SPOILER ALERT: The end of this week’s column includes some details of tomorrow’s Smackdown.
“History is often not what actually happened but what is recorded as such.†– Henry L. Stimson
The Opening Chapter
Way back in March 2007 I came aboard this wonderful website as a writer for Pulse Wrestling and was given a chance to write this column about our favorite pseudo-sport’s history. My first column, the won that earned me the job was a recap of World Wrestling Entertainment’s five previous Elimination Chamber matches.
Well flash-forward to January 2008 and a pair of Elimination Chamber matches are now on the horizon, as WWE’s February pay per view will host Chamber matches for both the RAW and SmackDown! brands. The winners’ of these two battles will head to WrestleMania and challenge their respective champions for main event title shots.
So in the spirit of these recent developments, this week will feature an updated re-post of my previous Chamber article originally written a year ago.
The Inception
The first of these historical matches was featured at the Survivor Series 2002 card held in New York City. Triple H entered the structure to defend his World Heavyweight Championship against former WWE Champions Shawn Michaels and Kane, first ever Undisputed Champion Chris Jericho, former five-time WCW Champion Booker T and perennial championship contender Rob Van Dam. Triple H had recently defeated Kane and Van Dam at previous PPVs and was embroiled in a long-running feud with Michaels at the time. Booker and Jericho had been feuding in the tag ranks and were always top contenders for the belt so the list of participants was easy to justify.
The match went well, especially for the first time using the gimmick. It ultimately came down to Michaels and Trips, which was the current top program on RAW as it was. In the end, Michaels, ugly half-done brown tights and all, dropped his rival with Sweet Chin Music to win the World Heavyweight Championship, his first World Championship of any kind in over four and a half years.
The victory led to a continuation of the Michaels-HHH feud including the Three Stages of Hell match at Armageddon where Helmsley won the belt back. Jericho and Booker would continue to battle each other in the tag ranks before Jericho would move onto a program with Michaels leading into a phenomenal WrestleMania match while Booker would go on to challenge HHH for this very Championship at the same WrestleMania. Kane and Van became tag partners shortly after this match and eventually won the World Tag Championship together. The duo would eventually split after Kane lost a Title v. Mask match to Triple H.
The rise of Goldberg
The second Chamber match was featured as the main event of SummerSlam 2003 in Phoenix, AZ. Many of the same players return this time around, as Triple H was back, defending his belt again. Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho also return as perennial challengers to the Championship. New to the Chamber this time are Kevin Nash, fresh off a program with Triple H and currently feuding with Jericho, Goldberg, who was on a tear and awaiting an eventual collision course with HHH and finally Randy Orton, who had been tormenting Michaels. This was Orton’s welcome into the main event scene. Gone are Van Dam and Kane, then in a bitter rivalry with each other, and Booker T., who was busy with the Intercontinental Title.
This bout should have played out as the ascension of Goldberg as he looked like a world-beater by eliminating Orton, Michaels and Jericho in succession. Ultimately, HHH used the sledgehammer to take out Goldberg, ruining the feel good ending that was right there waiting for them.
It did however set up the one-on-one Goldberg-HHH match for the next month at Unforgiven where Goldberg did take the belt. He would only keep it warm for Hunter until December when The Game took it back in a triple threat match that also featured Kane. Michaels and Orton also met at Unforgiven, where Orton got the win to help solidify his top heel standing. Jericho ended up winning the feud with Nash, beating him in a hair-for-hair match and “running him off.”
Rights to a vacant title
By the time the next Elimination Chamber rolled around at New Year’s Revolution in January 2005 a lot had changed. Randy Orton had since been kicked out of Triple H’s Evolution group for winning the World Championship. He subsequently lost to HHH in September before the Title was held up after a December 2004 match between Chris Benoit, Edge and Trips that ended in controversy. This Chamber match was to clear up the controversy and determine a new Champion. All the main players at the time-Orton, Benoit, Edge and Triple H-were involved, as were the Evolution enforcer Batista and perennial Chamber participant Chris Jericho. This was Batista’s introduction to the main event and World Title picture. Shawn Michaels, fresh off returning from injury, was placed in the Chamber as the special guest referee.
The match served as a coming out party for Batista, as he eliminated both Benoit and Jericho and was left in the final three with Orton and HHH, the two favorites coming into the match. Triple H ended winning his second straight Chamber match after taking Orton out, but the seeds of dissent between Batista and HHH had been sewn.
