2007 Royal Rumble
Today im reviewing the 2007 Rumble which took place in San Antonio TX, the site of the 97 Royal Rumble. Your hosts are JR and King for the Raw matches. JBL and Cole for Smackdowns matches and Styles and Tazz for the ECW matches.
Match #1
Tag Team Match
The Hardy Boyz Vs MNM
Mercury has the face protector after getting his face turned into puddy back at Armageddon. Nitro's singles career was a short one as he's back teaming with MNM to feud with the reunited Hardyz. Matt gets suckered into the MNM corner to and Mercury pounds him on the mat. Matt fights back and tags Jeff who comes in with a mule kick for 2. Nitro comes in and gets legdropped for 2. Matt suplexes Mercury outside then he gets a neckbreaker on Nitro for 2. Mercury kicks Matt in the face and Nitro gets 2. Mercury keeps slugging at the face and gets a hard clothesline for 2. Mercury misses a splash and Jeff comes in again. Front suplex gets 2 on Nitro. Whisper in the wind gets 2. The Hardyz double team Nitro with a suplex and both head up. Nitro gets the knees up and gets Jeff on the splash attempt but Matt still gets the legdrop and the ref chases Matt out because he's not legal. That was a neat spot. Nitro gets a running knee for 2. Jeff rolls up Mercury for 2, but Mercury pounds on the ribs. MNM with the double gutbuster for 2. Nitro goes to a bodyscissors, but Jeff fights out and makes the tag which the ref doesn't see. Hot tag Matt, and he does the bulldog clothesline combo for 2 on Nitro. Yodelling elbow gets 2. MNM comes back with an attempt at a Snapshot, but Jeff breaks it up and they get poetry in motion. Another one is missed by Jeff, and Nitro cradles Matt for 2. Matt comes back with the side effect and twist of fate, but Mercury tangles with him so Jeff goes up and hits the swanton for the pin at 15:27. Good opener. 3 stars.
Edge and Orton draw numbers then offer to show eachother their balls.
Match #2
ECW Championship Match
Bobby Lashley Vs Test
This would be Test's last run with the WWE and he's looking REALLY roided and bloated tonight. He would get sent away shortly thereafter on wellness violations then OD on pain medication two years later. Test stomps and chokes Bobby down, but Lashley hits him with a t bone suplex. Delayed vertical suplex and Test bails. He suckers Lashley and trips him into the post. Test works the arm for a bit. Lashley backdrops him and follows with a corner clothesline and some shoulderblocks in the corner, but his arm gives out on a press slam. Big boot from Test gets 2. F5 is escaped by Lashley, and he clotheslines Test to the floor and Test walks out on the match. Lashley wins by crappy countout at 7:18. Dumb match. 1/2 star. Lashley beats up Test postmatch.
Match #3
World Championship Match
Batista Vs Mr Kennedy
Kennedy gets a quick rollup for 2. Kennedy hammers until Batista slugs back. Suplex gets 2 for Batista. They fight out of the ring and back in. Kennedy goes to the knee, and starts working on it. Kennedy wraps him up in a reverse figure four, but he uses the ropes and gets caught so he has to break it up. Kennedy starts bleeding from the nose off of something. Kennedy goes to a half crab but Batista counters to a small package for 2. He tries a powerslam, but Kennedy sneaks out and clips him. He walks into a spinebuster, but Batista can't cover because of the bad leg. Batista fights back and gets a corner clothesline. Slam and firemans carry roll cues the comeback, but Kennedy hits the knee again to block the Batista Bomb. Ref goes down and Kennedy gets a ddt without a ref to count and JBL is having a nit fit. Kennedy chant starts up. Kennedy goes up top and gets clotheslined on the way down and a batistabomb ends it at 10:29. 2 1/2 stars
Backstage Little Bastard draws number for Finlay, then harrases Coach and meets Khali. Khali draws three numbers in one hand and Coach tells him he can only take one. Khali doesn't care either way. Kelly Kelly does her dingbat shtick and Faarooq chimes in with DAMN!
