Six championships will be decided as the WWE heads to the Toyota Centre in Houston, Texas, where it will present the most dangerous structure in the WWE, and it will happen twice. Tonight, there are two Elimination Chamber matches, with the main event seeing who will continue the Road to Wrestlemania as the WWE Champion, when The New Daniel Bryan defends against five of SmackDown’s top stars: Jeff Hardy, Samoa Joe, Randy Orton, AJ Styles and Kofi Kingston. The first ever Women’s Tag Team Champions will be defended in the night’s opening contest, as six teams, three each from Raw and SmackDown Live, will seek that honour.
+ Daniel Bryan (c) vs Kofi Kingston vs Jeff Hardy vs Randy Orton vs
AJ Styles vs Samoa Joe (Elimination Chamber for the WWE Championship): Samoa Joe was channelling his inner Misawa with the strikes he was throwing, and Kofi continued his hot streak from the gauntlet match last week. Styles and Hardy were incredible popular, and Bryan was hated at every turn. The only weak link, if I can even call him that, was Orton, who came in last and just sort of coasted. This was a great match, and it turned into a fantastic match when it was just the final two
+ Fabulous Glow (Carmella & Naomi) vs The Riott Squad (Liv Morgan & Sarah Logan) vs The Iiconics (Payton Royce & Billie Kay) vs Nia Jax & Tamina vs Fire and Desire (Sonya Deville & Mandy Rose) vs The Boss & Hug Connection (Sasha Banks & Bayley) (Elimination Chamber for the Women’s Tag Team Championships): The Iiconics are the best tag team on the planet, significantly better than the sum of their parts, and I’ll fight you IRL if you disagree with me. Conversely, Bayley deserves so much more than being the only good thing about her team with Sasha Banks, the latter of which clearly was not ready to be in this match after her injury. Once there were more people in the ring at once, there was enough happening to hide the inexperience of many of the competitors, and it ended up being a pretty good match overall
+ Buddy Murphy (c) vs Akira Tozawa (WWE Cruiserweight Championship): whether it’s Tozawa, Kalisto, Hideo Itami or anybody else, the one constant in this fantastic 205 Live resurgence is Buddy Murphy, who may be the best base in the WWE, and perhaps wrestling as a whole (even if his moveset is just a “best of NJPW” highlight reel). This takes nothing away from Tozawa, who has an equal claim as one of the reasons this being shafted to the pre-show is a travesty
– Braun Strowman vs Baron Corbin (No Disqualifications Match): this was stupid, and went on 99% of it’s time too long. God damn
– Ronda Rousey (c) vs Ruby Riott (Raw Women’s Championship): it might not even be considered a spoiler to say how this match ended, but even still, I was left really disappointed. This should have just been a Ronda Rousey segment/interview/whatever instead of wasting Ruby like this
– Bobby Lashley (c) & Lio Rush vs Finn Balor (Handicap Match for the Intercontinental Championship): this stipulation was stupid, but it at least made for a few good drama moments. Finn/Rush could have been a good mini-feud, but I just don’t buy Finn being a threat to Lashley for a second. Lashley has the rare in wrestling triple threat of looking like a monster, wrestling well and having a MMA/legitimate background – not unlike Brock Lesnar. This match was something we should have just got on Raw and not wasted time on this show
– The Best Tag Team In The World (The Miz & Shane McMahon) (c) vs The Usos (Jimmy & Jey Uso) (SmackDown Live Tag Team Championships): I don’t know, peeps. Shane O’Mac nearly killing himself every time he wrestlers doesn’t bode well for his life, nor my enjoyment for his matches. I also don’t really like that the Usos were the de-facto bad guys in this match, just because they don’t truly believe that Miz and Shane are a better team than them )and frankly, who does). This was neither well wrestled, nor particularly interesting, so it’s a no from me
> where were Asuka, R-Truth and Bobby Roode & Chad Gable?
Should you watch this event: There was more bad than good on this, but the end results of each match are hard to argue. Do yourself a favour and watch both of the chambers, and especially the Cruiserweight championship match, but skip the rest.
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