Judgment Day has had its ups and downs, but it’s telling that this faction’s show-long angle wound up threading its way through SummerSlam, one of the biggest events on the WWE calendar. Indeed, in the men’s and women’s divisions alike on Monday Night Raw, Judgment Day has been a huge force, holding its own with the World Heavyweight Championship scene and drama between Drew McIntyre and CM Punk as one of the most buzzworthy parts of the brand.
One of the more interesting aspects of the creative success surrounding Judgment Day is that their history is in many ways repeating itself. That’s not only in having the Women’s World and Raw Tag Team Championships on lock—a familiar position for the group over the last year—but also in a number of specific choices around their booking that are playing out more successfully the second time around.
Judgment Day Has Ousted Its Longest Standing Members Again
One of the defining elements of Judgment Day as a unusual wrestling stable is that they kicked out their founder and first leader Edge just a couple months into the group’s run. That choice certainly appeared to hurt the group in the short-term, as they lost their lone bona fide main eventer and undisputed biggest name.
Nonetheless, Judgment Day rallied, particularly after Triple H took the reins of creative. Rhea Ripley came to dominate her show’s women’s division, while Dominik Mysterio found unlikely success as a heel fans loved to hate. JD McDonough is a talented hand who got a nice rub from joining the group and an immediate sense of identity, as opposed to getting lost in the main roster shuffle like he otherwise might have. Finn Balor was a steady de facto top name for the group, and Damian Priest grew into a role in which he arguably superseded Balor for star power. R-Truth injected some comedy, and working in a big-bodied lackey role wound up being a pretty perfect role for Carlito at this stage of his career.
Judgment Day started when Damian Priest helped Edge beat AJ Styles at WrestleMania 38, and Rhea Ripley was the next recruit. So it is that, in the group exiling Priest and Ripley at SummerSlam, they are staying true their history. They’ve booted their longest standing members and again reinvented themselves around their newer participants, not least of all including Liv Morgan enlisting in their ranks.
Dominik Mysterio Is Disloyal Again… And It Cuts Deeper This Time
It can be difficult to remember now, but in 2022, Dominik Mysterio was a white meat babyface and he floundered in the role—showing little personality and facing fan backlash for the sense he only had a featured spot on account of who his dad was. His heel turn and betrayal of his father, culminating in a showdown at WrestleMania 39, completely changed fans’ perspectives of Dirty Dom.
On one hand, betraying one’s father is without question a more profound act of disloyalty than betraying one’s girlfriend. However, it’s worth noting than in terms of Mysterio’s full-time, on screen work with WWE, his partnerships with Rey and with and Rhea Ripley weren’t actually so disparate in length, each running around two years.
More important than sheer time, there’s the matter of heat. When Dominik turned on his father it was a welcome change because their partnership felt stale and fans didn’t really buy into the younger Mysterio as a face. By contrast, there’s a real case to be made that the love triangle angle Dominik worked with Ripley and Liv Morgan was the single hottest storyline WWE had to offer from the spring through the summer.
There were certainly a fair share of fans who saw it coming when Dirty Dom turned on Mami. Nonetheless, the sight of him making out with Morgan in the aisle way while a beaten Ripley seethed was positively electric. Whether it’s good creative, good performances, or a simple matter of fans being along for the ride for the entirety of the couple’s kayfabe relationship, there’s little question that instance of Dominik’s betrayal hit even harder than his first.
Judgment Day Will Get Its Comeuppance
When Judgment Day kicked out Edge, it became the focal point of both the group’s and the rest of The Rated R Superstar’s WWE run that they’d get into each other’s business. It all culminated in Edge besting Finn Balor inside Hell in a Cell at WrestleMania 39.
There are plenty of permutations for WWE to run through in the current feud between Judgment Day and The Terror Twins. However things play out, though, it seems very likely things won’t be over until Rhea Ripley destroys Liv Morgan and Dominik Mysterio—probably getting her title back in the process. Meanwhile, at least one high-profile one-on-one showdown between Balor and Damian Priest also feels like an inevitability.
Whatever happens, Triple H has demonstrated a strength for booking factions who get heat, but also get what’s coming to them in the long term. Judgment Day looks set to move through that cycle once again.
Rumors Of Judgment Day’s Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
When Judgment Day booted Edge, the naysayers were quick to jump on them, suggesting the group would never last. Indeed, it did feel like they were on life support for a while as the subsequent feud with The Ultimate Opportunist got stretched thin and the stable’s successes were few and far between.
The faction bounced back with a vengeance, though, becoming one of the most provocative parts of WWE programming, particularly from WrestleMania 40 to the present moment. Coming out of SummerSlam , rumors flew again that with Rhea Ripley and Damian Priest splintering, the stable might be over, or the remaining heels might rebrand under another name. Once again, the group wasn’t done quite yet, with Judgment Day vs. The Terror Twins really clicking in these weeks to follow.
It appears that this last piece—of fans sticking a fork in Judgment Day only for their part of WWE programming to reemerge, stronger than ever–has been the most defining part of the stable’s story. Who knows how much longer they’ll carry on, but the audience should understand by now never to count them out.
