The Elimination Chamber is tonight live on Pay Per View (Except on Dish who has pulled it from their schedule as a petty swipe at the WWE Network). This will be an interesting event on mania fronts, as it both continues the road to Wrestlemania and is the final traditional PPV event before the game changing WWE Network kicks off this Monday. The event will be headlined by a traditional six man Elimination Chamber match. Below are my thoughts on each man’s chances of winning the match and what they need to get out of the match in general.
Randy Orton: Orton has been booked as the ultimate whiny paper champion in the past few weeks. In the build up to the event he lost singles matches cleanly to Cena, Cesaro, and Bryan, which leads me to believe he will probably be winning cleanly here tonight. I think the booking of Orton has done him no favors at all of late. The former badass Viper character has been completely defanged and is now basically HHH and Steph’s play toy, and the Batista storyline has completely backfired as that program has been killed off by poor booking in general. The way he’s been booked even winning this match cleanly would not fully rehab the insane damage they’ve done to his character in the past few months.
John Cena: Cena appeared on the Steve Austin podcast lately and was very adamant on wanting to help build the next generation of stars to take over from him and the current guard. He’s even mentioned that in on air promos so I think we may be seeing a true ‘New Generation’ of sorts building here. Cena has done a fantastic job recently in matches with Cesaro, making him look like a million books. I don’t think Cena is winning tonight, but you can never rule that out on a WWE PPV. Perhaps Cena wins and then keeps his promise that he made to DB a few months back and gives him a shot at the title at Wrestlemania? (Only thing in the way of that of course would be Batista, the RR winner…)
Sheamus: Sheamus picked a flat out lousy time to return from his injury. He has seemed like a complete afterthought ever since he came back at the Royal Rumble. He has been completely overshadowed by the also returning Batista, Daniel Bryan and the ‘Yes movement’ and even the absent CM Punk! All of this leads many to believe that he may very soon be turning heel, and if that is the case I would expect that either to happen in this match or at least for the seeds of that to be planted here. His chances of winning I’d say are virtually nill. It would make little sense, and would lead to a Batista/Sheamus match that no one wants to see.
Cesaro: Cesaro is for me the man to watch in this match. I’m thinking he needs to get a couple of big time eliminations here, maybe he could be the one to take out Super Cena. I’ve also got a cool visual in my head of him doing the Cesaro swing on someone and basically taking out all of the other people in the match kind of like how Terry Funk use to do by swinging the ladder on his shoulders. I give Cesaro a very very small chance of winning here. I think he needs to built up some more, but this match should definitely be the first step in the journey to turn him into a permanent main event fixture.
Daniel Bryan: Right now Bryan is tied with Orton as my odds on favorite to come out of this match as the winner. He is certainly the sentimental favorite with everything that went down at the Rumble and everything that has happened to his character since Summerslam. The only reason, if I were booking, that I would have him not win tonight would be if he was going to win the title at Wrestlemania. I think Bryan winning creates the easiest booking excuse to get the dead in the water Batista out of the title picture. Bryan wins the title, HHH steps in and says everything else he has done to keep Bryan down has failed so at Wrestlemania he’s giving himself a title shot, and he’s going to personally take out the young upstart.
Christian: Christian I give negative infinity chances of winning. Hell, I’m still fifty/fifty on him even being in the match when everything is said and done. I think they could easily do an angle like they did with Edge a few years ago where someone takes him out and gets his spot in the match. Odds on favorites to pull something like that would perhaps be Kane, who has the storyline authority to make it stick, or Brock Lesnar, who would be a huge shock, or maybe a returning Big Show as a long shot, or maybe Bray Wyatt just to hedge my bets. In any event, if Christian winds up being in the match I expect him to put in a hell of an effort but get pinned fairly quickly.
The Shield vs. The Wyatt Familly
This match has been built up superbly. In many ways it reminds me of the old Midnight Express vs. Four Horseman angle from WCW that never quite got off the ground. Heel vs. Heel storylines that actually work are few and far between but this one has just been done perfectly. They have huge plans for both Bray Wyatt and for Roman Reigns coming out of this match. I expect the Wyatts to win this collision and the Shield to officially break up leading to a three way with them at Wrestlemania.
Batista vs. Alberto Del Rio
Got to feel at least a little bad for ADR right here. He has not been protected at all in this program. He was brought out to be the sacrificial lamb to Batista his first night back and he’s already been beat up by him several times now. This match will likely be very short and just be another squash. It does neither man any favors as Batista’s opponent has been torn down so much going into this that it matters little even if he destroys him, it’s kind of like Daniel Cormier vs. Patrick Cummins all over again, only at least that fight had a hot angle leading into it.
Jack Swagger vs. Big E
This could be the sleeper match of the night. I like both of these guys as they are both big agile hosses who can go. I think as Jim Ross said if this match is given the right agents and whatnot it could really surprise some people. Of course I expect Big E to win and retain his IC title.
The New Age Outlaws vs. the Usos
The Outlaws are supposed to be heels, but they get babyface pops every time they do their intro schtick, and since most casual fans still don’t really know the Usos they are probably going to be the babyfaces by default in this match, which sucks since the Usos seemed be to getting some momentum. I could see either team winning this match. I think there’s a chance it could be decent as everyone involved here is good enough to make a good tag team match. Road Dogg needs to stick around as a color commentator once his role as a wrestler is up though.
Titus O’Neil vs. Darren Young
This match will probably die a pretty bad death in front of the live crowd as both guys have been booked as part of a jobber tag team for over a year now. They want to do something with Titus so I expect him to dominate and end this one quickly. Probably the quicker this ends the better.
Anyone out there ordering this?
Who do you think will leave as the WWE World Heavyeight Champion at the end?
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