The Furious Flashbacks – WWE Elimination Chamber 2010

The Furious Flashbacks – WWE Elimination Chamber 2010

The WWE’s solution to putting all its eggs in one basket. Use that basket twice.

This might seem like a bit of a random choice but that’s because it is. I happened to acquire a copy so here’s my annual WWE review.

We’re in St Louis, Missouri for the final major stop off before Wrestlemania. I saw that Wrestlemania. I only remember one match. I think you know the one I’m talking about. Hosts are Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler & Matt Striker.

WWE title/Elimination Chamber – Sheamus (c) v John Cena v Ted DiBiase Jr v Randy Orton v Triple H v Kofi Kingston

Sheamus and Kofi start out. While there are those who moaned about Sheamus taking the title it made him. And winning a title doesn’t mean you get over. It gives you the platform to become a star. Look at Jack Swagger. He has all the tools but his title reign was a damp squib. Sheamus tries to hit the Brogue Kick before we even get going to give him an early breather. Kofi is too quick for that. Crowd seem more interested in Randy Orton. The problem with Orton is that people like the idea of him but when he turns up it’s a disappointment. Although his ring work has been much improved in recent years. Sheamus & Kofi keep it in the ring perhaps because of their inexperience in the Chamber. Its not a bad clash with Kofi bringing his agility and Sheamus conquering it with power. Their five minutes runs out and Triple H enters. HHH slows the pace while Kofi has a nap. When someone new comes in their first move shouldn’t be to make the match less interesting. Sheamus goes after the Celtic Cross only to get countered into a DDT. That’s Kofi’s call to come back in. The crowd senses he’ll be the man to use the pods to his advantage ala RVD. Boom Drop over the top leaves HHH in trouble on the outside. That’s the environment doing the damage. Next in is Randy Orton. He shows HHH how its done by coming in like a house on fire. It’s a pity he does such shitty moves as the Garvin Stomp but hey, at least he’s doing it at the right pace. Orton also uses the environment to his advantage and throws everyone into the chains. Kofi starts bringing the flying that the crowd anticipated from him. The crowd don’t seem fond of HHH here and jeer his punches before begging Orton to RKO him. We get a finishers being countered sequence and Orton comes out on top of that too. He’s generally bossed the offence since he came in. Ted DiBiase arrives next to a thunderous silence. Seriously; if you make Orton v HHH look thrilling then you’re not a fun dude to watch wrestle. He opts to form an alliance with Orton (as the Legacy was still, sort of, a faction). In a clever spot they shove Kofi’s head through a link in the fence. However Orton ruins the spot by checking to find the bigger hole first. And he still tries to shove Kofi’s head through a hole that’s too small. He’s not bright. He does then bring the best spot of the match so far when he rope DDT’s HHH onto the steel. But that should put Hunter out and it doesn’t. Orton & Ted more interested in standing around waiting for Cena. That’s just stupid. Pin HHH. John Cena has to fight his way out of the chamber and does so. He runs through the spots on Legacy. Protobomb. Five Knuckle Shuffle. Bulldog. Diving Rocker Dropper. You know the drill. Ted grabs the rope to stop the FU but Cena is able to counter into an FU over the rope. Which makes you wonder why he doesn’t just do that more often. STFU for Ted and that’s a double finish so Orton has to save. Orton starts banging the mat. HELLLLOOOO, RKO COMING! Cody Rhodes runs down to throw a lead pipe in and Ted bashes Orton with it. He was sort of aiming at Cena but he opts to pin Orton. He’s out.

Big move for Ted. Of course having a personality could have helped him escape Orton’s shadow. He also could have pinned Cena who he hit afterwards but doesn’t. Ted is unceremoniously dumped with Trouble in Paradise about a minute later. Which about sums him up. He’s good enough to be in a feud with Orton but not good enough to avoid a midcarder finisher.

Brogue Kick. Celtic Cross. Kofi is not Ghana like that. He’s out.

Now we’re down to the business end with the reigning champion in with Cena & HHH. It’d just be Cena if Orton had pinned HHH after DDTing him on the steel. Sheamus gets caught going for the Celtic Cross and HHH Pedigrees him out. Sheamus’ 70 day reign ends.

Cena v HHH for the now vacant title then. Cena goes after the STFU right away. STRUGGLE SNUGGLE! HHH taps to demonstrate who the WWE’s current icon is and give Cena his 6th title. ***. Long dull sections controlled by unimaginative wrestlers. The line up was star studded and yet the most interesting storyline surrounded Ted DiBiase. Go fig.

