Royal Rumble 2007 Review

Sunday, January 28th, 2007
AT&T Center
San Antonio, Texas

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MNM vs. Hardys

For the first time that I can recall, the production crew kind of botches the red carpet entrance. They try to tell the story of Matt having an injured jaw from the Snapshot on SmackDown. It's a seesaw start, but when things settle in, MNM is indeed working on Matt and his jaw. Mercury misses with an elbow off the second rope and in comes Jeff. Jeff hits Whisper In The Wind, but Mercury breaks up the pin attempt. Matt and Jeff both climb to the top rope, but Nitro gets his knees up on Jeff's splash. Matt still hit the leg drop, but Jeff is the legal man. It's Jeff's turn to get the beatdown thanks to some illegal shenanigans. Matt gets the hot tag and hits the combination bulldog/clothesline. It's not quite the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, but it's still pretty good. All four men end up in the ring after a Snapshot attempt and instead the Hardys hit Poetry In Motion. They go for it again, but Nitro ducks and almost steals the match. Matt hits the Side Effect and then a Twist Of Fate. Mercury runs in and drives Matt out of the ring. Matt made a tag to Jeff on his way out though and he hits the Swanton for the victory. This was a good opener and probably better than their December To Dismember match by a slight amount. 

Match Rating: ***1/4

We go back to the Royal Rumble tumbler room. Jonathan Coachman and Teddy Long argue about which brand will win before Edge walks in. He introduces himself to Kelly Kelly and then makes fun of her. Randy Orton also joins and they pull their numbers. Edge then says that he'll show him his, if Orton shows him his. King Booker is disgusted by the wording. 

ECW Championship Match
Test vs. Bobby Lashley

Lashley hits a T Bone suplex and a delayed vertical suplex, which is pretty impressive on the size of a guy like Test. Test is able to throw Lashley into the ring post from the apron and he falls to the floor. Test goes to work on the shoulder, but it only slows down Lashley for a minute or two. Lashley comes back with some offense until he tries a gorilla press slam and his shoulder gives out. Test then hits hiim with a big boot to the face for a nearfall. Lashley comes back again and is able to knock Test out of the ring. For whatever reason, Test decides it's a good idea to just get counted out and Lashley, being the babyface he is, is okay with that? That makes no sense on either side of the argument. Lashley runs and attacks him and hits a running powerslam before celebrating his lackluster victory. You would think you would want to try and get more people to watch the less popular brand, but instead they gave us this.

Match Rating: *

John Cena is being checked out by a doctor backstage. Vince walks in and asks if there's any chance of him forfeiting his WWE Championship. Vince says he can't see Cena as the last man standing tonight or the WWE Champion.

World Heavyweight Championship Match
Mr. Kennedy vs. Batista

Mr. Kennedy has been one of the recent success stories here in this era of WWE and he gets his first title shot tonight. Kennedy is able to drive the knee of Batista into the ring steps. Kennedy targets the knee from there and Batista is in trouble. Kennedy has some blood coming from his nose and licks it while he has Batista in a half crab. Batista comes back, but is selling that knee injury. We get a weird timing issue on a slam from Batista. Batista signals for the Batista Bomb, but Kennedy is able to hit the knee of Batista. Batista runs into the referee and Kennedy hits a low blow. The ref is still down and can't make the cover. Kennedy hits a DDT and this time the ref counts, but Batista gets the shoulder up. Batista comes back and hits a Batista Bomb and just like that it's over. This was a solid match that was better than I remembered it being. 

Match Rating: **3/4

Ariel tells Kevin Thorn that their number is just as the cards predicted and Coach says that there are some freaks in ECW. In walks Hornswoggle to start banging on the tumbler. He picks a number and Coach makes a small joke, so he jumps on him and bites him. In walks Great Khali and Hornswoggle runs away. Khali grabs 3 balls, but Coach lets him know and he drops 2 of them. Kelly then makes the most obvious and stupid joke you'll see about them being the two biggest balls she's ever held. In walks Ron Simmons. 

