I honestly believed that I would have a difficult time pulling myself from WWE Network long enough to write this week’s RAGER. However, their issues with their on-demand service made that problem a bit easier for me. How nice of them.
But at least their live stream has been working with very few hiccups regardless of traffic size. This is reassuring and eases my concern before the WM30 crowd hits it in April.
But that’s enough about that, let’s dive into Elimination Chamber, yes?
Kick-off Match: CoDust vs Ryback & Curtis Axel
Since they were in Minnesota, it was a nice touch to bring out Axel’s grandfather for the match. Although that does seem like an odd move for an overly heel tag team but I get it, you don’t know how many chances they’ll get to do that. Decent enough match, it’s just hard for me to gather the interest to really care about AxBack one way or the other. It was a throw away match on a free platform, it is what it is.
Big E vs Jack Swagger
I love Big E, I truly do, but this felt more like a random Smackdown match that just so happens to be for the Intercontinental Championship. There really wasn’t much of a set-up to this feud and now seems to be more fuel to a possible break-up between Swags and Cesaro with Big E chilling in the middle. Decent enough match, Big E opens up yet another opponent. Seems to be a trend being set.
New Age Outlaws vs The Usos
Again, I would’ve loved to have seen the Usos win here but alas, I understand the appeal of having NAOs holding the tag titles going into an overly nostalgic Wrestlemania this year. This, of course, is assuming the tag titles will even be defended at Mania…although it would be huge if Usos won it at Mania seeing as how they seem to be continuing their feud according to this week’s Raw. I liked this match, its fun to see NAOs back to their heel tactics.
Titus O’Neil vs Darren Young
A little surprised at the outcome just going under the assumption that Darren Young would be the one getting the push and needed a win more than Titus would to jumpstart his singles career. However, Titus won instead and I’m assuming WWE has some sort of plan for this going forward. Okay, I just read back that last sentence, there’s no need to point out how ridiculous that notion is. As I’m sure I’ve said in the past, I’d probably be more into this feud if I actually took the time to watch Smackdown. That’s on me.
The Wyatt Family vs The Shield
Words cannot accurately describe how much I enjoyed this match and how relieved I am that it met my high expectations. I went into the match expecting it to be a Roman Reigns highlight show but instead, Seth kinda took over the match and high spots. That’s the one thing I love about Shield, one guy will take the attention torch for a little while and just when you think you’ve locked into who you believe to be your favorite Shield member, one of the others will do something to take said attention torch and you’re back to having no clue. I’m anxiously awaiting the break-up of Shield, not because I want it to end but because I can’t wait to see what each one of them will do in singles. And I don’t mean to diminish anything that Wyatt’s did during this match because each member absolutely held their own and it takes two to tango (or six in this case).
I amend my earlier statement, keep Shield together for a little while longer so we can get rematches periodically. I think 2 more would be appropriate, yes?
AJ vs Cameron
I guess AJ really is going through all of the Total Divas cast. If Eva Marie gets a title shot at ANY point in the near future, I vow to cut off my television and turn it around to face the wall. That’s right, I will punish WWE by putting them in the corner, they know what they did. I urge you all to join my pledge.
Batista vs Del Rio
Batista wasn’t this bad during his actual wrestling career, was he? Or am I just looking through a different, smarky filter right now? His appearance at Elimination Chamber and the following Raw made Rock look like a marathon runner. I am super proud of the Minnesota crowd, though. Nobody should pay money to sit through that.
Elimination Chamber
A chamber match is always held in high regard from me and, much like the Rumble match, it takes a lot of hard to work to make one completely suck. That being said, the participants did a great job of not making the match suck. I enjoyed it and didn’t even mind Sheamus (of whom I hold in the deepest of hatred) and Christian (of whom I have an inexplicable growing hatred for). Christian’s splash from the top of the cage was a good spot and was quite surprised his fragile body held up for it. For me, the obvious MVP of this match was Cesaro with Daniel Bryan as a very close runner-up. I do sort of hate that I correctly predicted that we would get double shenanigans for this match. I think it would’ve been cooler if the lights had went out while Cena was still in his pod and the lights came back up to find that Bray somehow made it into John’s pod as well. This would leave Cena with no way to escape and Bray would catch him off-guard and beat him down a bit. Lights go out again and when they came back, Bray would be gone and Cena would by laying unconscious in his now-opened pod and one of the heels would go in and eliminate him. But instead, the three Wyatts appeared in the Chamber because of course it takes three men to take out Super Cena. The only thing that doesn’t really add up is Daniel Bryan being the one instigating Kane. Sure, DB has wanted to rip Kane apart for some time now but winning the WWEWHC seemed to be the bigger goal. Having Kane use this opportunity to attack DB makes much more sense, especially if it all leads to DB being mad at being screwed over by HHH facing him at WM30.
But what do I know? I’m just a lowly writer that can’t even get his script accepted by the film festival he used to volunteer for 3 years ago at his alma mater. I’m not bitter, guys. I swear.
Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do twice,
Chris
The Answer: “Cats are just lizards with fur.”
