WWE’s 25 Greatest Pay-Per-Views of All Time
By Tim Sherry
credit: wwe.com
15. Royal Rumble – 2007
The Royal Rumble pay-per-view is always one of the biggest events of the year and arguably it’s most important. Usually the first PPV of the year, the Rumble sets the stage for Wrestlemania and most of the time, a great Rumble show equates to a great Mania. With the 2007 show ahead of Wrestlemania 23, the WWE roster was all in and produced a tremendous card to a sell-out audience at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas.
The action started off great with The Hardy Boyz defeating MNM in a high-octane, 15-minute tag match. Granted that was followed up by a pretty disappointing ECW title defense from Bobby Lashley against Test. Next, Batista defeated Mr. Kennedy cleanly to retain the ECW Heavyweight Championship and come on, it was always fun watching Kennedy get his mouth shut. But the match that stood out the most before the Rumble match itself, was the Last Man Standing match between John Cena and Umaga for the WWE Championship. The two engaged in a vicious, bloody war that turned out to be one of 2007’s very best matches and turned Umaga from prospect to serious contender.
But what stole the show was the main event Royal Rumble match. In what would turn out to be the best Rumble in history, slightly edging out the 2004 match, The Undertaker, after 17 years in the business finally captured his first win of that kind. The entire match was phenomenal but nothing could match the closing minutes between Taker and Shawn Michaels. HBK, in his hometown, and Taker, the Austin native from 100 miles away had the crowd going insane as they went back and forth in what would have a very similar feel to 2 and 3 years later during their Wrestlemania masterpieces. The two would go on to both receive title matches at Wrestlemania in what turned out to be a very good show. But make no mistake, of those two shows, the 2007 Royal Rumble easily takes the cake.