Elimination Chamber discussion *Spoilers, obviously!*

There, that ought to be sufficient warning.

So, thoughts on the show then...

I thought Alberto Del Rio and Kofi Kingston had an excellent opening match. Good back and forth action which served well to show that Alberto can weather a storm and pull out a win without making Kofi look too bad in the process. Both guys looked good in this, and even though the ending was exactly as I think everyone predicted with Kofi staring at the lights, this was very enjoyable.

Smackdown elimination chamber match. I admit I forgot Drew McIntyre had qualified for the chamber and I thought for a moment he was Ziggler's replacement. No real surprise that it was the Big Show in the end as he has an obvious angle into the match to make it work. Have to say I thought this was one of the best chamber matches the WWE have ever put on. Really enjoyed it and as much as I detest Mysterio, I have to give the guy credit for putting in a very good performance in the match. Amazingly enough, "the blandest man on the planet" Drew McIntyre actually looked good in this too. Nice series of good bumps (Drew's throw on Rey into the glass looked especially painful) and nice lot of false finishes really got the crowd going. This was very well worked. Glad Edge retained the belt as I certainly didn't ever want to see Rey with it again. Christian coming back to attack Del Rio is interesting. I wonder if that rivalry will continue, because if not it undoes some of his momentum going into Mania. I even wondered if the WWE might finally pull the trigger on the Edge/Christian feud people have been wanting to see, and make the match a triple threat. Edge has been hinting at retirement recently, and I'm sure he'd like a Mania match for the world title against his best friend.

The Booker T / Trish segment was a waste of time on a PPV. Nice to see her back, but that could have been 2 minutes on Smackdown, instead of a PPV.

The Tag Team Title match was average at best, but then that was about the most you could reasonably hope for it, TBH. The crowd clearly didn't give the tiniest crap who won, and for a crowd that was loud the rest of the night, the deafening apathy the Corre's title win produced must have been worrying. The WWE have buried the tag division so far now that God knows how it will ever be rescued.

The Vickie Guerrero segment was another complete time filler(waster) and it doesn't say much for your lead female trainer that she completely messes up her finishing move live on PPV!

The Jerry Lawler .v. The Miz WWE Title match was a complete missed opportunity. The match itself was perfectly good given Lawler's limitations but they very clearly absolutely should have gone with Jerry winning the title. After his backstage interview and after the video package build the crowd very very clearly wanted to see the King do it, and when you have that sort of situation, given the circumstances of the week he's had, you give the crowd what they want for once. All they had to do was make it a 24hr title reign, having King drop the title to the Miz in a rematch the following night. Miz loses nothing from the loss in the long run (and actually looks the bigger bastard if he snatches it away from King at the last second), King gets his career recognition, the crowd gets its nice nostalgia moment, and everyone is happy. The WWE title doesn't suffer at all either. Sometimes the WWE likes to swerve its audience a bit too much, and IMO, on this one, it was the wrong call to have Miz go over clean.

RAW Chamber match - Again I thought this was a very solid chamber match, though not as good as the Smackdown one. Morrison was the star of the show in this match, ably assisted by Sheamus, and both of them worked hard and worked well. Glad to see R-Truth get killed very quickly. I have no idea what that idiot was even doing have a crack at the title. Surprised (or actually perhaps I wasn't) by how little Cena actually did during the course of the match. The Punk/Orton stuff worked very well, and I won't complain if there's a match at Mania out of that. Predictable that Cena would win of course.

All credit to Cena, BTW, in doing the fruity pebbles gag in the backstage bit.

Overall then I think this was a perfectly watchable PPV for what it was, but 5 matches and filler on a 3 hour show isn't good. I think they could maybe have shoe-horned in another match along the way, had they not made the rin exits and other stuff so long.

Did no-one else watch the PPV then?

Afraid not amigo, like I said, Sky Sports 1 isn't a feature of Casa Lane!

I watched it.

Missed Kofi vs Del Rio and only saw the end of the SD Chamber. But I agree...Rey and Edge put on a great match! Christain coming back was alright. I like Christian but I just don't think he's main event material. I know he won the ECW Title but that run was pretty much the end of ECW anyways and ecw title compared to the wwe or heavyweight titles are two different things entirely.

I feel like...if Edge vs Christain happens it will end up the same way Matt vs Jeff ended up. The more popular brother goes over and Christian goes back to being mid-card at best.

didn't really care about that Booker/Trish segment....it didnt add anything or take away anything....it was just meh.

Miz vs Lawler. I agree with David on this one. Good match, would have loved to see Lawler walk away with the belt even if it was the 24 hrs reign and he loses it the next week on Raw after Cole interference. But on the brightside, Miz finally got another clean win wich will be good for him going up against Cena.

