Background
Judgment Day featured professional wrestling matches that involved different wrestlers from pre-existing scripted feuds, plots, and storylines that played out on Raw, Friday Night SmackDown, ECW on Sci Fi and WWE Superstars—World Wrestling Entertainment's (WWE) television programs. Wrestlers portrayed either a villain or a hero as they followed a series of events that built tension, and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches. The event featured wrestlers from WWE's Raw, SmackDown, and ECW brands—a storyline division in which WWE employees are assigned to the television program of the same name.
The main rivalry heading into Judgment Day from the Raw brand was between Randy Orton and Batista, who were feuding over the WWE Championship. Since January 2009, Orton had been feuding with the McMahon family, attacking Vince, Shane and Stephanie McMahon en route to his match with Triple H for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania XXV, which Triple H won. At Backlash, Orton, along with his protégés, Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase (collectively known as The Legacy), defeated the defending WWE Champion Triple H, Batista and Shane McMahon in a six-man tag team match to win the title. On the April 27 episode of Raw, Batista defeated The Big Show via countout to earn a WWE Championship match against Orton at Judgment Day.
ECW's primary contribution to Judgment Day was announced on the April 28 episode of ECW on Sci Fi by the interim general manager of the show, Tiffany (Taryn Terrell), that the ECW Champion, Christian, would be defending his championship against the previous champion, Jack Swagger, who had chosen to invoke his rematch clause guaranteed to him after losing the title at Backlash.
On the May 1 episode of SmackDown, a match took place to determine who would face Edge for the World Heavyweight Championship at Judgment Day. Jeff Hardy defeated Kane, Chris Jericho and Rey Mysterio in a fatal four-way elimination match to become the number one contender.
At Backlash, during the World Heavyweight Championship match, The Big Show interfered and threw the former champion, John Cena through a spotlight, resulting in Cena being incapacitated enough to lose the World Heavyweight Championship to Edge, as well as receiving storyline internal injuries. During the match to determine the number one contender for the WWE title on the April 27 episode of Raw, Cena entered the arena, and distracted Big Show, leading to him losing the match against Batista. The following week on Raw, The Big Show demanded a match to Cena, only to have the general manager, Vickie Guerrero, set up a match between the two for Judgment Day, when Cena would be medically cleared.
At WrestleMania XXV, CM Punk won the Money in the Bank ladder match, which meant he earned a guaranteed chance to challenge any world champion at any time over the course of the next year. On the May 1 episode of SmackDown, Punk was about to invoke his championship match against the World Heavyweight Champion, Edge, only to have Umaga interfere, and assault him. The following week, Punk was given another match against Edge, but was again attacked by Umaga. It was announced later that night that Punk would face Umaga at Judgment Day.
Read more about this topic: Judgment Day (2009)
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