Original Airdate: Friday, May 25th, 2007
Wells Fargo Arena
Des Moines, Iowa
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We get an Edge hype video talking about his greatest week ever. Obviously he didn't watch back his match with Batista at Judgment Day. He then talks about how everyone applauded Batista and Undertaker for their great matches and where did it get them? Now he is standing before us as the World Heavyweight Champion. He says the Rated R era is not just a catchphrase, it's a fact. Out comes Teddy Long to remind him that he has to defend his title in 9 days against the winner of the fatal 4-way match tonight. Kane, Finlay, Mark Henry and Batista will square off tonight. I still can't believe they were trying to get people to buy shows 2 weeks apart from one another. Oh wait, I totally can. The match at One Night Stand will also be in a steel cage.
London & Kendrick vs. Dave Taylor & William Regal
Deuce 'n Domino are out to watch. London and Kendrick use their quickness early on, but of course it backfires and Taylor tosses Kendrick over the top to the floor. Taylor is only 3 years older than AJ Styles is in 2024, but looks and works like he is 20 years older. Kendrick is able to come back and hit Sliced Bread #2 and makes a tag to London. London runs into a boot, but hits Regal with a spin kick. London goes up top, but Domino shoves him off for the DQ finish. Taylor then shoves Domino off the apron and that leads to a brawl outside the ring. This was fine.
Match Rating: *1/2
We get a recap of the Shawn Michaels situation.
Hornswoggle has stolen Edge's World Heavyweight Championship belt and Finlay intervenes. Finlay gives Edge his belt and says that he can have it back...for now.
Jillian Hall is singing in the ring and the Boogeyman's music hits. He and Little Boogey torture her. Has anything happened on this show?
Teddy Long offers Vickie Guerrero the position of his assistant. Kristal is very happy about it.
Matt Hardy vs. Miz
Miz is quickly on offense to allow Michael Cole and JBL to tell us how improved he is. Hardy eventually comes back after hitting a big clothesline. Hardy hits a bulldog and gets a 2 count. Miz is able to avoid a Twist Of Fate but gets hit with a Side Effect instead. Miz tries some more counters, but Hardy is able to hit the Twist Of Fate this time and picks up the victory. This served the purpose of them telling us Hardy has been better than ever and that Miz isn't just a goofball anymore.
Match Rating: **
We get a pre-taped vignette of Mark Henry.
MVP is here for his United States Championship celebration. MVP says that it isn't his style to say "I told you so", but he's going to say it. He says that this celebration is missing someone and asks where Chris Benoit is? Out comes Benoit and MVP tells him that we are all so happy he could join us to celebrate. Benoit accepts MVP's handshake, but that's not enough for MVP. MVP says that he beat Benoit in two straight falls and tells Benoit that he needs to raise his hand. Benoit hits a trio of German suplexes instead.
We get a Great Khali/John Cena recap. Are they even trying tonight? There has been so much dead air on this episode.
Kane says that tonight will be fatal for Batista, Mark Henry and Finlay. Only because we have to watch this moron wrestle.
Chavo Guerrero vs. Jimmy Wang Yang
Both of these guys are fine in the ring, but there is just no reason to care about this. We get lots of mat wrestling from Chavo. It's one submission after another here, just in case there were a few people out there that still wanted to care about this. Yang starts doing the quick pinfall attempts to get the match going. Yang goes for a moonsault, but Chavo moves and Yang lands on his injured knee. Chavo hits the Three Amigos and goes up top. Yang greets him with a right hand and goes for a superplex. Chavo counters that to a sunset flip, which Yang counters to hurricanrana and a victory. This was just too slow for what they were trying to accomplish.
Match Rating: *1/4
Batista tells Kristal that tonight is going to be fatal, just not for him.
Edge is on his way out to the ring to watch the main event.
Fatal 4-Way World Heavyweight Championship #1 Contender Match
Batista vs. Kane vs. Finlay vs. Mark Henry
We split off into Kane/Finlay and Batista/Henry as expected. Henry gets a powerslam on Batista, but Finlay breaks up the pin attempt. Batsista starts being the star of the show, hitting a superplex on Finlay, but then gets squashed by Henry. Oh, now we get Henry and Kane squaring off. Henry runs into one of the laziest boots you'll ever see since Kane is gassed from trying to work hard for 30 seconds. Batista hits him with a spinebuster thankfully. Henry hits the World's Strongest Slam, but Batista kicks out. Finlay hits Henry with the shillelagh and they act as if he has to be distracted, but there are no DQs. He then hits Batista in the leg with it. Finlay and Kane then start brawling outside and out comes Hornswoggle. Batista hits a spear on Finlay, then Kane and lastly Henry. Batista hits the Batista Bomb on Finlay and that's all. I'm not really sure what the point of Hornswoggle was there. They kept this short, which was wise. As a result, we got a nicely paced TV main event.
Match Rating: ***
Typically a good main event is enough to give a decent review to, but there was just so much wasted time on this show. Did we really need another Lashley recap? The company just has so little going for it right now that it's become more of a chore to watch than I thought it would be. This was much better than ECW and Raw, but that's not saying a whole lot.
Overall Rating: 44%
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