My sincerest apologies for not writing this episode earlier. I've been sick for the past week, and I feel my thoughts would not have been completely coherent. I'm still sick, but much less so than I was last week. And since Elimination Chamber was a small show, I figure I can also cover the past week in the wacky world of Vince McMahon as well. Let's do the PPV first.
For what I called the most predictable show of the year, I had a rather pathetic picks output, correctly picking only three of the five matches on the card. Admittedly, one of them was a toss-up, but one I looked too much into and paid the price. Oh, well. Let's look at the show, shall we? Note that it's been about a week since I saw the show, so I'm going off a memory that's been ravaged by disease for a week. This should be fun.
Alberto Del Rio defeated Kofi Kingston in a non-title match
Del Rio continues his climb towards the World Heavyweight Championship in much the same manner as he's done for quite some time now. This time, he goes over the new Matt Hardy of the WWE, Kofi Kingston. I say this because Kofi is a perennial mid-carder, and there seems to be no plan to move him up the ranks. He's loved by the fans and a good worker, but it seems more he's gotten into this "jobber to the stars" role and can't escape it. I thought Kofi was going to move up the chain of command over a year ago, after his feud with Randy Orton. But nothing materialized. Instead, we get guys like Jack Swagger and Sheamus moving up to the top of the card faster than you can say, "But he's not that talented!" And now Del Rio has moved past him. I feel for Kofi. He's one of the most popular guys on Smackdown, yet he's saddled with the Intercontinental Championship more than a year after I thought he would be winning his first World Title. Wow, I went way off topic, didn't I? The match was pretty good, a decent opener for a show with five matches. But, as predicted, Del Rio won the match. Now we get six weeks of him telling us it's his destiny to win the World Heavyweight Championship in so many words. Joy.
Edge retains the World Heavyweight Championship in an Elimination Chamber Match
Hands down, this was the best match of the night. And when the best match of the night is the second match on the card, you know you're in trouble. If I have to give props to one guy I wasn't very high on before the show, it would have to be Wade Barrett. The guy took two nasty bumps through the chamber pod doors, as well as about a half dozen chops from The Big Show, and even though he first man eliminated, he showed true toughness throughout his time in the match. Also, major props to Edge and Rey Mysterio, who were both the first and last men in the match. The match lasted close to 30 minutes, and these two really showed some true grit by going the whole match. Their one-on-one encounter at the end of the show was fantastic, and it could have been a match by itself. I was a little disappointed Christian wasn't the sixth man in the chamber, but I was pleasantly surprised to see him return after the match, during Del Rio's run in on Edge. I was also hoping to see Christian on Smackdown, but alas, he was not there. If you see only one match from this show, make sure it's this one.
Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel defeated Santino Marella and Vladimir Kozlov to become the NEW WWE Tag Team Champions
Have I mentioned yet how hideous those new belts look? Because they're hideous. Anyway, this was the wild card match that had people picking down the middle. But in the end, the CORRRRRRRE won, and Slater and Gabriel captured their second Tag Team Titles. I'd like to reserve the rest of this segment to describing the utter clusterfuck that was the main event on Raw. Slater and Gabriel were to defend the newly won tag titles against John Cena and the Miz. Cena and Miz won the match to become the new tag champions. Wade Barrett immediately called for their rematch, and Slater and Gabriel won the titles back. That's THREE title changes in one day. Now if that doesn't say to you that Vince McMahon doesn't give two shits about the tag team division, I don't know what will.
I'd like to go on a sidebar here to discuss John Cena's tag team title reigns. Cena is a four-time tag team champion. Every one of those tag title reigns was to further a storyline he was participating in rather than being part of a legitimate tag team. The first came with Shawn Michaels, after which the two began feuding over the WWE Championship. Next was a title run with Batista that lasted a week. That title reign was only done to further the feud between Cena and Batista leading to their match at Summerslam. Next came a run with David Otunga that lasted a day, and was done only to move the feud between Cena and the old Nexus even further. And last, we have the ten minute title reign with The Miz that was done only to give Miz more heat. Every time something like this happens, it makes me want to give up watching wrestling altogether. But then I remember that there are good promotions out there who value their titles and put on good shows every month. Speaking of, I'll get to that CHIKARA review real soon.
Let's move on.
