When glancing over the card for Judgment Day this coming Sunday, my initial reaction was, well, to be honest it didn’t actually garner much of a reaction from me at all. Seeing Cena and Khali (an idea good on paper but in all actuality will probably be awful in execution) “tear it up”, a rematch of a handicap match that proved to be the worst contest on a great night of wrestling last month at Backlash, and Edge defending his newly won championship in a rushed title bout against the lumbering Animal doesn’t strike me as tremendous entertainment. However, carefully brush away the mud and dust of the three main events, and Judgment Day suddenly becomes a shining little nugget of gold with a whole heck of promise...

Now, despite this stunning revelation, that was hardly a sentence I ever wanted to type. Basically, “ignore the main events and it’ll be a great show”. That makes less sense than the treatment of the cruiserweight division. The main selling point of a pay-per-view should be the headline match, the match the company is confident that their fans will shell out their hard earned money to see, supported, if we’re lucky enough, with a nice mid-card providing solid entertainment. This is almost the complete opposite, with a mid-card chock full with a load of promise,l which will inevitably be followed by (potentially) the worst match of all time. Sunday could be a load of fun...

Let’s look at the Undercard in more detail. First up we have Ric Flair vs. Carlito, a regular “partners to enemies” feud that has, for some reason, proved to be very entertaining each week on Raw. Carlito’s heel turn was inevitable, but I’ve really enjoyed the weeks of setting it all up to get to where we are now. I was initially annoyed that this match didn’t make the Mania card back in April, but perhaps it did need the extra few weeks of development before the big match itself. When it comes down to the in-ring action, I’m optimistic and think this should be around *** at worst. They had a decent contest for the IC title back at Unforgiven 05, and Carlito has improved by leaps and bounds since then, so this should be an entertaining contest. Randy Orton vs. Shawn Michaels has show-stealer written all over it, with Orton’s improved performances since his latest reprimand, and Shawn simply being Shawn. Orton and Edge put on a great match on Raw a few weeks back, and I feel this one could be in a similar vain, unless they screw the whole thing up by carrying on this concussion angle from Raw. A Michaels match should be a fast-paced, unpredictable affair, and yet somehow this past week the way the match with Edge was constructed managed to seep all the fun out of the contest. They went for a full sixteen minutes, with the majority of it being ground and pound style. Now, if this was all mat-based chain wrestling I’d have no qualms as I’m sure it would be greatly entertaining, but it wasn’t. I think a straight up wrestling match between Orton and Michaels could quite easily hit ****, but with this concussion stuff slapped on this one could go anywhere.

Punk vs. Burke could be a nice sign of things to come from both men, and as a battle between two guys to really look out for, I think this could be a great match. Punk is entertaining as hell, mixing up great wrestling with hard hitting, unorthodox offence, and from what I’ve seen from Burke, he’s looking like quite the young gun himself. I don’t watch ECW religiously, I see what I can, and from what I have Burke looks to sell most moves incredibly well, which should bode well when Punk gets in some stiff kicks and the like. The angle itself seems like a bit of rushed, clustered affair to me (although this could be due to me not watching as much as I should, and thus not fully understanding what’s going on), but when it comes down to the in-ring action I think these two guys could put over something really nice here.

At Wrestlemania, MVP and Benoit surprised me with a nice little wrestling match. On Smackdown a few weeks later they exceeded it with a great back and forth contest, but when they met at Backlash I felt slightly let –down (as I have said before, I may have expected too much). This Sunday they meet again, 2 out of 3 Falls, and my expectations have been raised once again. I’d like to see WWE really put their faith in these guys and give them time enough to tell a proper story out there (20-30 minutes) and I feel this could be the blow away match of the feud. Surely MVP must take the strap sometime, all these losses could seriously hurt his future if they look to push him properly, but I feel he will finally win it at the weekend. He seems to have improved a hell of a lot as this feud continues, but the question burns – is this simply because he’s working with Benoit? One way to find out – give him the strap and let him run with it. I know I’d love to see it.

And after FOUR potentially great wrestling matches, we hit the main event scene which leaves little to be desired, and has a certain air of predictability about it. Edge (surely) won’t lose the title this soon after taking it from the Deadman, if Khali beats Cena Vince has finally completely lost it, and one would assume Lashley has to retake the ECW Championship at some point (although this is the one match I’m less sure about). It’s a very strange card, and in that it deserves a very strange closing sentence: If the main events live up to the Undercard, Judgment Day could be a great show...

Take care people,
Gav GavinNiven@AOL.com