Yeah, so John Cena turned heel on this show…
Meh…
Let’s get on with the rest of it.
The show opens with the announcer girl singing the national anthems of both US and Canada; the former eliciting boos and the latter cheered… because we’re in Toronto, you see, and stupid American company want to be relevant by teasing that thing that’s going on… either that or we just need an excuse to make Pat McAfee even more insufferable than before. Don’t worry, guys. I don’t think Pat needs that kind of help – he’s doing just fine on his own. Thanks.
We open with the Women’s Elimination Chamber match… but not before Jade Cargill makes her return from being injured and beats up Naomi, much to the distress of tag partner Bianca… for those needing context, Jade was written off via backstage assault by unknown assailant and Naomi would replace her as Bianca’s tag partner (because they were the tag champs). So this puts suspicions on Naomi as being the guilty party… and then it turned out to be… . In any event, Jade is back, seemingly back to being “that dog” that she was in AEW – minus the win streak, of course – and Bianca, having won the Chamber match, gets to go for a singles title shot.
So the Women’s Chamber match… also featuring Liv Morgan, Rachel, Bay Ley, and someone else… I’ve heard people call this the best Women’s Chamber match in years and I barely remember any of the past ones to make that kind of determination, but this was a pretty fun match.
Trish Stratus and WWE Women’s Champion Tiffany Stratton defeated Nia Jax and Candice LaRae in a perfectly acceptable but ultimately forgettable tag match. Trish looked fine at the ripe age of 9,334 years old, which I say with the utmost reverence because I barely look good at 40.
Kevin Owens defeated Sami Zayn in what was billed as an unsanctioned match – which meant that they dimmed the lights and had some guy in a black shirt ref the match… which ultimately meant nothing once we got a ref bump because then we got the regular gray-shirted refs doing their thing. Anyway, this was a fun brawl between two guys who spent their entire careers beating the living shit out of each other… and they get to do it in Toronto. Also, despite this being an unsanctioned match, pinfalls apparently only count in the ring… because sure, why not? I’m drastically underselling this bit – I need the practice for later on – but this really was the best match on the card. Two guys who know each other, have a personal history with each, work great together, and no stone was left unturned. The only thing that really hurt the match was the lack of color since that would take away from the one thing that DWAYNE was involved in, but other than that, this was a tremendous brawl.
And then after the match, Randy Orton returns to try and get revenge on Kevin Owens – teasing a punt before security geeks come in to stop Randy from hurting his leg from under his leg, so Randy beats up the security geeks instead. Just in time for Mania, am I right?
John Cena defeated CM Punk, Drew Mcintyre, Damian Priest, Seth Rollins, and… Logan Paul, who sports with him an American flag because fuck that guy… anyway, Cena wins the Men’s Chamber. He goes to Mania and the Cody comes out to congratulate him. Then DWAYNE comes out with some rapper geek whose name I can’t be bothered to look up, asks Cody to sell his soul, Cody tells DWAYNE to go fuck himself, Cena celebrates in the background, hugs Cena, gives DWAYNE the angry face and gets a throat slash gesture from DWAYNE, which gets a reaction from the crowd who knows what’s coming… and then Cena kicks Cody in the balls because Cody is challenging Sting for World’s Dumbest Babyface… I mean, did Cody not hear that reaction while they were hugging?
So yes, they finally turned John Cena heel after all these years. He kicked Cody in the balls, punched Cody in the face with Cody’s watch, whacked him with a couple belt shots that gave Cody color, and the rapper dude kicked Cody in the face… and then DWAYNE hit Cody with the weight belt to close out the show.
I didn’t see the show live. There was no way in hell that I was going to sit through a PLE that had only four matches and ten hours of commercials in between each one. When I did find out about it and saw the segment on Youtube, my only reaction was “Took them long enough.” And I thought about whether my reaction would have been different had I watched it live and my answer would be no… because I remember a time when they turned another widely popular babyface heel almost a quarter century ago and I remember having a similar non-plussed reaction. Now credit where it’s due; WWE having the balls to finally turn John Cena was something of a pleasant surprise and added a bit of a wrinkle to his retirement tour… but now that it’s happened, I’m like… eh.
Maybe my reaction would have been different had this happened five or ten years ago when it probably would have mattered most, when Cena was still a regular part of the show.
Anyway, that was Elimination Chamber 2025. The two Chamber matches and the KO/Sami brawl are worth watching and some significant stuff happened on here. The nine-hour commercials and hawking of millionaires can fuck right off, though. ‘Nuff Said.
dtm666 