Match #4
WWE Championship Last Man Standing Match
John Cena Vs Umaga
Cena has his ribs taped up tonight. Cena gets a jawbreaker, but Umaga hits him in the ribs and Cena goes outside. Umaga sends him into the steps and they fight down the aisle. Back in, Umaga headbutts him down and kicks him in the ribs again and hits a clothesline but Cena is up at 7. Umaga grabs the stairs and Cena fights them away and bongs Umaga with them. Umaga beats the count and attacks the ribs to regain control. Umaga tries a bearhug then grabs the other steps and props them in the corner and props Cena against them. Umaga signals for the fat assed charge but misses and goes to the steps by himself. Cena bonks him with the stair again and Umaga gets up at 7. Cena goes up, but gets caught in a uranage on the way down. Umaga goes back to the ribs, but Cena kicks him in the nuts to stop him. Bomb on the stairs and both guys are down, but Cena is up first. F-U on the stairs follows. Cena knocks himself stupid by hitting his head on the steps on the way down and they are double KO. Cena bleeds. Umaga catches Cena with a samoan drop then goes for the smelly finger attack but Cena blocks so Umaga hangs him in the tree of woe, but Cena dodges a charging Umaga and goes up with a top rope fameasser. Cena posts Umaga outside then blasts him with a monitor. Umaga beats the count at 8. Cena comes off the apron, but Umaga sends him into the post and onto the ECW table. Umaga cleans all three tables then runs accross all of them and misses a big splash on the ECW table and goes through it without Cena. Umaga is up at 9. Estrada undoes a turnbuckle. The top turnbuckle corner unit is all loose now so that's gonna be used. Cena beats Umaga to it and chokes Umaga down with it. Umaga is the crazy islander and he beats the count so Cena chokes him down some more in a sort of modified STFU and Umaga can't beat the count and Cena retains at 23:09. Im going 4 stars. It was alot better than New Years Revolution 2007.
Backstage Thorn draws a number then does the creepy goth makeout with Ariel then Sandman grabs a number and throws it without even reading it and does his two best skills, drink beer badly then hit himself with his cane. Flair shows up to draw the last number in the tumbler then does a weird dance segment with a couple of divas I don't care to remember the names of.
Match #5
2007 Royal Rumble
Flair draws #1 which is some seriously shty luck for him to get the last ball in the tumbler and have it be #1. Finlay draws #2. I wonder if he smacked Bastard around for drawing a bad number? It's a good way to start things. They do a mini match. Finlay tries putting Flair out as Kenny runs out and gets chopped by Flair. Matt Hardy is #4 and still feeling the jaw injury. Side Effect on Kenny. Kenny and Finlay double team Flair and Edge is #5. He spears everybody but misses Matt and eats a twist of fate. Flair grabs a set of chairs to give Edge a conchairto but Edge simply pitches him out. Pft, well he made it longer than I thought he would. Kenny highfives Edge and does the Flair strut so Edge throws his punk ass out too. Tommy Dreamer is #6 and goes after Edge, he puts him in the tree of woe and hits him with a dropkick. Finlay and Dreamer fight while Matt beats on Edge for past problems. Sabu is #7 and he pulls out a table. He screws up a springboard ddt on Dreamer about 30 seconds into the ring. Gregory Helms is #8 and goes after Matt. Shelton Benjamin is #9. He tries throwing Matt then Helms through the table at ringside. Shelton gets backdropped by Matt but his feet touch the table, slowing his momentum so he can get back in. Kane is #10 and he beats up everybody. Dreamer is the first one gone then Sabu dukes it out with him and gets chokeslammed through his own table on the floor. CM Punk is #11, and gets jumped by Finlay. King Booker is #12 and he singles out Helms and he's gone. Super Crazy is #13 and Kane beats on him. Jeff Hardy is #14 and helps Matt against Finlay, and they go after Edge and Crazy. They get Poetry in Motion on Kane, and Sandman is #15. He canes some people then gets kicked in the gut and thrown out by Booker because the WWE is doing everything they can to piss on the lawns of the originals. Hardy gets tossed by Finlay, but skins the cat back in. Randy Orton is #16 and Rated RKO toss Crazy then they get rid of the Hardyz in succession. Chris Benoit is #17, and he chops people then gives Finlay a german suplex. RVD is #18 and his career is pretty much dead after that drug incident over the past summer. He stuns Booker with a kick then Kane tosses Booker. Booker gets back in and eliminates Kane then beats him down like a punk which is totally counterproductive to Kane's character. The