This Sunday WWE takes us into the Elimination Chamber. Let’s kick things off with a preview of what you can expect from the match card.
Elimination Chamber, Feb. 17
Women’s Tag Team Chamber match: Jax & Tamina vs Riott Squad vs Boss & Hug Connection vs Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville vs Iiconics vs Fabulous Glow
The 3 Raw teams faced each other in a triple threat Monday night. The stipulation of the match was that the team who took the pin would be one of the first teams in the title match on Sunday. Sasha Banks was once again kept out of much of the match forcing Bayley to do all the work for their team. She ended up eating the pin, and now the supposed favorites to win the match will be presented as even bigger underdogs.
A similar match was held on Smackdown to determine the other team that would start the match. The Iiconics weaseled their way out of being active participants in the match leaving all of the action between Fabulous Glow (Naomi and Carmella) and Fire & Desire (Rose and Deville). Rose ate the pin, so she and Deville will be starting Sunday’s match against Sasha & Bayley with the remaining 4 teams locked in the chambers.
Prediction: I still think the titles are Sasha and Bayley’s to lose, but there has been a trend recently with the UK brand of not crowning the expected favourites as inaugural champs and making them chase the titles instead. If they do choose to go that route, the second most likely team to win the titles would be Nia & Tamina.
WWE Title Chamber Match: Daniel Bryan© vs AJ Styles vs Randy Orton vs Jeff Hardy vs Kofi Kingston vs Samoa Joe
A series of injuries lead to Mustapha Ali being pulled from the biggest match of his young career. A tailbone issue from the Rumble, the black eye from Orton last week, and something else at a house show over the weekend reportedly have led to Ali not being cleared for action this week.
Ali’s replacement in the Chamber will be Kofi Kingston. This was revealed at the start of a gauntlet match between all 6 Chamber participants on SDL. The New Day’s most tenured veteran put on a potentially star making run in the gauntlet, lasting nearly a full hour and picking up pins on Daniel Bryan, Jeff Hardy and Samoa Joe. He eventually tapped to a calf crusher from Styles, but if they follow up on this momentum properly Kofi could easily be a believable challenger to Bryan’s title and enjoy a long overdue run at the top of the card.
As Styles stood in the ring showing both concern and respect for the performance of the man he just tapped, Randy Orton surprised him with an RKO outta nowhere for the victory. Orton’s reward is that he’ll get to be the last man to enter the match on Sunday, thus increasing his odds of victory.
Prediction: Bryan will retain. It’s far too soon to take the belt off of the NEW Daniel Bryan, especially since he just introduced his specialty version of the belt.
Smackdown Tag Title Match: Miz and McMahon© vs The Usos
This should be a solid match, but the real story is the continuing evolution of the Miz and McMahon relationship. Conventional wisdom has the champs losing to begin the road towards facing one another at Wrestlemania. That said, the tandem is working well at the moment, and perhaps it’s too soon to break them up already. Jimmy Uso’s personal issues might also play a factor in behind the scenes decision making (see story later in this article).
Prediction: Coin Flip. It all depends on what they have planned for these men on April 7.
Cruiserweight Title Match: Buddy Murphy© vs Akira Tozawa
Prediction: Murphy retains
Raw Women’s Title Match: Ronda Rousey© vs Ruby Riott
Having quickly dispatched both Liv Morgan and Sarah Logan on Raw last week, Raw Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey is now set to face the leader of the Riott Squad at Elimination Chamber.
Prediction: There’s no way the belt comes off of Rousey before Mania
Intercontinental Title Match: Bobby Lashley© and Lio Rush vs Finn Balor
For whatever reason, they’ve decided to add the champs “hype man” as an official participant in this match. I suppose that making him a legal participant helps prevent him from interfering illegally, but it still seems like the kind of booking that would have been made by a heel authority figure such as Baron Corbin. A model of consistency the WWE booking team is not.
Prediction: Lashley retains
Braun Strowman vs Baron Corbin
Another battle between two men who have fallen pretty far down the later from where they were a few months ago. This one exists simply because they have nothing better to do with these superstars.
Prediction: The outcome matters not, but I guess I’ll go with Strowman
Raw Tag Titles?
