Review of WWE: Royal Rumble 2007

Introduction

An annual WWE event since its debut in 1988, the Royal Rumble is always a favourite among wrestling fans, because of its unique main-event match. In the Royal Rumble, thirty wrestlers enter the ring at two minute intervals, and the only way to be eliminated from the contest is to be thrown out of the ring, over the top rope, with both feet hitting the floor below. With its motto of "Every man for himself", the Rumble match always brings about match-ups that you thought you may never see.

Even though two World Championship matches (Batista vs. Mr Kennedy, and John Cena vs. Umaga) were also on the card, the Royal Rumble match was undoubtedly the main event for the 2007 version of the event, a fact that was not the case in 2006.

The Royal Rumble 2007 was held in front of 16,118 at the AT&T Centre in San Antonio, Texas, on 28th January 2007.

Video

Video is presented in 4:3 fullscreen PAL, and is excellent for a DVD of this genre. The transfer is clean, clear, and suffers from no distracting compression artefacts. It is also surprisingly sharp for an NTSC-sourced produced.

Audio

Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, and is also excellent for a DVD of this genre.

That`s right, Royal Rumble 2007 has been treated to a lovely 5.1 surround track, which may be a first for the UK market (I can confirm Region 1 and Region 4 have had limited 5.1 efforts in previous years). I am reliably informed by the distributors that this will now be the norm for Region 2 WWE discs, at least where dual-layer space allows.

The mix itself is very nice indeed, with the front speakers handling all the regular event sounds (music, in-ring action, commentary, crowd noise), and the surrounds providing some extra fullness to the music, crowd noise, and in-ring action.

What is nice about this 5.1 track is that it is in no way overbearing, whilst being a considerable step-up from what were very good 2.0 tracks. By reputation, a more in-your-face mix might have been expected, but even the subwoofer displays great subtlety here.

International viewers will have to settle for 2.0, I`m afraid, but they maintain their regular standard in German, Italian, Spanish, and French. There are also subtitles in Portuguese, Dutch, and Greek.

Features

The main extra feature on this release is the 29th January Tag Team Title bout, as Edge & Randy Orton defended against Shawn Michaels & John Cena. This is a very good television-style match (ie. Lots of fast-paced action).

Otherwise, there is a Todd Grisham "interview" segment with The Undertaker & Kane, which ends in no interview at all, and a ten-minute long in-ring monologue by Vince McMahon which, as good as the delivery was, needed to take up a lot less time. This was the beginning of his feud with Donald Trump, building to Wrestlemania.

Conclusion

The 2007 Royal Rumble began in familiar fashion, as Matt & Jeff Hardy opened with perennial nemeses MNM (Johnny Nitro & Joey Mercury). This was a good opening match, although their various confrontations in prior weeks diluted the meaning of this one.

Speaking of which, whose idea was it to rematch Bobby Lashley and Test, for the ECW World Title, given that Lashley had defeated Test via pinfall, the previous week on ECW television? The answer is, I don`t know, but Vince McMahon OK`d it. To make things worse, this wasn`t a good bout, and it contained an atrocious finish.

The World Heavyweight Title was then on the line, as Batista defended against Mr Kennedy. This was a better bout than many of the champion`s previous bouts after returning from injury, but the credit for that was almost all down to an excellent performance from Kennedy.

Things took a major upturn in the penultimate bout, as John Cena defended his WWE Title against Umaga in a Last Man Standing match (no pinfalls, loser is unable to answer a count of ten). This was an excellent match, a real throwback to wrestling`s old days, with excellent pacing, building to a big finish. This was certainly one of the best matches of Cena`s young career.

It was hard to see the Royal Rumble match emulating that level of quality, but it certainly did come closer than I had expected. As always, there were some good moments throughout the contest, but it was the prolonged finish that took it to another level. I`m delighted to say that, although it could not match the magnificent 1992 Rumble match, this was right up behind it as one to remember.

Overall, then, Royal Rumble 2007 was an inconsistent but intriguing affair, which is required viewing for anyone who considers themselves a wrestling fan - just make use of the SKIP function for Lashley vs. Test, and maybe even Batista vs. Kennedy. John Cena vs. Umaga is a fantastic "gimmick" match, and the Rumble match lived up to its hype.

With superior audio available on this title, as well as the usual high production values elsewhere, this release is highly recommended.