This review was commissioned by Zeke over on my Ko-fi account.
“Even a monster’s got to breathe.”
– Jim Ross, (WWE Royal Rumble 2007)
When I first started watching wrestling in 2006, all WWE programming aired for free on a channel called Jack TV. This included the weekly major programs in Raw and Smackdown, the C-shows like Velocity and Heat, and even the monthly pay-per-views on free TV. There were a few trade offs for this convenience. At the start of 06, for example, WWE TV aired on a few weeks delay (I can’t recall the exact amount, might have been as much as two or three weeks of delay). Pay-per-views were also prone to network TV standards, which meant the occasional cutting of material to make room for ads or for censorship reasons.
At some point towards the end of 2006, the pay-per-views stopped airing on TV. Perhaps the rousing reception to the WWE’s annual house show visits in Araneta Coliseum indicated that there was profit to be made off of the local wrestling fandom, and so pay-per-views would instead be broadcast in local cinemas. This was an additional expense that kept eleven-year-old me from following the pay-per-views on the regular, but it was worth making the trip for the WWE’s Big Four.
There would be multiple screenings of each pay-per-view at the cinema as well. So when I bought my ticket for the WWE Royal Rumble 2007, and wandered into cinema to see it, the previous screening had yet to finish. I recall catching glimpses of the final Taker/Shawn showdown of that year’s Rumble, before rushing out to avoid any spoilers.
All this to say that the first time I watched John Cena vs. Umaga in this Last Man Standing match, it was on the big screen. Even revisiting it in the year’s since, there’s no separating it from that sort of grand presentation, especially when so much of it is wrestled to that scale as well. The image of Cena choking Umaga’s life away is famous among wrestling fans at this point. Now imagine, being a child seeing it projected onto a movie screen. That’s the kind of thing that stays with you.
Cena and Umaga craft a match that feels fitting of the cinema. Chilly air, well-worn plush seating, and the projector rolling. What better place to watch a hero slay a monster?
As with any great sequel, it’s about escalation. At New Year’s Revolution, the sheer size and power of Umaga made him an almost impossible challenge for the champion with only a momentary mistake allowing our hero to escape. This time, the stakes are raised. Firstly, the stipulation being Last Man Standing means that there’s more carnage on the table for both men to take advantage of. Secondly, Cena’s coming in at an even greater deficit this time as he’s nursing a rib injury following a splash through a table on Raw.
These two are smart enough to make this feel entirely distinct from the New Year’s Revolution, while still building on the ideas previously set. Cena’s still trying to stick and move, but the cut offs are harder to overcome because of the damage to his ribs. Meanwhile, we get great character touches conveyed through meat and potatoes wrestling. For example, Umaga’s brutish enough to know to reach for the steps as a weapon, but it’s Cena that has the wherewithal to actually escalate the violence to overcome our villain by chucking the steps over the ropes right into Umaga’s face. It’s a neat little way of preserving our hero’s morality, making Umaga pay for bringing the steps into play to begin with.
I’m also in awe of how they convey character through their callbacks to the last match. Again, Umaga commits fully to this mindless savage gimmick by making the same mistakes he did in the first match. He still charges Cena for the hip attack, only for Cena to have a new dodge this time that sends the challenger into the steel steps. Umaga still goes for those jumping seated sentons in threes, and just as he did last month, Cena counters by getting his knees up. Meanwhile, when Cena repeats a tactic from the month before, it’s accompanied by a new wrinkle to escalate its efficacy. That blockbuster that Umaga fully no sold in the first match, now actually takes the big man down because Cena drops him into the ring steps this time.
Still, Cena remains a flawed hero in this—the best kind.
There’s the rib injury that he sells to perfection, of course, but he’s not immune to strategic errors either. He once again miscalculates the effort required to nail the FU on Umaga, and the challenger’s weight sends him face first into the ring steps. Got to love how it’s filmed here too, not even a hint of Cena getting his hands up to protect himself or anything. As soon as our hero gets back up, it’s with a beautiful gusher of a bladejob.
The bladejob forces Cena’s hand. It’s no longer a matter of retaining a title. Once the red starts flowing, it’s a question of survival.
Props to Umaga for actually working over the cut once it starts going. He throws some rather vicious punches to the wound, that all look like they land solidly. But it’s Cena’s performance that really shifts after this. That man just taps into something far more primal than anything I’ve ever seen in a similar WWE gimmick match setting. There’s a noticeable shift in his demeanor. At New Year’s Revolution, I was in awe of his strategic capacity as a competitor, but here at the Royal Rumble, it’s all that heart pumping the blood right out of his head.
Very few matches in wrestling achieve this sense of a competitor being changed mid-match. The John Cena that grabs one of the announce desk monitors to bash into Umaga’s skull is not the same John Cena that was ducking punches and protecting his ribs at the bell. Through the violence of this bout, both men are dragged into the deepest waters either have ever known to this point. Umaga’s relentless attack drives him to make more mistakes—mistiming a splash through the announce desk that Cena just dodges, for example. Meanwhile, Cena combines the cleverness of the January bout with a new almost unknown survival instinct. His performance hits that raw nerve that makes a simulation of violent competition feel like an actual struggle over life and death.
The finish is iconic, but even better when seen in full in the right context. Again, it’s the heels that attempt to escalate when Armando Alejandro Estrada starts undoing the top rope and offers the turnbuckle to Umaga to use as a weapon. But once again, sweet justice comes through when Cena ducks the attack, grabs the turnbuckle and starts wailing away.
And then the STFU.
God yes. The rawness of Cena’s scream, the innate tension of watching the life drain away from Umaga. And like any great monster in history, that final twist of the knife. After a minute in the ropes, somehow still breathing, somehow still moving. He’s not dead yet! Cena’s got what it takes to finish the job though, but when you look into his eyes, one can tell just what an emotional toll it took on him in the end.
That close up after the bell is everything. It accomplishes an almost mythological idea here, it paints Cena as one of the thousand faces of Joseph Campbell’s monolithic hero. There’s a deadness behind Cena’s eye, that sort of animal, broken state of being forced into levels of desperation one didn’t know before. John Cena killed the monster, and in doing so, sees a part of himself die in the process.
IS IT BETTER THAN 6/3/94? Duh.
Rating: *****