The Miz defeated Jerry "The King" Lawler to retain the WWE Championship
I would like to talk about this match, but the atrocious promo between King and Michael Cole the next night on Raw overshadows everything else right now. I don't care if Jerry Lawler signed off on this promo. I don't care that it's Cole's job to get as much heat as possible. Do NOT bring real-life family into a wrestling feud. Wrestling is supposed to be fantasy, not reality. It's supposed to be an escape from our daily lives. When you bring someone's real family into the equation, it stops becoming entertaining and starts becoming real. Even if the events are scripted, it's better to keep one's actual family out of it. Does anyone remember CM Punk singing Happy Birthday to Rey Mysterio's daughter? That was one of the most horrifying segments of last year, and it was because it was Rey's actual family who were involved. It certainly didn't help Cole's case that Lawler's mother had only been dead for eight days. That promo did not have to go that far. Vince McMahon often tries to push the boundaries of good taste (a phrase I'm sure many of you thought he did not know), but that was just abhorrent. Every time I hear Michael Cole's voice now, I want to change the channel. Is that what Vince was going for with Cole's "character" this whole time? To make people stop watching Raw and Smackdown? Because I'm honestly considering it now. All because of a goddamned announcer.
John Cena wins the Elimination Chamber Match
Because of The Rock's promo two weeks ago, I thought it was setting up for a Rock vs. Cena match at Wrestlemania, which I think would be about the most massive draw ever. But it appears that those ideas were unfounded, as Cena ended up defeating five other men to become the #1 Contender for the WWE Championship. However, Cena was not the highlight of the match, as I give the best performance award to John Morrison, who not only destroyed a chamber pod door with his KNEE, but he pulled out another Spider-Man-esque performance by climbing to the middle of the chamber and falling on some guys. I think that, out of the six guys involved in this match, Miz vs. Morrison would have been the best draw in terms of a feud with history. Yes, Miz and Cena have history, but it's mostly bullshit history, including a terrible match at The Bash in 2009 which I attended. Yes, Cena is a money draw, but Miz vs. Morrison for the WWE Title at Wrestlemania is something internet wrestling geeks have been wanting since they split up in 2009. It would be a hell of a way to cap off what should have been a long-standing feud that ended up being an itty bitty teeny weeny background feud. WWE truly dropped the ball on the potential Miz/Morrison feud. But I digress. Cena will obviously do as well as he can to make this feud as good as possible. Miz's WWE Title reign has been "meh." But that's more because Miz is a "meh" wrestler rather than any problems WWE Creative may have had.
So that's the Elimination Chamber PPV. If you can watch the Smackdown Elimination Chamber match, by all means do. The rest of the show was nothing special.
Now, let's talk briefly about this past week's Raw and Smackdown. On Raw, we got John Cena's best promo in years, the utter mess that is the tag team titles, and a bunch of other stuff in between that I don't remember. See, this is the problem with the WWE product right now: almost nothing is memorable. When you look at a company like CHIKARA, the stuff they do is memorable. I'll remember El Generico hitting Eddie Kingston with a brainbuster on the ring apron till the day I die, but if you ask me what happened on Smackdown three weeks ago, I'll be clueless. Honestly, the only thing I remember from Smackdown so far this year is Cody Rhodes' promo just after his (kayfabe) broken nose at the hands of Rey Mysterio, where he faced away from the camera for the entire interview. I thought it was absolutely brilliant.
Speaking of Smackdown, I will likely remember that I wish I'd gotten a ticket to go, if only for two reasons. First, Dusty Rhodes made an appearance, and that is something you'll only get to experience once in a great while these days. And second, I would have loved to see Vickie Guerrero get fired live. I bet the roof blew off ARCO Arena when Teddy Long uttered those words. Maybe we won't have to sit through another torturously uncharismatic Vickie promo for a while. Though now I'm wondering what's to become of Dolph Ziggler. Will he show up on Raw? Will his name be cleared? I'd actually like him to stay on TV. The more TV time he has, the less chance we'll have to endure another Ezekiel Jackson promo. Ugh.
Well, I suppose that's enough blabbing for now. I really need to get on this whole CHIKARA review, especially since the next two shows should be out on DVD soon. At least, I hope they'll be out on DVD soon. They'll get my $30 soon enough, I'm sure. Until next time!
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