Sometimes with distance and reflection, an ok match becomes great. Sometimes a great match becomes legendary. Sometimes you might look back on a match you hated and realize that, while nothing to write home about, it actually wasn’t all that bad. But sometimes you might look back on a match that you enjoyed watching live only to discover that it was in fact one of the biggest train wrecks you’ve ever seen in a ring. Such is the advantage of having time to reflect to give you a bit of background on what goes into writing these No Chance columns. In order to make sure the article is on the website in time, I need to have submitted it by Sunday at midnight. Usually there is no problem with this. At some point between Friday’s Smackdown and Sunday night I pick a topic and leisurely write about it. But once a month from 8-11 on Sunday, there is an event that leaves me with only an hour to write before deadline. This past weekend had one such event. So without that “reflection time” we were talking about a moment ago, here are my initial reactions on the Elimination Chamber.
The WWE Title match is opening the show? The WWE Title match? This may be the biggest shocker of the night. When was the last PPV where the WWE Title match wasn’t the main event, much less opened the whole show? And compare those in the WWE Title match to those in the World Championship match; it seems clear which group of guys is going to put on the better match. So why are they going first?
Punk and Kofi started the match off with the highest number of two counts in the shortest amount of time that I’ve seen in recent memory.
Do we call the climb the cage stunt from Kofi, the “Spider-man” move? Or will that title forever belong to Morrison’s Rumble stunt in 2011?
Biggest punching bag of the match ended up being Ziggler who couldn’t seem to catch a break in the match, with every attempt getting shut down. But beating up Ziggler non stop for a night allows him do what he does best, constant over-the-top selling of other guy’s moves.
Punk may be in a rivalry with Jericho and Johnny Ace right now, but his biggest enemy in the WWE appears to be doors on Elimination Chamber pods. (As we ended up finding out later in the evening, more than just Punk seemed to get hurt by a pod door this year.)
The ‘Cena in the gym’ video was fine but what it represented was wonderful. It means that we won’t have to watch the same two video package promos of The Rock and Cena on both shows from now until April 1st. I mean it’s the same basic message, but as long as we get the occasional new footage, I can live with it.
Why do we keep having Diva matches that don’t involve Kharma? Why?
I agree with the heels of the evening: Johnny Ace for GM of both shows. Seems like this is going to be an ongoing storyline, which is just one step further into the removing of the line between brands.
I thought for sure when a couple of big name heels made surprise returns that meant that either Khali or Santino was going to get beaten up backstage and had to be replaced by one of these guys. They were all guys I could see having a match with Sheamus in April more than anybody who was already in the chamber match. But no, the lineup we were given on Friday ends up being the lineup that makes it to the chamber.
For several minutes The Smackdown, chamber was just plain boring. Watching wresters I didn’t care about wait to fight in a storyline I wasn’t interest in meant that I was in no way invested in this match. But then they actually managed to turn it around with Big Show breaking into the pod to attack Bryan. In fact after that bit I really got invested in the match. Maybe it was just the quick disappearance of Khali but I think everyone really stepped up their game after this.
Lets talk about the ending of the Chamber event for a moment. I was really not pleased with the idea that Santino was supposedly able to be the next-to-last contender but thinking about it, it allowed Bryan to win the match via submission without having one of the more credible names tap out in a title match. Bryan is supposed to be a submission master so the fact that he’s actually used a submission to keep the belt instead of just climbing out of a cage match adds credibility to his claim. Plus this also means that both champions retained their title tonight, something that, according to the announcer’s table has only happened three times before tonight.
My greatest fear is that Teddy Long will somehow be in charge of both shows. Of all the ways I am expected to suspend my disbelief while watching wrestling, the one that bothers me the most is that cards are not full when a show starts and there is room to add a match “right now” if two guys are having an argument backstage. And Teddy Long loves the surprise matches. So I can’t take another show full of those.
What can you say about a three minute long filler match that was announced in the segment right before it happened, A segment that involved more of the ‘Natalya farting’ storyline I might add. All I really have to say is, I didn’t remember that Swagger was United States champion. I had to look it up to be sure.
No real complaints about the Ambulance match other than the fact that the steel stairs are designed to be pushed against a post, and so I’m always nervous when people step on them when they are just randomly out and about.
I curious that the Eve kiss was part of the video recap before the final match of the evening. I had assumed that Cena would be winning this match and the starting Monday we would dedicate all Cena efforts to the Rock and WrestleMania. But perhaps we have some more stories to finish up relating to the whole Zack Ryder thing…
