Official Elimination Chamber Thread: 2/17/2019

It's getting to the point, for me now, where Lynch is becoming an annoyance. This female Stone Cold gimmick is pathetic. What annoys me, is when it became apparent that Rousey was signing, pretty much everyone had it pegged that she would ultimately face Charlotte - in all likelihood, at 'mania. Now everyone wants Rousey vs Lynch, for some reason. I can't believe almost everyone is actively championing this Lynch, 'rebel' rubbish, to begin with.


As usual, Charlotte's promo was fine. You make out like she's Nia Jax, level bad.

My takeaways from the show...

USO’s were rewarded both times they’ve been arrested with championships....double standard much?

WWE thought by not having Graves talk for the first 30 seconds of the broadcast and not doing a roll call, that we’d forget he cheated on his wife and 3 kids with Carmella

Main Event should have finished on the counter pin after the trouble in paradise

*Attenrion any WWE superstars that may read this message. You’re employer is petrified of you leaving for AEW, so they will allow anything at the moment outa far that you will leave if they punish you. So go crazy and do whatever you want because worse come to worse, you can always get paid elsewhere

And until there’s a TV deal, AEW isn’t even on IMPACT’s level

I like that idea in theory, but it was technically Lio's arrogance that cost Lashley. He shouldn't really be sympathetic. I just wish they'd stop treating him like the biggest jobber on the roster. Dudes super talented, but just because he's on 205 Live he can't hang with bigger guys? Mustafa was doing well. He hasn't spent 80% of his time on Smackdown running away and using parkor to evade guys 10lbs heavier as him.

If he was treated a bit better and eventually managed to fluke a pinfall victory over Lashley I'd be all for your idea though.

A pretty good PPV in my opinion, which isn't something I can usually say about PPVs, excluding the big four of course. Although none of the matches were anything special, sensible booking decisions throughout (with only one exception).

Starting off, the absolute highlight of the show for me at least, was the Boss and Hug Connection becoming the first ever Women's Tag Team Champions! Honestly, any other team winning would have been a travesty. Sasha and Bayley have both been instrumental in the entire women's evolution, so much so that I'd argue there probably wouldn't have been one without them. They've been handled very poorly over the past couple of years, so it was long overdue for creative to finally do something meaningful with them again. They make such a fantastic team, and have the potential to go down as the greatest female tag team of all time. I think this is just the start. I really cannot wait to see how their reign progresses, and I sincerely hope they spam (really??) of WrestleMania still holding the titles. I'm a big fan of women's wrestling, I think women's tag team titles was a no-brainer, and I'm thrilled that WWE finally has them once again.

Maryse coming out was a nice surprise. I wouldn't have thought so, but I could really get used to Miz as a babyface. I fully expected Miz to turn on Shane after the match. Because that didn't happen, I'm intrigued as to what will happen next.

Finn Balor is champion again! I'm thrilled with Balor finally being rewarded after a couple of years of being without a title, especially with the Intercontinental Championship. I hope he has a long and entertaining reign, which continues long past WrestleMania. And now Bobby Lashley has finally got rid of the dead weight in Lio Rush! Honestly, Lio Rush's horrendous screeching voice has put me off Lashley since he got paired with him, to the point I've just avoided watching anything with Lashley in, unless he was facing someone like Balor. Now that Rush is gone, I can start trying to appreciate Lashley.

While I obviously agree with the decision to have Ruby Riott lose to Ronda Rousey, I'm not a fan of the fact that Rousey squashed Riott in less than 2 minutes. I'm not really a fan of Ruby, but I think she should still have had a solid match with Rousey instead of being treated like a jobber.

Regardless of the match that preceded it, the Charlotte/Ronda/Becky segment was amazing! Loved it all, made it clear that Becky is still the priority, as she should be. Though I do question why Cole was enraged at her actions, considering he's supposed to support the faces.

Baron Corbin VS Braun Strowman was just kind of there. I feel like we've seen these two face off so many times recently. This feud just feels like it's been going on forever. I'm okay with McIntyre and Lashley helping Corbin. Though because we've already seen these three beat the hell out of Strowman before, I was waiting throughout for someone to make a shock return to help Strowman, and I felt a bit disappointed when nobody did. We've already seen this beatdown before, I'm not sure we needed to see it again. The biggest problem I have though: why is Corbin still wrestling in business attire?! Has nobody told him he's a wrestler again? He just looks very silly and out of place.

Lacey Evans coming down the ramp and back up the ramp was a bit pointless. There was a little bit of point to it in reminding the audience that she exists, but surely they could have had her do something?

Main event was okay, but I'm quite disappointed that Daniel Bryan retained. Bryan does not engage me or entertain me anymore, and I definitely don't think he should be the World Champion. Some gimmicks just don't work in pro wrestling in my opinion. Eco warrior is one of those. To be honest though, I'm not sure I would have been thrilled with anyone else in the Chamber walking out champion. The main event scene on SmackDown Live just feels incredibly stale to me. They need new talent in there, and I'm not talking Mustafa Ali either. While Ali is very talented and exciting to watch in the ring, I've still yet to work out if he actually has a character. They should bump Andrade up to the main event and call Aleister Black up. I don't think I could talk about this match without mentioning how great Kofi Kingston really is. It's just such a shame that they never gave him a serious consistent solo push, and by now he's too ingrained with the New Day for me to see him as a solo competitor again.

There's a pretty big size difference between Mustafa and Lio. Ali's aboout 4-5 inches taller and about 25lbs bigger. There's a reason Lio will never be able to "hang" with the big boys.

I know Rey Mysterio was always ate losses to bigger guys when he was world champion, but never looked like he didn't belong. Lio is only 30lbs lighter than Finn too, but when he was "cornered" last night was just ridiculous imo. Keep him on 205 Live if he can't even hit a single offensive move on guys on the main roster.

They should have had Kofi win just to do something unpredictable for once.

I liked the women's chamber match especially since the Samoan she-males didn't win.

I hated Corbin vs Strowman and the latter is dead in the water as a character.

I hope Balor is IC champion for more than a day.

We all knew Ruby wasn't going to win, but the match should not have been a squash. Strowman vs Corbin should have been a squash.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I didn't care for the smackdown tag title match.