Seriously, why do those dog guys even wrestle?
I went to a friend’s house to watch a WWE PPV that wasn’t the Royal Rumble for the first time since like 2002. After the EEK! Fest in St. Albert, a bunch of us headed over to my buddy Dan’s (he drew the back-up in HEAT Vol. 1) place to take in the Elimination Chamber. Relatedly, here are my hot takes on the show (because the internet totally needs more random fans telling you what they think about shows).
Tag Team Elimination Chamber
This was super fun. It was a total clusterfuck, but it was full of ridiculousness and felt really fresh. I still can’t figure out if the Ascension are supposed to be viewed as a real tag team or jobbers who think they’re the Road Warriors, and getting 2 of the 5 eliminations didn’t help bring clarity to that situation. Cesaro and Kidd being eliminated by a flash pin was really weird, and took a lot of the steam out of the match for me. I like the Prime Time Players, but they’re not very good at wrestling, and they really hadn’t been built in a way that made them seem like credible options for the titles.
Paige vs. Nikki Bella vs. Naomi
We watched Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch from Unstoppable while waiting for EC to hit the On Demand section of the Network. Go watch that instead, this match stunk. The high point was Naomi kicking Paige’s hair extensions out, which encapsulates the entire Divas division nicely.
John Cena vs. Kevin Owens
Nobody needs me to tell them that this was really good. John Cena as the midcard champion who has great matches and makes his opponents look like world-beaters is my favourite John Cena.
Neville vs. Bo Dallas
Good thing they didn’t keep the crowd so hyped that they couldn’t maintain their energy for the second Elimination Chamber. Oh, wait, Bo Dallas is painfully dull in the ring? This whole thing was just several minutes of waiting for Neville to do the Red Arrow. Then he did. Yay.
Intercontinental Title Elimination Chamber
I haven’t watched a lot of Elimination Chamber matches, but prior to this one it hadn’t occurred to me that one could be boring. This was DULL. At least Neville vs. Dallas was short and I got to see the Red Arrow. The Sheamus door thing was pretty clever, but the execution was almost impressive in its clunkiness. Then he lost to Ryback, because of course the guy who wasn’t built as a legitimate contender should hold the gold. Although to be fair, nobody was really a legitimate contender in this one aside from Sheamus, because I refuse to believe WWE when they tease getting behind Dolph Ziggler.
WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins vs. Dean Ambrose
Ambrose and Rollins have very good matches. This was a very good match. The ending of this match was… well that sure was a thing that happened. I have no idea WHY it happened, or who was supposed to be made to look good as a result of it, but it sure did happen. Also, fuck Dean Ambrose’s stupid rope bouncey thing into a clothesline. That might be the most contrived looking spot in all of WWE, and he did it roughly 12,000 times during this match. Everyone involved looks like an idiot during that spot.
Next Week: El Bastarde does not have a great grasp on El Rules. View it now on Patreon!