Last Man Standing Match For The WWE Championship
Umaga vs. John Cena

I've been really looking forward to watching this one again. It's all Umaga to begin the match and he nails him with a big clothesline to give us our first semi-serious count from the referee. Umaga introduces some ring steps to the match, but Cena is the one who ends up using them as he chucks them from in the ring to Umaga on the floor. That was great. Umaga is back up and he hits a spin kick. Umaga grabs the steps again and puts them in the ring. He props Cena up in the corner against the steps, but Cena is able to move out of the way of the butt bop. Cena rams the steps into Umaga and then Umaga hits a spinning slam. Cena is able to get his knees up on an Umaga slam for a low blow. He then hits a blockbuster and a slam both on the steps. Cena hits the 5 Knuckle Shuffle while Umaga is draped on the steps. He gets him up for the FU, but his head gives out and he falls onto the steps. Umaga still did fall on the steps. Cena is up and is bleeding from the forehead. Cena tries to do a hulk up, but Umaga hits him with a Samoan drop. The way Cena landed didn't look good there. Umaga signals for the Samoan Spike, but Cena blocks it. Umaga still hits him with a headbutt and puts him into the tree of woe. Cena sits up when Umaga goes for the headbutt and then hits a leg drop off the top rope. This match is fantastic. Cena throws Umaga into the ring post and then grabs a TV monitor out of the hands of Armando Estrada. Cena then nails the monitor on Umaga's head and that gets about a 7 or 8 count. Umaga catches Cena from the apron and he drives him into the ring post. He lays Cena on the announce table and then runs across two other tables before missing with the splash. Umaga barely breaks the count and they 100% have the crowd here. Estrada is up to something in the corner with the turnbuckle. He removes the entire turnbuckle and the ring rope is down as a result. Umaga grabs the metal turnbuckle as a spike, but Cena ducks and hits the FU. He knocks Estrada off the apron for good measure. Cena uses the turnbuckle on Cena and then uses the rope to choke Umaga in the STFU. Cena continues to choke the life out of Umaga until he's basically passed out. Cena gets up and Umaga is down for the 10 count. The finishes to Last Man Standing matches are always a little anticlimatic, but this was a clever finish and the match was awesome from bell to bell. Bravo to both men here. 

Match Rating: ****3/4

More arguing from Long and Coach until Sandman comes in and drinks a beer and hits his head with the cane. He says it doesn't matter and walks away. In comes Ric Flair and then dances with Kelly Kelly and crew. 

We get a nice Royal Rumble video package, as they usually do. 

