Judgment Day (2008) - Background

Background

Judgment Day provided the culmination of various scripted plots and storylines. A month before the event, several professional wrestling matches and scripted plots were played out on WWE programming (Raw, Friday Night SmackDown!, and ECW on Sci Fi) to create feuds between various wrestlers, casting them as villains and heroes. Raw, SmackDown, and ECW were also the names of WWE's televised brands – a storyline division in which WWE assigned its employees to a specific program, thus each brand promoted distinct matches.

The main event scripted into Judgment Day on the Raw brand featured WWE Champion Triple H defending the title against Randy Orton in a Steel cage match. The buildup to the match began after Backlash, WWE's previous pay-per-view event, where Triple H last eliminated Orton in a Fatal Four-Way Elimination match, also involving John Cena and John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL), to win the WWE Championship. The following night on an episode of Raw, one of WWE's primary television programs, authority figure William Regal, a portrayed match maker and rules enforcer, stopped a title match between Orton and Triple H, and booked the two in a Steel cage match at Judgment Day for the WWE Championship.

One of the featured preliminary matches on the SmackDown brand was between The Undertaker versus Edge for the vacant World Heavyweight Championship. At Backlash, the Undertaker defeated Edge to retain the title by forcing him to submit to the gogoplata, a chokehold move that causes opponents to spit blood (scripted) from their mouths. On the May 2 episode of SmackDown, authority figure Vickie Guerrero stripped the title from the Undertaker, after claiming the gogoplata was an illegal submission hold and she did it to protect the other wrestlers. The following week, Guerrero booked Undertaker in a match for the vacant title at Judgment Day against Edge, who last eliminated Batista in a battle royal to become the number one contender.

Another featured preliminary match involved Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho in a singles match. At Backlash, Michaels defeated Batista (with Jericho as the special guest referee) in an Interpromotional match. During the match, Michaels countered a Batista Bomb attempt, and appeared to have legitimately injured his left knee. On the April 28 episode of Raw, Jericho claimed that Michaels faked his knee injury to allow him to defeat Batista at Backlash, a claim that Michaels denied. The following week, it was announced that Jericho would face Michaels in a singles match at Judgment Day. On the May 12 episode of Raw, Jericho offered his apologies to Michaels for accusing him of feigning an injury, as well as giving Michaels the opportunity to back out of their match. Michaels revealed that he did indeed fake his knee injury. Four days later, on the May 16 episode of SmackDown, Batista commented that he would hurt Michaels, scripted into the storyline, for faking his injury.

One more rivalry from the Raw brand was between John Cena and JBL. In the Fatal Four-Way Elimination match at Backlash, Cena eliminated JBL by making him submit to the STFU. On the April 28 episode of Raw, JBL challenged Cena to a singles match at Judgment Day, which was made official on WWE's website.