WWE Elimination Chamber 2012

WWE Elimination Chamber 2012
February 19, 2012
Bradley Center
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

I figured since I’m going to RAW on 2-20, I should watch this show and see what I’m getting myself into. I think the names of these PPV’s are incredibly lame. I don’t see what the problem was with “No Way Out.” With that being said, after picking up the extremely good “Best PPV matches of 2011” DVD, I became impressed with some of what these younger stars are doing.

Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry “The King” Lawler, and Booker T

WWE Championship – Elimination Chamber Match
CM Punk (champion) vs. Chris Jericho vs. Miz vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. R-Truth vs. Kofi Kingston
Great! They are putting the main event on first. Ugh! I like 5 of the 6 guys here so this should be good. Miz is the only one that I don’t find to be very entertaining. Punk and Kofi start and they make me want to see a 1 on 1 match. Dolph in next and he takes some sick sick bumps on the outside steel. R-Truth in and continues the action. Dolph takes some more sick steel bumps. Match is non-stop action until Kofi gets beat by Jericho. Jericho gives him the heel beat down, but then Punk hits Jericho with a kick to the head knocking him out. Then they just sit there and totally take the life out of the match. Then Punk and Miz go at it for a few more minutes, and Punk wins with the GTS. Man, this was absolute gold until the end. ***3/4

WWE Divas Championship
Beth Phoenix (champion) vs. Tamina Snuka
Tamina is Jimmy Snuka’s daughter. She takes a nice bump to the floor but that’s about all this match is good for. Crowd is absolutely dead for this. Beth hits a superplex which gets no sold basically. Tamina hits sweet chin music and then the superfly splash which Phoenix kicks out of and ultimately wins. ½*

RAW GM John Laurinitas comes out and says that he has petitioned to be GM of Smackdown as well. Alberto Del Rio, Mark Henry, and Christian come out and agree. Sadly this is the best part of the show so far. I’m hoping for a nice little stable here.

WWE World Championship – Elimination Chamber Match
Daniel Bryan (champion) vs. Great Khali vs. Cody Rhodes vs. Santino Marella vs. Wade Barrett vs. Big Show
Show and Barrett start it out and pretty much bore the crowd to death and 3 minutes in I’m begging for more guys already. Cody is in next and things pick up a little bit. Santino is out next and I’m hoping that Big Show will chokeslam him and eliminate him right away but no luck. Like the story of Show dominating here. Khali in next and he takes everyone out, but then eats a spear from Big Show, and he’s the first one gone. Show turns his attention towards getting to Daniel Bryan who is still in the pod. He breaks the chains and gets in there and gives Bryan a major league beat down. Bryan selling it like a champ too. Barrett makes the save and Rhodes and Barrett combine to knock Big Show out in a very creative way to pin him. But as Rhodes is celebrating, Santino sneaks behind him and rolls him up for a pin leaving Barrett, Santino, and Bryan. Bryan takes a sick bump into the cage which damn near kills him from Barrett. Barrett and Bryan are carrying this thing. Bryan hits a diving head-butt on Barrett. I didn’t think that move was allowed anymore after Benoit and all. Santino pins Barrett leaving Santino vs. Daniel Bryan. Santino hits the Cobra, which knocks a ¼* off this match, but Bryan kicks out and uses the Crippler Crossface to win the match. Slow start, but really good finish, as everyone was working really hard. ***3/4

WWE US Championship
Jack Swagger (champion) w/ Vickie Guerrero vs. Justin Gabriel w/ Hornswoggle
This is an impromptu match made by Smackdown GM Teddy Long. I guess because they only had 4 matches booked before the show started. Decent match as Jack Swagger wins with the ankle lock to retain. *3/4

Main Event
Ambulance Match
Kane vs. John Cena
So even though the show is named Elimination Chamber, this is the main event. Um okay. This is a prime example of a Cena match that could stand to have some blood involved and some pretty good violence. Instead we get the PG version and it just doesn’t work with a guy like Kane. Cena hits some of his high impact stuff which is always nice, but the match speaks for itself, it’s an ambulance match, which means someone is supposed to be hurt and hurt permanently, and the story just never comes across that way. Match picks up a little bit as they begin to brawl around the arena. Kane chokeslams Cena through the table, then takes a couple 13-14 minutes to get the stretcher just to roll Cena back to the ambulance, at which point Cena comes back and they fight to the top of the ambulance where Cena does the PG thing of FU’ng Kane off the top of it, throws him into the vehicle and wins the match. **1/4

Final Analysis: Two good elimination chamber matches, and the rest is ok. Not a very good show in terms of getting anyone excited for WrestleMania. The Jericho injury was strange, and the World title seems like small time, and that is what your Royal Rumble winner Sheamus seems to be going for. The positives are Laurinitis’s stable he seems to be creating. I guess we’ll see. One thing I’ll say is the WWE is doing SOME good things, as it does seem like there is something with a lot of the young talent. They had better too.