Royal Rumble 

Your first two competitors are Ric Flair at #1 and Finlay at #2, giving us over 100 years of life experience right off the bat. This is a very odd pairing to start the match with and they have a mostly uneventful start before Kenny Dykstra comes down at #3. Please let them get this feud out of their system here. Kenny and Finlay eventually start working together on Flair before Matt Hardy is #4. He hits a Side Effect on Kenny and then almost eliminates him. Edge is out at #5, as we have our first serious contender in the match. He comes right in and hits a Spear on Flair and Finlay. He misses it on Matt and he hits a Twist Of Fate on him. Kenny and Matt hit a double clothesline and everyone is down. Flair goes under the ring and grabs a chair. Kenny gets to him first and he knocks the chairs out of the ring. Edge and Kenny throw Flair out and then Edge tosses Kenny out. #6 is Tommy Dreamer and he immediately goes to Edge. Dreamer puts Edge in the tree of woe and hits the running dropkick. #7 is Sabu and he grabs a table on his way to the ring. He sets it up outside the ring and goes after Dreamer. Gregory Helms is #8 and naturally goes right to Matt. #9 is Shelton Benjamin and almost eliminates both Dreamer and Matt. #10 is Kane and the pyro goes off. Kane quickly disposes of Dreamer and then chokeslams Sabu through the very table he pulled out. CM Punk comes out at #11 in his first Royal Rumble. #12 is King Booker and chucks Helms over the top. #13 is Super Crazy and is my pick to win this thing. We're due for a ring clearing soon. Jeff Hardy is #14 and I don't think he'll be the one to do it. He teams up with Matt to start and hit Poetry In Motion to Kane. #15 is Sandman and he comes through the crowd. He brings the cane into the match and starts leveling everyone with it. Before I could even finish typing that sentence, King Booker dumps him out of the match and JBL declares that we know he's not Stone Cold. #16 is Randy Orton and adds another credible contender here. He and Edge team up to dump Super Crazy from the match. Rated RKO teams up and eliminates both Hardys. Chris Benoit is #17 and hits a bunch of suplexes. #18 is Rob Van Dam making it 6 former World Champions in the ring. King Booker is eliminated by Kane. He comes back in and attacks Kane and hits the scissor kick. He dumps him over the top rope and they treat it as an elimination. The battle continues outside the ring and this will lead to a feud that absolutely no one cares about, just like most Kane feuds. #19 is Viscera and no one cares about that either. Johnny Nitro is out at #20, with the biggest note being that Finlay is still in there. Oh boy, at #20 it's Kevin Thorn and at #21 it's Hardcore Holly. What a drop off in names since Rob Van Dam. So you know something big is coming and at #23 it's Shawn Michaels. He comes in and eliminates Finlay and Shelton Benjamin. We also get a group elimination of Viscera. #24 is Chris Masters and he comes out to silence. Johnny Nitro is eliminated by Chris Benoit from the second rope. Chavo Guerrero is out at #25 and the announcers try to sell us on him having a chance of winning. Kevin Thorn is eliminated and what a loss that is. #26 is MVP and his burned back. Masters is eliminated by a RVD dropkick and JBL (a heel) makes fun of Masters (a heel). Carlito is your #27, as he draws the so called "lucky" number. I'm guessing there will be no luck here tonight. #28 is Great Khali and he doesn't get much of a reaction either. He hits a bunch of headbutts and chops on the field. He throws Hardcore Holly out just as Miz's music hits for #29. Khali quickly tosses him out of the ring and then Rob Van Dam. CM Punk is next and then Carlito. Chavo becomes the 6th person eliminated by Khali in the matter of a minute or two. Shawn Michaels tries to get something going, but Khali hits the double handed chokeslam. #30 is Undertaker of course and Khali is ready for him. Taker and Khali trade blows and then Taker clotheslines Khali over the top and out of the match. So just to get it right, it took about 10 guys to eliminate Viscera, but only Undertaker to take care of Khali? Sounds about right. Taker hits Old School on MVP and then throws him out. We're down to Edge, Orton, Michaels and Taker. MVP grabs a chair and Orton gets his hands on it, using it on Undertaker's head. Edge goes for a Spear on Orton, but Orton sees it and puts his chair up. Edge stops and they begin to argue. Orton hits a RKO on Michaels and then goes back to arguing with Edge. They go back to working together and target Undertaker. Taker is bleeding from the forehead after the chair shot. Taker is able to lay them out with a double clothesline and hits Snake Eyes on Edge. Taker goes for a chokeslam on Orton, but Edge hits a Spear before that can happen. Edge hits another chair shot to the head of Taker. WHY ARE WE STILL DOING CHAIR SHOTS IN 2007? Edge goes out and grabs the second chair and sets up Taker. Michaels returns to the ring and eliminates both Rated RKO members before they do it. Both Michaels and Taker are down in the ring and Taker is the first to sit up and then Michaels does the kip up. Michaels does some serious bumping for Taker and some close calls on being eliminated. Taker misses with a boot in the corner and he's almost falling to the floor. He battles his way out of elimination from the apron. They start to battle up on the second rope and Michaels is able to fight his way out of a superplex and/or elimination. Michaels hits an elbow drop from the top and then tunes up the band. Taker catches it and hits a chokeslam. Michaels comes back with Sweet Chin Music and they are both down again. Michaels goes for Sweet Chin Music again, Taker ducks it and dumps him over the top to pick up the victory. The irony of it all is that Michaels sends up being in the main event of WrestleMania anyways. However, this is easily a top tier Royal Rumble that features one of, if not the, best final fours and final two of any Rumble match. This was really good.

Match Rating: ****

This was a really strong show where the top two matches really delivered. Cena/Umaga may be my favorite Cena match. I'll see if that changes as I go through the years here, but it's most definitely up there. Having a mini match with Taker and Michaels was a great idea and the crowd was with them for every second of it. The rest of the card was solid enough, with really only the ECW match being pointless. 

Overall Rating: 85%