Happy one less hour of Daylight Daylight Savings time for those who follow it. And for those who don’t, I envy you.
A bit of a treat for you folks, as a recent stopover at a friend’s place during the week meant that we were able to watch the Elimination Chamber show from last week because they had a subscription and I don’t. We had very little to say on the show, skipping over most of the in-between stuff and if I’m being honest, I genuinely don’t care about anything that’s happening on this show nor do I particularly care about the road to a Wrestlemania that seems not only to be underperforming, but is also shaping up to be a show that has no potentially interesting match ups. I’ll post some thoughts, but I can sum it up in three words; dull and boring.
I’d normally throw a banner for this thing, but I honestly didn’t care enough about this show to whip one up, so you get mystery box thing instead.
Rhea Ripley won the Elimination Chamber match featuring Raquel Rodriguez and a bunch of other women who genuinely don’t matter. I mention Raquel specifically because I figured she’d be the one to win the thing since she was the only one trying to sell this as a big time match rather than a bunch spots in a jungle gym setting like the other women were doing. Once she was gone, the crowd stopped caring. And yeah, cool, Rhea won and all, but a new face in the title scene would have been nice.
AJ Lee defeated Women’s IC Champion Becky Lynch via submission to win the title and launch Becky on another inane tirade on social media about how she was squashing ants or something. This gimmick is pure death and I hate that this once popular star who was the biggest babyface they had on the roster has been degraded to this sad sack parody. As for the match… it was fine. Obviously, AJ being rusty is a thing and Becky can still work a good match when she needs to. Probably a smart idea to keep AJ’s appearances to a minimum to hide the fact that she’s not quite as good as she used to be.
World Champion CM Punk defeated Finn Balor to retain the title. Perfectly fine match, even if the ending was never in doubt. Plants seeds for Balor’s eventual break up from the Judgment Day group, which should happen in Saudi Arabia next year or so if the glacial pacing of these stories are to be followed.
Oh, and Danhausen came out of the box that was teased for weeks… got a nice pop, but then he did a dance and gave Michael Cole teeth… and the crowd booed. I mean, sure, not the greatest thing ever, but what the fuck were you people expecting? Jericho to come out of a box? Really? All that aside, I don’t think Danhausen is the second coming of Gobbledy Gooker or anything like that. He might not be my thing, but he can be a good gimmick caricature for your funny bits, particularly with Truth or that Iguana guy. And WWE tends to be (or at least, used to be) a place where they will experiment with the oddball, quirky gimmick character, even if it doesn’t pan out. And the number itself was alright for what it was. But people apparently had higher expectations for something that was used to introduce Chainsaw Charlie into the world. That is on them, not WWE. WWE has lots of glaring issues, but overhyping a box isn’t one of them.
Randy Orton won the Men’s Elimination Chamber, last pinning Cody Rhodes after a run in from Drew McIntyre to keep Cody from winning… only for Smackdown GM Nick “BRUTUS MAGNUS” Aldis to book Drew to defend the title against Cody on Smackdown. I’ll be honest; I skipped half the match because Logan Paul was in it and I don’t care for Logan Paul. So by the time I got back from my extended bathroom break, Paul was stomped by a returning Seth Rollins and quickly eliminated. Meh.
And that was the Elimination Chamber. Meh. Background noise at a friend’s house where we mostly talked about other stuff. That’s sort of what these shows have become, unfortunately; a gimmick match for both the ladies and the guys and two championship matches where the end result was never in doubt. No one believed Becky was retaining, no one believed Balor has a Hornswoggle’s chance of a title win, and no one believed there wouldn’t be outside interference in a cage match. And then what happened on Smackdown? I don’t know and frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.
But hey, aren’t you glad I talked about a recent PLE this year?
Oh well… back to Nitro.
dtm666 