The Revival got their title shot on Raw this week and after an incredible match finally won some long overdue gold. I won’t be surprised if a rematch is announced for Sunday’s PPV.
Coming Soon
Fastlane, Mar. 10
NXT TakeOver: New York, Apr. 5
WWE Hall of Fame Ceremony, Apr. 6
Inductees are expected to start being announced during the Chamber broadcast this weekend.
Wrestlemania, Apr. 7
This week on Raw, HHH and Stephanie spent the entire show trying to make Becky apologize for assaulting them last week. When she finally did, they reinstated her and confirmed her Wrestlemania match…. But then Mr. McMahon showed up and undid all that by suspending Becky until 5 days after Mania and replacing her with Charlotte. We all know Becky is eventually getting back into this match and it will be a triple threat, but for now at least, the Mania match is Rousey vs Flair.
Universal Title: Brock Lesnar© vs Seth Rollins
Raw Women’s Title: Ronda Rousey© vs Charlotte Flair
Injury Report
I hadn’t seen any recent updates on his status, but apparently Riddick Moss is all healed up and cleared for action. I attended an NXT house show last weekend where Moss worked a match against 205 Live’s Humberto Carillo. With his former tag partner Tino Sabbatelli still recovering, Moss seems to be developing a new singles persona involving a “Riddick Regimen.” It didn’t go over very well with the crowd in attendance that particular night.
R.I.P.
WWE Hall of Famer Pedro Morales passed away this week at the age of 76. Born in Puerto Rico, Morales began his wrestling career in New York in 1959. He had a lengthy career during which he held the WWE Heavywieght Title for 2 years in the early 70s, had 2 Intercontinental Title reigns, and won the WWE Tag Titles while paired with Bob Backlund. This made him the 1st man in WWE history to be considered a Triple Crown champion. Morales was inducted into the WWE hall of Fame in 1995 and the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2005.
Uso
Jimmy Uso (real name Jonathan Fatu) was arrested recently after an altercation with a police officer. According to the reports I read, Jimmy was a passenger in a car being driven the wrong way on a one way road by his wife Naomi (Trinity Fatu). The police officer pulled them over and was speaking with Naomi when Jimmy got out of the car and got into the face of the cop. He eventually backed off when the officer pulled his taser, but was booked on charges of disorderly conduct and obstruction. There are as yet unconfirmed reports that alcohol may have been involved. Both Uso brothers have a history of DUI related arrests. The official statement from WWE is that the Fatus are responsible for their own behavior, and the incident is not anticipated to affect the tag title match this weekend between the Usos and McMiz.
Cena
Nickelodeon has plans to revive the game show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” and have tapped John Cena as the new host of the show. The show was originally hosted by Jeff Foxworthy during its 2007-09 run on Fox. Cena has an existing relationship with Nickelodeon having hosted their Kids Choice Awards previously. The new version of the show is set to debut later this year.
Assorted News and Notes
WWE Hall of Famer Mark Henry is on a mission to clean up the locker room. One of the less fortunate results of a newer generation of wrestlers is that past locker room leaders are no longer around to ensure that a certain level of respect and professionalism is maintained behind the scenes. In the past, there were certain guys who maintained their own law & order backstage. They made sure the younger guys cleaned up after themselves and showed up on time. With many of those former locker room generals moving on in recent years, bad behavior is on the rise according to Henry. The curator of the “Hall of Pain” has said that intends now to be backstage at all TV and PPV events to reestablish the sense of order that he and others of his generation fought so hard to establish during their time.
WWE Studios has a new partnership with Netflix to develop family friendly films for the streaming service. The first of these films will go into production this summer under the current title “The Main Event.” The film reportedly tells the story of a young bullying victim who dreams of one day being a wrestler. He somehow develops super-strength and gets to liver that dream sooner rather than later. A number of WWE superstars are expected to appear in the film.
The new season of Total Divas will look a lot different due to some cast shakeups. Lana (with Rusev), Paige, and the Bella twins will not be featured this season. New additions taking their place are Sonya Deville and Ronda Rousey. The new season began filming around Rumble weekend.