Worlds Largest Marshmellow Viscera is #19 and he goes after Edge. Johnny Nitro is #20 and Kevin Thorn is #21. RVD goes after Viscera, but can't get him out alone. Hardcore Holly is #22. Shawn Michaels is #23 and he goes right at Finlay. He superkicks Visceras brains out and everyone gangs up on him to dump him while Shawn ends Finlays lengthy stay. Shelton blind charge at Shawn and he gets tossed. Chris Masters is #24 and Nitro goes out. Team RKO works on Shawn in the corner as Chavo Guerrero is #25. Benoit gets Thorn out. MVP is #26 and he runs into Benoit chops. RVD with a lame dropkick and Masters takes the lame bump like Goldust last year out of hte match. Carlito is #27 and he goes after Orton & Edge. RVD almost dumps Michaels out, but Holly makes the save. Great Khali is #28 and everyone waits on him as the match goes into the ****house. Khali does his fake/halfassed headbutts and brain chops for Edge/Orton/Shawn then while everyone is laying around he tosses Holly. Okay that's fine. Miz is #29 as Khali dumps Benoit off camera then Miz goes right out thanks to Khali. NOW it gets stupid. RVD is next as Khali puts an armbar on him and lifts him out to the floor then Punk gets tossed and Carlito gets sent over but springs back into a brain chop and he's dead outside. Chavo gets flung out as Khali the guy who can barely move is fed 7 of the midcarders inside of a minute!! What a bunch of crap that is. I was fine with the first three but now they are getting lazy and just wanna wrap up the show. Undertaker is #30 and JBL immediately kills the mythology of #30. The first time in the Rumbles history, and JBL says nobody has ever drawn #30 and won. While every other year they plugged to the moon how important the number was, nobody ever won. So now that they tell you nobody has ever won with it that means Taker is gonna win. Taker shows us the food chain in the WWE by winning a punchout with Khali then muscling him out with a clothesline. I bet by the next Rumble, Khali wil be doing bushwacker performances and not getting a third of the eliminations he got tonight. The Rumble is a good way to gauge who's who and who isn't worth a **** in the WWE's eyes. So we are down to Taker/Shawn/MVP/Edge/Orton. Taker gets rid of MVP because he's a new guy with a talented gimmick. Orton gets a chair and lays Taker out after 2 minutes of work then Edge tries to spear Orton but he turns around and they argue. Orton gives Shawn an RKO then back to arguing with Edge. Rated RKO goes after Undertaker and pounds him but he fights back. Corner clotheslines for both of them and he clotheslines both at the same time. Snake Eyes for Edge and big boot, and Orton is about to be chokeslammed before Edge spears Taker. A chairshot puts Taker down again. Edge gets another chair and sets up the conchairto, but Shawn recovers and dumps Orton, then superkicks Edge out of the match in a suprise spot. Taker and Shawn duke it out in a pretty lenghty mini match. Shawn slugs away in the corner, but Taker fires back and nearly punches him out of the ring. Shawn takes a flip in the corner and gets hung up but Taker charges and lands on the apron himself. Shawn charges and hits elbow. Shawn ends up on the apron during a suplex attempt, but tries to go up and gets slugged down. Both guys fight on the top, but Taker goes down first, and Shawn follows with the flying elbow. Superkick is caught by Taker, and it's a chokeslam! Taker goes for the tombstone, but Shawn escapes and superkicks him. Shawn waits and sets for another one but Taker ducks low and alleyoops Shawn to the floor and Taker is the first guy to win the Rumble at #30 at 56:18. The crowd was more pro Shawn than Taker. I liked it up until Khali came in and they fed him just about every midcarder that was in the ring. The finale between Shawn and Taker helped make up for it. Im going 3 1/2 stars. I would of gone for 4 but the commentary was annoying as hell. Most of which is directed at Cole for constantly reminding us no less than 8 times through the match that you have to be thrown OVER the top to the floor to be eliminated. Ive been watching this damn ppv for 20 years, I don't need Cole reminding me what the rules are. JBL was an a$$hole too to a lesser extent.
Overall Opinion: A pretty good show. The undercard was better than last years and the Rumble itself was better without having to sit through that do it for Eddie BS story they had going.
Final Score: This event scores a 5.8 on the .1 to 10.0 star rating system. Not the best Rumble ever but it's somewhere in the middle of the pack. If the ECW title match didn't suck so bad, this show would be in the 6 star region, and if Khali didn't overkill the competition we might be talking 7 stars.