick. I like that the ref treated it more like a real sport by stopping it. Crowd isn’t happy.

POST MATCH RKO! Shawn is so fucked that his wife runs in there to cry over the corpse. All this drama just makes me chuckle some more. I don’t think anyone over the age of 8 buys the angle.

BACKSTAGE Khali gives his thoughts on tonight’s match. Once again he invites Cena to come get some.

Tag titles – HARDYS (c) v CADE & MURDOCH

JBL doesn’t care much for Cade & Murdoch’s recent babyface behaviour. Crowd still don’t buy it although the Hardys are happy with the increased respect and seem content to go along with it but not full on trust them as yet. After all they’re still opponents. Now that I think about it; why are Cole & JBL on this match? It’s a Raw match. C & M do a fine job of working over Matt’s arm and keeping him isolated. Matt comes back with a fuckin’ sweet forearm to Cade’s forehead. Just a huge SMACK noise on that. How’d he do that? If he can keep getting that noise then he can get that forearm over. Guaranteed. People like loud noises. Jeff gets a tag but it’s C & M who have the better tag team continuity and make more tags. It seems like the Hardys are coasting on reputation and have gotten used to working on their own. Both guys have had sizeable singles pushes of late. When the Hardys do their patented stuff it does pop the crowd though. Like the Poetry in Motion. Jeff works in his corner dropkick for 2. Murdoch looks better prepared for wrestling Jeff after facing him on Raw but still can’t deal with the unorthodox style. I like Murdoch’s complaints of the Hardys breaking the rules. Every time something comes up like a punch or a double team there he is yelling at Matt to adhere to the rules like he does. Brilliant. He breaks out a round of applause and a thumbs up to Matt after being beaten up and bailing out. Of course you wonder where this storyline is going but I’m interested so it’s working. Jeff goes for the needlessly high risk slingshot senton and Murdoch just moves. Poor Jeffykins crashes and burns. He mounts a comeback but when he goes for the jawbreaker Murdoch is able to get away from it because he saw it on Monday and stomps on Jeff’s face because he’s right in position for it. Of course Jeff is able to hit it a few minutes later with no difference in the set up. Sometimes you can’t explain wrestling but then sometimes you can’t explain sports either. Murdoch must have switched off there or Jeff was just on autopilot. Matt gets the hot tag and he has his entire repertoire over now. So stuff like the Side Effect gets decent pops. He runs into a spinebuster urinage style from Cade though. JBL is a little early on his “ball game” call. Hiroshi Hisaki? Hase surely? Matt counters out and hits the Twist of Fate before tagging the tired Jeff who has just enough in the tank to finish with the Swanton bomb at 15.03.

Winners: Hardys via pinfall. ***. It’s another solid match between these two teams. I’m probably in the minority of liking the first match better. Cade & Murdoch interest me because of their fresh approach and tweener gimmick. Meanwhile they keep losing to the Hardys because they’re both singles stars and can win over two guys who need to operate better as a team to get the job done.

POST MATCH we get the usual handshake as the crowd chants “shake their hand”. Hey, a little ROH influence?

