WWE Judgment Day PPV Review - 5/18/08 - Omaha, NE
I’m a bit bummed out… WWE’s commie lawyers must have scoured YouTube looking for copyright videos at 4:00 am, because I can’t find a lick of footage on the thing. I mean, yeah, it’s their “intellectual property” and all, but just how “intellectual” is it?
Here’s a pop quiz–Triple H is:
A) Auditioning for the lead role in the remake of Shocker.
B) Visiting Nick Bollea in prison and bringing back some souvenirs.
C) Bringing back the Nailz gimmick.
You decide!
John Cena defeated JBL. I thought this was a curious finish considering Cena’s off making another movie, and JBL could use a bit of a boost to remain one of Raw’s top heels. F-U on JBL for the win after a fairly deliberate, old school match. After the match, they show Commissioner King (or is that King Commissioner?) William Regal looking down from his box suite in disapproval.
On a side note, if Ken Kennedy can keep healthy for more than 3 months at a time, he would be a great foil for Bradshaw if they keep building him as a babyface after he gets done with Regal.
WWE Tag Team Champions John Morrison & The Miz retained over ECW Champion Kane & CM Punk. Morrison with a neckbreaker on Punk for the win. Another match that was kind of slow, but I don’t know how you could get excited for this match in the first place. You can’t have anybody pin Kane, because he’s the champ. You also can’t really let the babyfaces win and have Kane carrying around two belts. Then again, I’m not sure what purpose was served in jobbing out the Money in the Bank holder unless he’ll actually be the first one to lose the match he cashes in on, and they’re just trying to prepare us for that. Just a bit confusing, that’s all.
By the way, I wish I hadn’t said anything last month about how great the WWE PPVs have been lately, because this one has been mighty boring so far.
Shawn Michaels defeated Chris Jericho. So, in case you missed it last Monday, Shawn faked the knee injury all along, which caused Jericho then to actually believe that Michaels had an injury just to be disagreeable. That’s pretty funny. The match revolved around Jericho working over a rib injury to Michaels, with a great moment where Michaels tried to kip up and couldn’t from the pain. Both guys teased heel turns throughout, but in the end, you could chalk it up to just good old-fashioned competitiveness. Michaels reversed the Walls of Jericho for the pin. After the match, they shook hands and both flinched. Pretty awesome stuff there, and that was definitely needed to pick this show back up.
Backstage, Mickie James was about to tell how wild her night with John Cena was until JBL interrupted and said that nobody was going to get wild with Cena until he got wild with him. I don’t think he swings that way.
WWE Women’s Champion Mickie James retained over Beth Phoenix and Melina in a Triple Threat Match. Phoenix hit both her opponents with a backbreaker AT THE SAME TIME during this match. Decent match, and Melina jobbed out to Mickie after a DDT. It’s interesting how low Melina’s stock has dropped in the company over the last year. I guess being an extremely nasty woman and stirring the pot with you co-workers doesn’t pay.
Backstage, Batista promised to hurt Shawn Michaels for lying about the knee injury. Hey, Shawn, doesn’t that break one of the Commandments?
Undertaker defeated Edge by countout in a World Championship Match. This whole storyline has been pretty convoluted for the past month. So, let me get this straight, they gave Undertaker the belt again, he’s supposed to get the long run with it, but instead they stripped the title and put him in the same match and same feud he’s been in for the last three or four big shows? Turn the page already… is the continuation of this feud because Michael Hayes is too busy running his Klan meetings and has no time to come up with something else? Pretty much the same stuff they’ve been doing for the last few months. They ended up outside the ring, and Taker rolled got back in the ring in the nick of time to get the countout victory, which got Eddie’s 9/11 widow up to roll out and tell him that he’s not the champion until he gets a pinfall or submission, which I guess makes sense, but it’s just not that conclusion that you’re looking for, I guess. Funny… I’d like to give up a pinfall or submission just to get this program over with.
MVP went to the ring to complain that Michael Hayes didn’t give him a spot on the card because Mark Henry is more black than he is… or something. Anyway, he challenged anybody in the locker room to a match, and there’s Jeff Hardy to oblige, who is more black, green, purple, and blue than MVP.
Jeff Hardy defeated MVP. Nice surprise match that they threw in there, and I wonder if the Hardys will reunite this summer in a series of tag matches with Porter and somebody else. After all, ya gotta sell that DVD.
In the main event, WWE Champion Triple H retained over Randy Orton in a steel cage match. Nice wrestling match between the two of them to start with, and then they started in with the cage drama after that nice build. Orton tried to get out the door, but Triple H pulled him back in. Meanwhile, someone carelessly planted left a chair nearby, and Orton dragged it in with him. Still, it was an interesting way to get the weapon in there and played into the finish. Chairshot by Triple H followed by a Pedigree for the win. That was a pretty good match.
Although this show was not on par with most of the other WWE shows this year, it wasn’t extraordinarily bad. Three out of the six matches were good, but on second thought, are six matches worth $40 when you’ll probably see two of them again this week for free? Doubtful…
May 19th, 2008 at 10:23 am
I found this one was very disappointing. JBL is starting to look like he is not up to the standard of being a top-card star. A DQ finish would have been better. Chris Jericho is in limbo too, he desperately needs a big PPV win and the non-appearance/interference by Batista to further the story was a let-down. Match of the night though.
Kane with two belts could have worked (MVP had two last year mind) seeing as how he would have had to work twice at Night Of Champions, he could have lost the tag one due to tiredness (?) and start something with Punk. I doubt they would have him lose MITB but he really needs something quick. I would have laughed if they let him cash in on the vacant title.
Beth Phoenix is heads and shoulders above everyone else on RAW. Hopefully they will bring over Victoria and Nattie Neidhart or even push Katie Lea more, you would have a really solid division then. I can’t believe they let Jeff Hardy bury both Umaga and MVP in the space of a week though.
The Undertaker finish, while a cop-out, made sense and Vickie got an amazing amount of heat. Just let them do a buried alive/casket match and be done with it. Also it would have been better I feel to let HHH win by escape to protect Orton somewhat for another rematch. Oh well.
It is ludicrous that the next PPV is only in 2 weeks time. Hopefully a draft happens after to shake things, especially Smackdown, up.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
thats a Nailz rebirth if I ever seen one!!