This all led to Triple H finally beating Orton one-on-one at Royal Rumble to end the little “Orton as a face” experiment. The Rumble was also where Batista really made his mark, eliminating John Cena to cement his main event spot for WrestleMania. The build-up to his WrestleMania Title match was a lesson on how to do a slow-burn face turn the right way as opposed to the haphazard way Orton was turned previously. As for the other three, Edge continued to grow as a Championship-obsessed heel and eventually met Jericho and Benoit again in the inaugural Money in the Bank match at WrestleMania, a match that Edge was victorious in, leading him to have an elusive World Title shot anytime he wanted it in the next year, which ultimately led us to…
Money in the Bank
The Chamber returned to New Year’s Revolution once again the following January. By this point John Cena had risen through the ranks and had been WWE Champion since WrestleMania. His main opposition for months had been Kurt Angle and this looked to be Angle’s last shot at the gold. Also featured for this Chamber are returning veterans Kane and Shawn Michaels and newcomers to the main event scene-Carlito and Chris Masters. This was a test to see if Masters and Carlito could hang in the main event scene while still being able to hide their weaknesses due to the nature of the match. By inserting Masters and Carlito into the main event it also left some other star power to fill out the rest of the card, as the undercard featured Ric Flair defending the Intercontinental Championship against Edge and The Big Show and Triple H going at it one-on-one.
The match itself had some interesting booking, as Kurt Angle, Cena’s number one challenger at this point, was eliminated first. It was then Carlito and Masters’ time to shine as the duo worked together and Carlito was able to pin both Michaels and Kane. Cena was left alone with the two new guys but was able to roll up Carlito quickly after Carlito had double-crossed Masters and took him out.
The real story came after the match however. As Cena lied there, exhausted from his victory, Edge emerged and claimed he was cashing in his Money in the Bank Title shot right there and then. It only Edge mere moments to take out the weary Champion and claim his first WWE Championship. Cena and Edge would go on to feud for the Championship for the better part of 2006, with Cena finally winning the rivalry by beating Edge for the Championship at Unforgiven in September in a TLC match. As for the rest, Carlito and Masters continued to work in the mid-card, trying to improve and find their niche. Angle was bounced to SmackDown! and then to the newly re-christened ECW before finally ending up in TNA, making him the only man to ever wrestle on all four prime time wrestling shows in one calendar year. Kane remained in his role as the upper-mid card guy that is a credible Title contender in a quick fix. Michaels continued his main event run, which led to an extended run with the McMahons and the reuniting of the original DX.
It’s Extreme!
While it looked like the Chamber had found a permanent home at New Year’s Revolution the idea was jettisoned in favor of using the Chamber to help bolster the appeal of the new ECW’s first solo brand PPV-December to Dismember. Only this Chamber would be “EXTREME” as Paul Heyman would say. Extreme in the sense that four weapons would be placed in the Chamber pods along with the entrants. Rather than weapons hanging from the cage, a stack of tables or rolls of barbed wire lying around the Chamber was outfitted with one table, a barbed wire ball bat, a crowbar and a steel chair. It was hardly the extreme elements that fans were looking for. On paper the match looked to be solid. This was to be Rob Van Dam’s culmination of his five-month chase to get his ECW Championship back from the Champion Big Show. Also included in this match would be Show’s partner in crime Test, ECW Original Sabu (playing the Chris Jericho-has-no-chance-of-winning-but-is-credible-enough-to-be-belivable role) and ECW’s hot new prospect CM Punk. The sixth spot Heyman opened up to anyone from the three brands to accept but was a ruse to put Hardcore Holly in the spot until Bobby Lashley from SmackDown! ended up ruining their plan by laying out Holly and taking his spot.
Going into the match, logic dictated that Show would be dropping the belt, but there wasn’t a clear consensus on to whom. Van Dam seemed to be the most obvious choice, but fears of him dropping the ball like he did with his past Title reign hindered his chances. Bobby Lashley seemed to management’s choice for Champion while the smarks and fanboys were hoping for a Punk win, despite his relative unproven status.
Ultimately the booking for the match was quite odd and left most unhappy with the results. Sabu was taken out before the match in a bullshit injury angle so Holly could take his spot. Van Dam and Punk, by far the best workers in the match and the most over, were the first two eliminated. Test then took out running buddy Holly, leaving dead space while he waited for Lashley to enter. Lashley plowed through Test and then resulted in more dead space while he waited for Big Show. Lashley quickly took out Show as well and become the new leader of the “Tribe of Extreme.”
The whole PPV was panned by most fans, and called one of the worst PPVs ever, with the criminally short Chamber match and under developed undercard. After the show, Lashley became McMahon’s new pet project, and had the rocket strapped to his ass that sent him to the main event stratosphere. The ECW Championship became a trophy for Lashley until he traded the Championship with McMahon through the spring of 2007. As for the rest of the crew in this match, Big Show went into a well-deserved retirement and is rumored to be returning to WWE television any day now. Test hit a car and the juice and found himself out of a job again, and then had a cup of coffee with TNA before he was shown the door again. He apparently retired from the business now. Punk became the new face of ECW and continues to be the brand’s top baby face today. Holly went out with another injury and is now currently on RAW as a World Tag Team Champion. Van Dam was on content to watch his contract run out this summer and is enjoying his time away from the spotlight. Sabu was shown the door shortly after his big WrestleMania payday (as I predicted a year ago.)