POST MATCH Vince McMahon arrives to congratulate Cena but then screws him by putting him in a match with…

WWE title – John Cena (c) v Dave Batista

Cena is doing the most sensible selling I’ve seen from him. Cena sells like he’s dead usually and when the match ends he pops up and jumps around like nothing happened. Here he sells like he’s dead at the end of the match and then afterwards too. Of course it still doesn’t make sense but then Cena’s selling never does. Spear. Demonbomb. New champ. Of course you can’t have Cena going into Mania as the face champ against a heel Batista. So they switched it around.

RECAP Bret Hart getting injured thus ruling him out of Wrestlemania. Its all very surreal watching Bret walking around with John Cena. Its like something out of a video game.

IC title – Drew McIntyre (c) v Kane

Nice to see Drew strolling around with the gold. He’s good people. If there’s one thing Kane can do its throw a fucking great right hand uppercut. He does so. Its good. Drew’s offence mostly involves clubbering and doesn’t seem to follow any plan. Drew moves on to work the arm. The left one so Kane can still throw awesome looking uppercuts. Wouldn’t want to fuck with that A game. In fact it’s the only worthwhile thing he brings to this match. Actually scratch that as he boots Drew square in the forehead and you can hear the connection. Drew thumbs the eye and hits the Futureshock for the win. *1/2. Both guys are better off when they’ve got someone smaller to bump for them. That said Drew took a couple of tasty bumps off uppercuts.

BACKSTAGE Maryse tries to bash Gail Kim in French only to discover she parlez vouses. This does not make me excited to see a match between them.

Divas title tournament final – Maryse v Gail Kim

An injured Melina had to forfeit the title so these two now duel over the vacant title. I get the feeling the WWE only had Gail back to fuck with TNA’s Knockouts division. I like her though. Vickie Guerrero comes out to turn it into a tag match because Smackdown has better divas. Erm, and the title? Not that I care or anything but isn’t that why this is on PPV?

Maryse/Gail Kim v Michelle McCool/Layla El

The storyline here sees Maryse not wanting to help Gail. Michelle kicks her in the face. Thankfully the match is based around Gail & Michelle rather than non-wrestlers Maryse & Layla. Sure are purdy lookin though. Nobody seems to care about this as a contest. Maryse continues to refuse a tag and McCool finishes with the Styles Clash. ¼*. Nobody cares. Still.

SHILL – NXT. I’m tempted to review the whole first series as one big 15 hour review. Any interest in that?

BACKSTAGE Josh has The Miz for an opinion on his “rookie” Daniel Bryan. Miz says Bryan has no personality and is as bigger loser as the St Louis Rams. MVP cuts off his catchphrase and then leaves for New Japan (sort of). MVP reminds Miz he’s going to lose his US title to MVP tonight, which will be something entertaining to tell his “rookie”.

PROMO TIME William Regal pops out here for a chat. He’s a mentor on NXT because ECW is gone. He’s out here to plug it. He demands everyone’s respect. This gets him interrupted by the disrespectful, but Wrestlemania bound, Edge. They had to shoehorn him in somewhere. He announces he’ll decide on his Mania opponent on Raw but for now he’s just spearing Regal. Perhaps due to their 2002 feud. Who knows?

US title – The Miz (c) w/The Big Show v MVP w/Mark Henry

Crowd doesn’t seem interested. A lack of heat, combined with middling talents, makes it hard to cope with it. Don’t get me wrong. I like MVP as a wrestler and Miz as a character but they don’t have any chemistry and don’t appear to have a plan. Both guys are fairly innovative and Miz breaks out a double knees out of the corner to block a tip up. But then he follows it up with nothing. They do a nice nonchalant cover into roll up spot as a tip of the hat to their last match. Because this is boring the crowd, Lawler starts making weightlifting jokes. “Clean and jerk” etc. You know who I find most entertaining here? Big Show. His running commentary of shouting at MVP to quit, calling the ref “sir” and throwing out catchphrases is great stuff. They should have just stuck a mic on him. Miz manages to bust himself open on a headbutt allowing MVP to run the ropes ala Kurt Angle and hit a super judo throw. They suddenly start throwing great strikes as if the earlier stuff was just to set up this closing segment. BALLIN! Show makes the save bringing Henry over. His hungry charge leads to him going through a barricade. Show sneaks in the KO punch on the ref’s blind side and Miz steals the pin. **. Horribly dull first half before business picked up. Show & Miz make for an entertaining duo.