World title – EDGE (c) v DAVE BATISTA

JBL puts Edge over BIG TIME listing his achievements like he did on Smackdown but going further and calling him “right now” the greatest wrestler, ever. He earns bonus points by calling Cole; “monkey boy”. Dave still has the strapping on his leg. At least they have some good continuity with that injury although Dave never consistently sells it. I like the referee instructions as that makes it feel more like a sporting event, which I believe is the current WWE aim. I hope they stick with that. It works for me. Edge sells cowardice in the early going by hiding in the ropes and covering up. JBL thinks he’s suckering him in while Cole thinks Edge forgot how powerful Dave is. I think he’s just a chicken and that’s his character. He usually has it a little more nuanced than this though. Batista dominates in mighty fashion for three minutes until Edge runs him bad leg first into the ring steps. Dave is working really soft and slightly awkward especially with a spinebuster into the apron. Edge clips the knee. Figure Four would be a handy follow up for that. Instead Dave gets thrown into the ring post thus hurting his shoulder too. Why not just stick with the leg? I’ve seen psychology work on more than one body part but this match isn’t long enough for that. JBL keeps calling Edge “capricious”, which means impulsive and unpredictable if you were wondering. Early he dropped altruistic in there as well, which means selflessness. The idea behind Edge’s capriciousness is that he’ll switch body parts on a whim. Dave’s arm has way too much strength in it to change the momentum though. He uses that same armdrag out of an armbar that seems to in vogue this evening. Now Dave starts struggling with the bad leg and topples off the ropes. Edge can’t follow up because he gets too close to Dave who just swings an arm at him. These guys really aren’t clicking at all. Dave doesn’t seem to know how to work against Edge and Edge is just doing his usual thing and hoping for the best. Dave with a powerslam, like Lashley’s finisher, for 2. Why use that move? For starters Dave’s version looks terrible. He goes for another, which is countered into the Edgeomatic for 2. Edge lines up a spear but it’s countered by a spear and Dave gets the near fall. So why is a spear a finish for Edge but not for Dave? I would guess because he doesn’t put as much of his body behind it. Dave with another powerslam, Lashley style, only this time he stops off to call for the finish. Edge counters out but gets hit with a spinebuster. This sudden dropping to the knees causes Dave to injure his knee. Yeah, that did but the powerslams, which also land on the knees, didn’t? His inconsistencies in selling that leg continue but this one leads to the finish with Edge rolling him up for the three spot at 10.37.

Winner: Edge via pinfall. **. These guys just didn’t click. No chemistry. You wonder where Dave plays into the title picture and you’d hope that Edge gets an array of opponents over the coming months to make the title scene a bit more fluid on Smackdown. The finish could have done with more cheating. I think Edge was aiming for a handful of tights but didn’t get it. So he looks stunned at winning.

BACKSTAGE a potential diva kick line choose their winner in the Cena-Khali match. Kelly Kelly’s pick of Khali is because it sounds more like Kelly is the dumbest call of the lot.

US title – CHRIS BENOIT (c) v MVP

MVP has been learning by losing, and winning, in a series against Benoit. But now its 2/3 falls. MVP only has one fall over Benoit, ever. The injury coming into this is Benoit’s where Finlay bashed the leg with the shillelagh on Smackdown. Benoit goes for both his submission finishes from the start but MVP is familiar with them and squirms out. Benoit with some slick armdrags and he goes for the Crossface again but MVP positions himself by the ropes. Benoit has been really aggressive in the early going. He wants a quick fall. He only slows up when MVP aims a kick at his bad leg. MVP grounds Benoit with a headlock but Benoit suplexes out. Benoit continues his trend of aggression but MVP picks off a single leg and they go into a mount position with Benoit looking for the arm. It does seem that shoot style is sneaking into wrestling more these days. MVP sweeps the leg and that starts his assault on the injured body part. Cole draws attention to MVP’s own taped knee but Benoit doesn’t seem to notice it. Or if he does he doesn’t let a potential decoy distract his strategy. Benoit goes to the Rolling Germans but the knee gives out on the third one. Benoit goes to the old reliable Crossface but MVP manages to get into the ropes to survive. MVP uses the leg to turn the match back around. Benoit dodges the big boot when MVP goes for it. Benoit tries for the Sharpshooter, which he can’t get right because of his bad leg. MVP easily pulls himself into the ropes. Benoit uses his excellent countering and improvisational skills and clocks him with the Enzuigiri. MVP goes back to the leg but Benoit sets for the electric chair. The leg gives out and MVP counters right into the Playmaker for the pin at 8.14. 1-0 MVP.

Speaking of shoot style. MVP goes for a single leg but Benoit gets a good sprawl to stop it. That’s after MVP got a single leg in the first fall. Of course he’s also protecting his injured body part. MVP zeros in on that again and continues his assault. Like Carlito in the opening match most of it is very basic and there’s never really a submission attempt only rest holds. Where’s the knee bar with the crazy selling? What does work really well is the tree of woe where MVP hits the Yakuza kick on the knee. THAT is smart. I like it. MVP goes straight into the kneebar and now Benoit is on the defensive. Some of the crowd start chanting “this is boring” showing their lack of imagination. Benoit comes back with strikes but MVP goes back to the knee and hooks up the Stretch Muffler or in WWE continuity the Brock Lock. Cole doesn’t know what to call it as a result. Benoit hauls himself into the ropes but because his knee hurts it takes time. MVP throws knees MMA style. He goes for the Playmaker but Benoit drops out. The counters start getting really messy as Benoit goes after the Crossface. MVP ELBOWS THE BAD KNEE. See, all that work went somewhere! It prevented the Crossface. The finish gets blown something fierce so Benoit sells the knee and MVP rolls him up at 14.10.