Dual Chambers
Over a year after the abysmal “Extreme†Elimination Chamber the structure returns for a dual shot at No Way Out. For the first time ever two Chamber bouts will be contested on the same night. Whereas this could seem like a case of overkill, the fact that the company has used this gimmick very sparingly in the past, it shouldn’t lessen the its appeal or special feel.
Traditionally the winner of the Royal Rumble match uses their victory to ensure a main event Championship match at WrestleMania, but 2008 Rumble winner John Cena forewent his right and instead will cash in his shot at No Way Out. Cena is fresh of a pectoral injury and wants to gain revenge against his old nemesis Randy Orton, current WWE Champion. As a result, both the RAW and SmackDown! brands will host Elimination Chambers to determine each brand’s number one contender heading in to the big event in late March.
RAW’s Chamber participants feature a veritable who’s who of current WWE wrestlers. Umaga, with an archaic savage gimmick, has become one of the WWE most credible heel challengers in the past year and a half. Jeff Hardy, a WWE mainstay for a decade off-and-on now, has finally become a main event player in recent months and could realistically win the WWE Championship in due time. John Bradshaw Layfield is a former WWE Champion and has recently returned from a year-and-a-half injury hiatus. And the other three participants, Chris Jericho, Shawn Michaels and Triple H, are no strangers to the main event scene or the Elimination Chamber itself.
On the SD! side of things, the participants include a more eclectic mix. The forerunners include former World Champions The Undertaker and Batista. They have been battling each other back-and-forth for the past year over the World Championship and continue their rivalry here. Finlay is long-time wrestling veteran who just returned to active duty in early 2006 and has really become a mainstay on the blue brand, always able to deliver in good matches and keep things flowing well. Montel Vontavious Porter burst onto the scene in late 2006 and has improved rapidly over the past year. The Elimination Chamber will be Porter’s welcome to the main event, much like it was for Orton, Batista and Carlito in the past. This should be a good barometer to see how MVP can hang at the top of the card. The other two entrants are legit giants, the 7-foot Great Khali, a former World Champion in his own right and the 500 lbs. Big Daddy V. BDV, the former Viscera, has been working on/off for WWE since 1993 and has gone through a variety of name and gimmick changes. His run now as Big Daddy V has been his most successful run since his time as King Mabel back in 1995.
The Perspective
The Elimination Chamber has benefited from the fact that it hasn’t been overused like some of WWE’s other primary gimmicks, like the ladder match or Hell in a Cell. The Chamber so far carries enough credibility that it can theoretically sell pay per views on its name alone. I guess that’s why they can get away with putting Viscera in one.
For this week the vault is closed…
As for a little programming note, expect a few changes around Pulse Wrestling coming up in the recent days and weeks. An old feature or two may be returning, and this column itself will be changing. HS will now become a bi-weekly installment. I’ll be back next week but with an all-new weekly column. It should be a raging good time, I hope anyways…
Linked to the Pulse
Blatt and I completely agree on the direction of Colin Delaney in ECW.
Scott Keith reviews the best of RAW set and gives his cynical thoughts as only he can. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
David B. looks back at The Naturals.
Recent History
This is the section where I can ramble through my thoughts on this past week in wrestling, whether it be the television shows, pay per views, or any news that came out. Kinda like Vh1’s “Best Week Ever,†but this should be less annoying…hopefully.
I didn’t recall TNA until I looked back, then I remembered “Stone Cold†Shark Boy was on there and I cried a little…
I only caught half of SmackDown! but I really like that two mid-carders like Noble and Palumbo are getting nice little program they work with. It’s good to see the mid-card guys getting something to do rather than just random one-off matches every week.
I bought the Royal Rumble pay per view, the first one I’ve bought since WrestleMania. The undercard was decent, but the Hardy-Orton main event felt underwhelming when they were building to such an epic match. The Rumble match could’ve been terrible and still would’ve been good, but the John Cena surprise return blew me away and easily made up for the rest of the show. Overall thumbs up for the event.
RAW was a typical post-PPV show that was only there to show the depth of the brand’s top card.
ECW was also fairly paint-by-numbers, but it looks like the Colin Delaney angle is finally getting somewhere. I smell a Mikey Whipwreck-style Tag Championship reign for him and Tommy Dreamer so they can then drop the belts to the Edgeheads.
This Day in History
I figured if we are talking history around here we should pay homage to what has happened on this very day in the years gone by. It will either make you long for the old days or be happy for what we have now.
1994 – Eddie Gilbert defeated Jerry Lawler for the USWA Unified Heavyweight title
1994 – The Moondogs defeated Rock ‘n Roll Express for the USWA Tag Team title
1997 – Dan Cooley defeated K.C. Thunder for the SSW Heavyweight title
2000 – The Radicals (Benoit, Malenko, Guerrero and Saturn) debut on RAW after leaving WCW
1966 – Mr. Breeze was born
1999 – Shohei “Giant” Baba died of cancer at 61
