CB’s Slant: WWE Elimination Chamber PPV Results, Thoughts, News and Notes (John Cena, Chris Jericho, Daniel Bryan, Sheamus)

News, PPVs, Top Story

Below are the snapshot results of last night’s Elimination Chamber PPV, along with some of my own thoughts:

Match 1: CM Punk retained the WWE Championship in the Raw Elimination Chamber match

CB’s Slant: Punk retaining makes complete sense, however the whole Chris Jericho injury angle — if it is indeed an angle (I’m 99% sure it is) — came off as awkward and killed the entire flow of the match. Also, in the wake of the legit Jesse Sorensen injury suffered as a result of a knee to the head during a mid-match moonsault just last week on PPV, this made me cringe even more than usual.

Match 2: Beth Phoenix retained the WWE Divas Championship over Tamina Snuka

CB’s Slant: This was a no-brainer as Beth needs to stay strong for Kharma’s expected return, but I also appreciated Tamina’s effort here and I love everything about her utilization of her father’s Superfly Smash. Beth kicking out was not a huge surprise, but it was cool to see nonetheless.

In-Ring Segment: John Laurinaitis made his case for taking over both Raw and SmackDown as the permanent GM for both shows. Johnny ended up being flanked by David Otunga, Mark Henry, and two returning superstars — Alberto Del Rio and Christian — before the segment wrapped up.

CB’s Slant: If you told me before the PPV that Del Rio and Christian would be making their returns and you asked me how I would book them, this would be the exact opposite of what I would do. To waste Del Rio and Christian on the Johnny Ace power-grab storyline is just awful, and even if they wanted to do something like this they could have had ADR and Christian return in some other capacity during the PPV, then do this same exact segment on Raw tonight.

Match 3: Daniel Bryan retained in the World Heavyweight Championship in the SmackDown Elimination Chamber match

CB’s Slant: I was shocked that both Elimination Chamber matches were spaced so close together, especially since I was dreaming up scenarios like Jericho coming back later sneak into the chamber, get the Big Gold Belt and then Punk and Jericho would have a title unification match at Mania. Either that, or Santino winning the World Heavyweight Championship for at least a few days as a huge underdog shocker.

Alas, Bryan retained by eliminating Santino last and we will now have the Sheamus-Bryan title match at WrestleMania 28 now that Sheamus has made his decision.

Match 4: Jack Swagger retained the WWE United States Championship in an impromptu match over Justin Gabriel

CB’s Slant: I absolutely HATE this trend of throw-in matches being tacked onto to WWE PPVs. Are you telling me they couldn’t spend an extra few minutes over the past three weeks to at least build up a Swagger US title defense?

Match 5: John Cena beat Kane in an Ambulance Match

CB’s Slant: The fact that this was the main event of the Elimination Chamber PPV speaks volumes as to how little WWE values their championship titles. Also, it is scary to think how grossly misguided WWE is in thinking that John Cena and Kane in a freakin’ Ambulance match should be this high on the card. I was thinking that maybe, just maybe, The Rock would be making a surprise comeback here and that is why Cena-Kane received top billing. Instead, we get an AA on top of the ambulance, the match ends, and hopefully/thankfully/mercifully this feud will now be over.

Elimination Chamber News and Notes:

(courtesy of PW Torch)

Dark Match Result: Hunico beat Alex Riley

There were no title changes during the Elimination Chamber PPV. Maybe its positioning between the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania is actually making it seem more like a ROAD BLOCK rather than a welcome pit stop on the Road to WrestleMania?

WWE announced The Undertaker would be on Raw tonight to confront Triple H. That combined with people tuning in to see Elimination Chamber fallout should make for a much better Raw rating this week over last week’s 2.99 debacle.

Tyler Black (Seth Rollins) and Xavier Woods (Consequences Creed) made WWE debuts in the John Cena video package that aired where Cena was working out in the gym.

CB is an Editor for Pulse Wrestling and an original member of the Inside Pulse writing team covering the spectrum of pop culture including pro wrestling, sports, movies, music, radio and television.