Sunday, February 21, 2010

DON'T READ THIS: Spoiling WWE's Elimination Chamber PPV

I managed to catch the final two matches of the WWE PPV Elimination Chamber tonight, so I'll give my thoughts on them, plus another segment that they showed. Typical warning for this type of post: Massive spoilers follow! If you want to watch it, then don't read this!

- Smackdown Elimination Chamber: I thought this was a great match, with some sick spots and solid booking throughout. First, CM Punk is ridiculously over with his current "straight edge" cult gimmick. He plays the character PERFECTLY, and if he isn't a world champion within the next year while this plays out, I'd be really shocked.

Off the wall idea on my part - Why not have HBK join the straight edge cult? It's clear that he is on the outs with Triple H, and given his well known born again status, it seems like he might fit in with the group's mantra of no drugs and clean living. It would be simple enough for him to cut a promo badmouthing the fans for encouraging him to sin again, or something to that effect.

Anywho, back to the actual match. Punk eliminates R-Truth in about four minutes, giving him an entire minute of mic time to rant about the other competitors. Unfortunately though, the next one out is Rey, and he eliminates Punk shortly before the fourth competitor, Chris Jericho, got into the match.

Rey and Jericho fight for a bit, and surprisingly, the WWE let Morrison stay in the match, as the Internet speculation beforehand was rampant that he would get superkicked by HBK and taken out. Luckily though, he stayed in as the fifth entrant, and definitely showed that he deserved to be in the main event picture. He managed to eliminate Rey with Starship Pain, a nice feather in his cap, and he hung in tough with Jericho and The Undertaker (the final entrant).

If I had one problem with the booking in the match, it was that Morrison got eliminated kind of easily. After absorbing a good amount of pain, he was pinned after a somewhat-benign looking chokeslam to the metal floor, after a somewhat-long delay. At least give the guy the courtesy of a proper finisher, WWE! However, this is a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things.

Anyway, the final two are Jericho and Taker, who have about five minute of solo action. They manage to trade finishers - Jericho gets him in the Walls for a minute, and hits a Codebreaker, while Taker slaps Hell's Gate on for a bit and hits the Last Ride - but neither can manage a victory.

That leads to the final spot of the match, as HBK finally materializes at the PPV; I believe he was hiding underneath the ring. He gives Taker a Superkick to cost the match, while Jericho gives him an "ohmygod" look. Good reaction on Jericho's part, since he and HBK just got off a brutal feud (Jerishow vs. DX) and had a really brutal feud last year that involved him punching HBK's wife. After the kick, Jericho wins the title win a pin and easy 1-2-3.

- The match preceding the Smackdown chamber wasn't on the card to start the night: The Miz vs. MVP for the United States championship. To be honest, I was hoping for something different, since it feels like these two have wrestled each other about 500 times in the past couple of years. However, as expected, they both had a decent match, with The Miz earning some tough-guy points for wrestling with a busted-open forehead from a headbutt. While it wasn't Ric Flair-level blood, the doctor still came out immediately after the match to patch him up.

Anyway, the match featured one sick spot, and it wasn't even in the ring between the match participants. The Big Show attempted to interfere on Miz's behalf, and he was stopped by Mark Henry, MVP's tag team partner. Henry then charged after Show, but he sidestepped and tossed Henry through one of the black pads at ringside - It was a very cool spot, and I wasn't sure after if Henry was legit hurt or simply milking the injury for the match's purpose. With Henry knocked down, Miz distracted the ref, and Show landed the knockout right on MVP, leading to a Miz pinfall.

- I didn't catch the Raw elimination chamber, but I saw the results, and it sounds like a doozy. Apparently, Cena made HHH tap to win the title... Only to have Vince McMahon come to ringside, with Batista, for an impromptu title match! Batista easily pinned Cena, and he's the new champion. (Maybe Cena should just stay home on chamber nights, given his past history with the event.) Also in the match, Orton got pinned by Ted Jr., which surely sets the stage for their angle.

Elsewhere on the card, the women's title match for the vacant Diva's belt was stupidly changed to a tag team match between Maryse and Gail Kim vs. Michelle McCool and Layla. Maryse gave Gail Kim the Sid Justice treatment, refusing to tag in and letting her get beaten by the two heels. The whole thing sounds pretty miserable, and the WWE probably should have just had the scheduled match. Likewise, Drew McIntyre beat Kane, in a match that nobody was really salivating over.

Finally, William Regal got on the mic to hype up the WWE's newest program, in which established stars mentor up-and-comers, and to also bemoan that he wasn't on it. Edge came out and speared him, much to the crowd's delight. Also, Edge announced that he would, uh, announce, his Wrestlemania opponent on Monday Night Raw. So, you have that to look forward to, which is nice.

5 comments:

  1. aw dang it steve, now you've just spoiled what's coming up in wrestling for me. HOW COULD YOU. my life is ruined.

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  2. Raw chamber was boring other than Legacy and this quirk of light and reflection when HHH's pod was selected to open.
    http://i.imgur.com/WTw10l.jpg

    The Undertaker caught on fire during his entrance!

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  3. Did you notice Undertaker's odd rushed entrance to the ring? Seemed weird, guess the camera's did not catch it that well, but live reports state that Undertaker or someone on the Pyro crew mistimed the Undertaker's entrance flames and UT got engulfed in one of the fireballs that caught his trench coat and hat on fire. This explains the crazy red mark Taker's chest towards the end of the match.

    The RAW chamber match was good, but ultimately had an anticlimatic finish, I mean it did not even look like Hunter fought to get out of the STF. After dreading another forthcoming Cena title reign, Batista coming out and instantly squashing Cena made up for it and put a smile on my face.

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  4. Hi Danielle! I knew you, of all people, would be so upset about the news! ;)

    Harling, I did think that Triple H's entrance was creepy and awesome - You mean when the spotlight was on his face after his number came up, right? I managed to catch the chamber match this morning, before I headed out for work. Raw's chamber was OK, but I was expecting more from the Ted Jr. turn.

    Gruel, I read about that - Nuts! I was wondering why he was rushing down to the ring, and Striker or Cole at least had a pretty quick ad-lib on the situation; not sure if they knew that something gone horribly wrong or not.

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  5. Something you may want to check out Steve, I cannot remember if I brought it up to you before, is my wrestling podcast. I have randomly recording these over the past year and a half, which consist of a few of my buddies and I drinking some brews and talking up our passion of pro wrestling. Just pardon the ancient web design, I literally made the core design in Front Page 2000 in 10 minutes. - http://www.ontappodcast.com/cpshows/

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