Then the Raw elimination chamber. JoMO is a ninja....plain and simple. I loved how they put him through all four of the chamber pods lol. I'm really starting to enjoy Orton vs Punk. That match at Mania should be a great one. R-Truth....why was he even in the match? Does the wwe really think he's a top guy? Seriously? After he does his stupid song nobody even cares about the guy anymore. Glad he was in and out pretty quick. You pretty much knew Cena was going to win though....

All in all it was a decent ppv. Everything was predictable and cemented the mania matches. Two things I would have changed though....Lawler coming out as champion. Should have happened...but it did a good job of setting up more with the King/Cole feud.

and the second thing id change....I would have put Daniel Bryan vs Ted Jr on the actual ppv and not a dark match. Bryan is a guy who could have a great match with anyone and he should have been on the ppv somewhere...if not in his own match at least in R-Truth's chamber spot....man R-Truth is a waste of time...

Er...if the most popular brother goes over won't that be Christian? I like Edge and I think he's got a lot of support. But the didn't call Christian Captain Charisma for nothing!

I have to disagree on Christian not being main event worthy. I thought he was main event stuff. The this is how I roll, peeps stuff was fantastic and he always gave good matches. So I'd buy into a Edge-Christian title match and I'd buy into Christian being given a run with one of the big two belts.

I didn't see the PPV but I'm also surprised they didn't have Miz at least win dirty.

I also have to agree on Christian. The guy always seemed main event material to me even before he got the rub from Rocky. But even afterwards, I was certain he should have been, as he was turning out great work.

Maybe it was his look that kept him down, however. I do agree that Christan never stood out visually, but I've always equated him close to the main event ability of Jericho in every other way aside from that one thing he was never able to attain with his short hair, standard wrestler build and somewhat generic tights. But on the mic and charisma wise, I always wanted to see him up there and thought he could have.

Funny though how everyone assumed that TNA would "use him right" and while they did push him, it's TNA of course, and the main difference between WWE and TNA is that TNA can attempt to do push someone deserving and fuck it up massively, while WWE is great at pushing someone if and when they bother to do it. But it's rare that they do.

And I just think Christian never had that chance with Vince not wanting him to be there, even though I still think he could have ran with it like a halfback with a jetpack.

No offense to Edge, who I think is great as a main eventer, but this is one of those instances where I think Christian deserved it just as much but never got it. But then again, Edge has a great look while Christian does not, and I believe that's what kills him. So I partially agree while I also half don't.

I just got home from my workmates, where I watched the PPV. I enjoyed it for the most part, and I predicted every winner correctly.

Kofi vs Del Rio was a good solid match, and neither wrestler came out of it looking bad. Kofi getting a wedgy was a bit wrong though.

Smackdown Chamber was excellent. I don't really like Rey Mysterio, but thought he did really well. My man of the match was Kane. He was brutal, and I would have been happy to see him win. Edge winning was good though. It's good to see Christian back, and I'd happily watch him in a main event with Del Rio and Edge. I'm a peep, and proud of it.

The tag match... Yeah. It was a match worthy of RAW or Smackdown, but it definitely wasn't top draw PPV stuff. I like Marella, because he reminds me of a wrestler from the 80's, with the funny gimmick and the ridiculous finisher. Even he couldn't save this match from being mediocre.

Lawler against Miz was pretty good, and I think Lawler moves around quickly for his age. I don't mind that he lost, and I agree with others that say it's good to see Miz win cleanly. Michael Cole is really getting on my nerves, and I loved it when Lawler threw Miz on top of him. Shame he didn't bust Cole's jaw and shut him up for a while... Oh wait that wouldn't work because all Cole's word come out of his ass!

The main event was great. I was happy to see CM Punk get a second chance, but my workmate and his girlfriend didn't like that lol. We all loved Morrison's performance, even though he spent a lot of time being smashed through the pods and thrown into the chains. Cena winning... *sigh* I wanted Orton or Morrison to win, because I'm really liking both their work right now.

The in-ring segments, I can't even be bothered to comment about. I do think they could have been replaced by a match, and I'd much prefered if that had happened. Oh, or they could have had The Rock do one long promo instead... Or Rock Bottom to Vickie!

So yeah, I really enjoyed the majority of the PPV. Out of ten, I'd give it 7.5/10.

I think there was certainly a point at which the WWE, had it chosen to, could have capitalised on how over Christian was and cemented him in the main event. But for whatever reason they chose not to, and he slipped back a bit.

However, it wouldn't be difficult for them to build Christian into the match at Mania. Given the "you cost me 6 months of my career" angle with Del Rio, and the obvious angle with Edge givent he shared history, a couple of well put together video packages showing how they came up together would easily sell Christian being in the match.

