WWE Elimination Chamber 2012

A PPV tonight you say? Fuck if I knew that...

Anywhoo, last night was WWE's Elimination PPV... oh, I mean Elimination Chamber PPV... sorry, but I just went by what Johnny Ace called it. After all, this guy's the Executive VP of Talent Relations... despite having no actual talent aside from kissing ass. Anyway, time to shoot out some random thoughts. Should be pretty simple stuff, really.


WWE Champion CM Punk defeated Dolph Ziggler, Chris Jericho (who got KO'ed at some point), The Miz, R-Truth, and Coffee Kingston in an Elimination Chamber match to retain the title. I'm guessing with the KO'ing of Jericho, he'll be the one to challenge Punk for the title. But really, Y2J gets KOed? That's a pretty cheap way to get him out of the match. In any case, good match. Everyone stepped up and the end result was a nice opener for the PPV. Kudos.

WWE Divas Champion Beth Phoenix defeated Tamina Snuka to retain the title. Someone pointed out somewhere that Tamina kind of, sort of looks like an old-style Klingon as they would have appeared back in the original Star Trek. I kind of, sort of see it... but kind of, sort of don't. In any case, the match was alright. Nothing special, but considering the Diva tripe that gets put out, this could almost be on par with Flair/Steamboat for all I care.

World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan Danielson defeated Wade Barrett, Cody Rhodes, Big Show, The Great Khali, and Santino Marella in another Elimination Chamber match to retain the title. At one point, Randy Orton was supposed to be in this, but someone had the bright idea to put the comedy character SANTINO MARELLA in a World championship instead of Orton... whatever, I'll go with it. In any event, this was a very good chamber match, to be honest. Bryan looked like a champion and even Santino came off as someone who could have won it. Had my doubts about this one, but this turned out to be pretty good. However, the sad part is that the Cena/Kane Ambulance "Piss Break" is the main event and not either of the Chamber matches for which the PPV is named after. Fail.

Oh yeah, Sheamus picks Bryan as his champion of choice with a good ol' kick to the noggin... as expected.

Tossed in as a bonus match, United States Champion Jack Swagger defeats Justin Gabriel in a "Last Minute Addition That We Didn't Bother To Advertise Because We Figure Nobody Would Give A Shit" Match. A match that isn't worth bragging or complaining about since it was relatively short and painless... has no place on a $55 PPV, but short and painless nonetheless.

And in the main event, John Cena defeated Kane in an Ambulance match to close out the show. instead of either of the two EC matches as the main event, we have a shitty, worthless Ambulance Match... In any case, John Cena overcomes the odds, I don't give a shit... seriously, I just don't. Is this supposed to make me cheer for Cena? Because it doesn't. If anything, it makes me care less. And do you want to know the sad part about this? None of this stuff makes even care ONE IOTA about Cena/Rock at Mania. Not at all... that's going to be a subject for debate.

Elimination Chamber was the textbook example of a "placeholder" show in which nothing of major significance happened here. As far as the PPV goes, the Chamber matches were certainly the highlights of this PPV as far as I'm concerned and if you bought the PPV purely for these matches, then you certainly got your money's worth. The rest of the show was a big whiff of meh; stuff that I could have easily done without, especially the Johnny Ace stuff and Nattie Neidfart stuff. The Divas match was alright for what it was worth, but Cena/Kane just blew chunks and as far as shows prior to Wrestlemania goes, this was one of the weaker ones. Overall, this was a show that people could skip over and miss nothing - hence the placeholder moniker - but the Chamber matches do make up for it, so it's fairly alright on that count. Not amazing, but alright.