Winner: MVP via pinfall (2-0) . ***. There were some smartly worked counters but there were also a few that didn’t work out so well. They’ve had better matches. The mixing in of MMA was a nice touch but maybe the crowd aren’t ready for 15 minutes of it. MVP is still fairly unpopular amongst the marks. BALLIN’~!

WWE title – JOHN CENA (C) v GREAT KHALI

The tale of the tape shows Khali has a massive size advantage. He is also holding on to Cena’s title belt. JR puts over that Khali has never lost. At least not by pin or submission. Cena takes his usual approach of head down, straight on and striking. Khali clubs him down in short order. You’ll have to be smarter than that John. One thing this match is doing for Cena is improving his crowd reaction. Let’s face facts here; no smarks like Khali. No smark is going to try and turn the crowd on Cena against Khali. As a result the usual Cena fans dominate the audience reactions and it makes him sound like a babyface again. Not that I’m suggesting the WWE engineered that but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did. Khali runs through his usual lumbering offence and Cena does a decent job of bouncing around him. It’s not like Shawn Michaels & Sid but that’s the high end of the same dynamic. Khali is impressive with a kick out standing Cena back up with it. Khali then breaks out a huge spin kick and he needed to do something new in this match and there it is. Crowd is surprised. The match needs an announce table spot or something along those lines and it doesn’t happen. Cena’s odds are already long so maybe that’s the idea. They don’t need any gimmicks when there’s such a size difference. Khali’s use of a nerve hold is fairly predictable. It’s always been the staple of the big man with little mobility. Cena bounces off on a shoulderblock but Khali falls into the ropes where he gets tied up. Cena wails away but Khali gets out and boots him back down. Khali was pretty much unphased by that assault. He goes for the big overhand chop but Cena grabs it. Outside and Cena sees an opening as Khali goes after the ring steps. Cena dropkicks them back into Khali’s knee. Back inside Cena softens Khali up with the Rocker Dropper and the STFU is on. Khali struggles in it but his leg hurts because of the ring steps spot and the STFU rips away at the knee. Khali gives it up and taps out at 8.15 giving Cena a huge win.

Winner: John Cena via submission. **. Way better than it had any right being. Cena wasn’t as good in the underdog role as Shawn Michaels was in his match with Khali but that gave Cena an idea of how he’d have to work this match. The mistake from Khali was allowing Cena the outside the ring area as a playground. Had he not taken it to the floor he’d have worn Cena down and probably beaten him. Cena’s resilience wouldn’t have been enough. As it stands he picks up the duke and retains the WWE title. And to those who questioned Khali being placed in this position; listen to the reaction of the crowd when Cena got the win. That’s why Khali was in that position. Normally they have to crank up the music to cover the boo’s. That and it’s an impressive victory over a man of such huge size.

The 411 –

While there was no stand out match the PPV wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Cena-Khali was far better than it had any right being. I get the feeling they were hoping for Benoit-MVP to be a showstealer but the crowd never really bought into the match. It’s a pity that MVP isn’t catching on with the casual fans as he’s got a lot of personality and potential. It’s promising that a few matches got a lot of time that I didn’t expect (Punk-Burke in particular) and you’d hope they’d keep to that strategy but need to be more deliberate in building up feuds and characters. Punk & Burke will never be over at the same level as the WWE’s top stars until they interact with them and there’s only one star on ECW; Rob Van Dam. If he doesn’t renew his contract then you need to move Punk and Burke in with better competitors. As for the show; thumbs in the middle but considering the card coming in that’s practically a thumbs up. I just hope Vince doesn’t start getting the mentality of “people will buy the show anyway so why should we bother putting on a great card” as whenever he gets into those periods of booking the PPV’s get steadily worse. While they’ve been good so far this year they’ve not been so good as to cover for a slack summer. There’s another PPV in two weeks. That simply isn’t enough time to build a card so they’ll have to put on some great matches on paper or they won’t get people to buy it. Be warned.