By the way, I have to say that I find the positive view of the PPV here very intriguing.

Because I just got done watching a pretty long and comprehensive review of Elimination Chamber that absolutely blasted this event, at long explanatory length as one of the worst PPV's WWE's done in the last decade.

Now, that's not my opinion.. I don't generally have one of the PPV itself, I haven't seen it.

I just find it interesting that I just now have seen the two most diametrically opposing opinions of this same event.


The review saying that the Kofi vs Del Rio match was absolutely pointless, a complete waste of time, with Kofi having looked like a doofus in an entirely one-sided match that served no reason to exist...

The first Chamber matching having decent spots but still boring, with barely anything going on, and only two wrestlers at any given time doing anything worth doing and that it dragged on for an eternity...

The tag match being also completely worthless, accomplishing or meaning nothing... The Trish segment with her horrible impersenation of The Rock being a miserable, offensively stupid, waste of time. Vickie's segment being a waste of time.

The review also stated that it was clear Lawler vs Miz was a gigantic letdown, with Lawler obviously not into the match at all, seeming lost, confused and disinterested throughout, and being buried in 5 minutes, in a horrible and downright disrespectful ending, that served no purpose and again, the reviewer just shitting on it, but saying that Lawler still deserved credit for being out there and that the poor performance was understandable with such a devastating real life event, but even so that the WWE was disrespectful to not give Lawler the win, even though the reviewer stated it was not a good match.

And that the Raw chamber had some decent spots but was more boring than the last one.

The reviewer basically making his feelings that the PPV was generally a waste of time and money, with absolutely nothing of any importance having happened, and everything in the night being meaningless and serving no purpose, and was unsatisfying and awful throughout. And that it was 100% predictable and disapointing in every match's result and most of it was bad, and that you miss nothing by not seeing it.

Again, I didn't see it for myself, but it's weird to see such conflicting views. But yeah, I just got done watching a pretty comprehensive rant on Blip.tv from someone just going through every minute of this PPV and shitting on it completely.

Yes, just trashing things and being utterly negative seems to be a very popular pastime on the Internet

Totally agree. Trashing something is far easier than making something and, I'm afraid, the Internet Masses would far rather do the former than the latter.

The only big waste of money is whatever that "reviewer" pays per month for his/her Internet connection. Nearly all of what that person said is a pile of shit. The only part I agree with is about the two segments and the tag match. The rest seems to come from a person who has nothing better to do with their time than bitch about things that don't need bitching about.

Seriously, who are you going to believe more when they give a review of a wrestling show? Some loser who obviously has no idea what they are on about, or David Shand? I'd go with the latter, as David knows his wrestling and knows a good PPV when he watches one.

Well ok honestly.... I think I may have reeeeeally made this guy sound a lot worse than he actually is.

The person doing this and the video i'm referring to actually does make a lot of good points, and goes through and gives credit where credit is due and discusses at length his opinions why what he felt didn't work didn't to him, and tries to make a real informed case for why he thinks so.

If it's any consolation (though I don't know why it would be, being called a loser for having his own opinion ), he does remark that parts of the PPV are "fun to watch at times for the sake of the action in two of the matches themselves" and speaks highly of John Morrison's spots as well as the effort of some of the competitors..

but really builds a case for why he thinks what he does and tries to seemingly be fair more than I have probably put forth here, but yet he still just comes to the conclusion that it was quite bad overall.

I mean, it really isn't some frothing troll bashing from some guy trying to make people angry, it's a 58 minute, pretty intelligent (to a good degree at least) dissertation and reasonably level headed discussion on what, to him, didn't work. I myself DO disagree with a lot of things he says for instance, about the Raw that occurred directly after. (How he does get a bit too offended I think at Micheal Cole for his ensuing promo on Raw)

But if I can be honest, I hardly think that he's really a loser for having an opinion, because he does really explain his case pretty well, (but you'd kind of have to see it for onself though, to be honest.

I have not done him justice at all, and my secondhand explanation of his review is much shorter and perhaps less reasonable coming from my quick version of his words, than he actually spends the time himself on, in it.

...He's a guy named Sean Fausz who actually has done these before and actually does kinda present himself as, at least someone to does tend to try to know what he's talking about, in all honesty. I may have given him too unfavorable a retelling of his view. Ehe.

Just wanted to clear up, that he may have had a negative opinion on the PPV, but it's really NOT as if he's trying to stir up trouble or challenge people or say they can't have their own different opinion.

Maybe it's because it's coming as an abridged, and cliffnotes version from me, but Fausz really does come off as more insightful and intelligent about his views than I may have in fact led people to believe. ehe..