World title – Undertaker (c) v Rey Mysterio v John Morrison v Chris Jericho v CM Punk v R-Truth

Rey is dressed one of the Emperor’s Crimson Guard this evening. This starts out as being the CM Punk show where he claims everyone else is going to fail and seek solace in alcohol and prescription medication. He starts with rapping babyface R-Truth. Kinda weird seeing greebo Punk considering how sensible his haircut is now in 2011. Punk & Truth use the chamber as a weapon thus using their environment. Something Sheamus & Kofi Kingston struggled with. Punk doesn’t fare well with it but takes over with kicks and the GTS finishes.

Now Punk has given himself a 60 second breather so he grabs the mic and starts jabbering again. Punk tells Undertaker he’s going to make him tap out again. “Straightedge means I’m better than you”. Rey Mysterio comes in to stop the sermon. The pace quickens with Rey rolling through Punk’s moves. Punk is also good at counters though and sees 619 coming; POWERSLAM! Rey then counters the GTS into a victory roll for 2. I do love me some counters. Punk is learning from his chamber experiences though and starts throwing Rey into parts of the confined space. Rey is a risk taker and the Chamber provides opportunities for that. He eyes up the pod before ranaing Punk off the ropes onto the steel. Slingshot splash finishes. Punk out early. Disappointing considering his promos.

Chris Jericho enters immediately afterwards. He has a history with Rey. This leads to a lot of familiarity stuff until Rey actually hits the 619. Rey breaks out the Spidey impression but Jericho just hauls him back down. It’s a contrast between Rey’s high flying and Jericho’s smarts. Rey tries to get smart when flying fails and he grabs a choke only for Jericho to counter out into the Boston crab. But time expires with John Morrison entering the fray. Morrison brings the awesome to stop Rey springboarding with a kick. It was like watching Samoa Joe & AJ Styles. Its one of their spots. Everyone starts taking bumps onto steel and it slows the match right up to a snail’s pace. They have a decent 3-way dance based on flying, countering and STARSHIP PAIN. Rey is gone!

Morrison is then too concerned with Taker’s potential arrival allowing the Walls of Jericho to go on again with seconds remaining. Times up; Undertaker is in. He tries to take out both guys, which leads to him being double teamed. Jericho tries to hide from Taker in a pod, which gets him a colossal beatdown as he’s trapped. Morrison does a great move to counter Taker. As he tries to follow up Snake Eyes Morrison springboards into a Hurricane Kick. He blows out his bad ankle in the process though and by the time he gets up Starship Pain gets knees. Jericho is still hiding even if Taker is dazed. Taker’s moves start destroying furniture. Morrison’s ankle has been forgotten, which is a touch frustrating. Taker chokeslams him on the outside and Morrison is done.

Taker-Jericho for the belt then. Jericho has constantly pussied out of this encounter and now Taker looks in a party mood. There’s gonna be drinking, fighting and fucking! Jericho tries a few underhanded tactics before going for the Walls of Jericho. The thing about Taker is he’s never tapped out and he’s never going to tap out. He’s a zombie. And if he WAS going to tap it wouldn’t be to Jericho. He counters out into the Gogogadgetplata, which is a nice counter. Jericho just about slips out so Taker goes for the Tombstone. That’s countered; CODEBREAKER! That gets 2. Jericho tries for the 10 count punches, which gets him the LAST RIDE. Taker drops like he’s dead (like actually, not character) and we get some weird selling instead of a pin. It deflates the crowd because they know when you get that massive stall there’s never a pinfall. He calls for the finish but Shawn Michaels pops up through the side of the structure; SUPERKICK! Taker is down, there’s no DQ and Jericho takes the title. ***3/4. I’ve seen it rated much higher and while it’s a good match with decent structure (and its way better than the WWE title match) its not a great match. They didn’t use the environment as much as they could have done with only Jericho doing so by using it to hide. I’m disappointed Morrison didn’t bring more parkour given the opportunity. Being in a main event means the WWE wants you to shine and he didn’t. But these are minor complaints. I was entertained and it’s a good finish to the show.

The 411: The gimmicky Chamber matches bookend the show and they’re the only real reason to watch it. If you like the Elimination Chamber then you’ve probably already seen it. If you don’t like the Elimination Chamber there’s nothing to see here.
Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]