The Super Terrific Wrestling Hour – Elimination Chamber 2018

Greetings, all.

Your pal Cal here, with the return of his wrestling column, because let’s face it, there just isn’t enough guys aged 18-50 talking about wrestling on the internet. Well, I’m here to change that. This column is going to be a bit different than most.

A pal that I’ve written with for almost a decade, is going to be my Robin on these assignments. Since he’s the young-buck, and needs the training, practice, and exposure, he’s going to be writing the bulk of most articles, where’s you’ll find me chiming in all through out with my thoughts. They’ll be in bold, and marked “NFC”, which stands for Note From Caliber. I will also give my full thoughts and such on said match and show that we’re reviewing.

Also, I have no idea what we’ll be covering from week to week. We may do lists, we may do reviews, who knows. We’ll also start off each week with a match that has something in relation to whatever the article topic is, just for the sake of it.

So, with all that, I hope you guys enjoy The Super Terrific Wrestling Hour. Let me know if there’s anything in particular you’d like for us to cover/review. I love you cats, and remember: hips and nips, keep it sexy.

Brock Lesnar [C} vs Roman Reigns – WWE Championship
The match starts off with Brock absolutely crushing Reigns with suplexes and F5s, much to do the delight of the crowd. Reigns tries to mount an offense, but Brock looks at him like “Yeah, I remember my first beer too”. The crowd hates Reigns so much that they boo when he PUNCHES! He then drapes Roman over the top rope before sending almost 10 knees crashing into his face and body. Eventually Brock takes off the gloves and beats Roman down into the mat, at which Reigns laughs, causing Brock to deliver multiple suplexes and a 3rd F5, which Reigns kicks out of. He takes him outside to slam him into the ring-post, but it back fires and Lesnar eats it, causing blood to pour down his face. Once they’re back in the ring, Reigns hits Lesnar with 3 Superman punches and 2 spears, which Lesnar kicks out of at 2 and 3 quarters. Reigns goes for another Superman punch, only for Lesnar to catch him and hit an F5, which then brings out Rollins to cash in, Curb Stomp Reigns and win the strap.
Rollins wins the WWE Champion with the Curb Stomp | ****1/4

This was a fantastic match. Lesnar and Rollins went out there and just had a great slug-fest. Nothing pretty, nothing technical, just two dudes trying to kill each other. Great stuff, I loved it. I don’t know what’ll happen this year, but I can’t imagine they’re gonna top that, because it played perfect to everyone’s strengths. Great times. From here on out, when I’m talking, it’ll be noted. Otherwise, it’s Sebastian.

The Only Review Of Elimination Chamber 2018 That You’ll Ever Need

They really need to get rid of these PPVS between Rumble and Mania. They are, for the most part, useless. Being slotted between Rumble and Mania limits what you can do in-between and makes the booking extremely obvious and by the numbers. Sure, sometimes you’ll get some cool things at these in-between shows. No Way Out 04 had Eddie Guerrero winning the WWE Title from Lesnar and 2009 had Edge lose the WWE Championship in one Chamber to winning the WHC in another.[Note From Caliber: I was at that show, and that blew a lot of people’s minds. A hell of a PPV] But most of the time the No Way Outs or EC’s or Fastlanes are predictable and unexciting. People have been complaining about this for years and has WWE listened? No of course not, not only have they always kept a ppv in between the Rumble and Mania but this year they’ve actually added ANOTHER ppv after EC with Fastlane.[NFC: I’m assuming is because a PPV is just another window for them to make $100,000, which is what I imagine they pull after tickets and merch.] The reasoning behind this is that they want to get people to keep on buying the Network for these shows and try to get new subscribers to get the six month free deal so they’re watching Wrestlemania.

Its stupid because not only is the booking super obvious but it also takes away from the build from Rumble to Mania. And the PPV’s are useless. This year we all knew who was going to go to Mania to face Lesnar, Reigns. They could have EASILY did a number one contender match on Raw, have Reigns win a multi man match and boom you have your match at Mania. [NFC: Eh, I like a person having to win the Chamber to face the champ, because you should have to really earn that.] Fastlane’s even more useless because we know they’re not going to fuck with AJ/Shinskue at Mania. [NFC: Bruh, I would put NOTHING past Vince. 19 years ago, I would have NEVER thought that Vince would fuck with The Invasion, but then…] So we’re going to get a waste of time ppv with a useless main event with the fatal fiveway which also assures us that the rest of the card is going to suck as you’re using all your main eventers in one match. Just a waste of time and takes away from what SHOULD be the most exciting time of the year.

1st Match: Women’s Title: Alexa Bliss(C) vs. Bayley vs. Sasha Banks vs. Mandy Rose vs. Sonya Deville vs. Mickie James Elimination Chamber

This was another wase of time from a booking point of view, as we knew that Bliss was defending here to go on to Mania to wrestle Askua. However it was cool simply from having the first women’s chamber match and was a pretty decent match. Something that irked me though was how LAME the Chamber is. This thing used to look deadly as hell, something you could genuinely get hurt or injured in… now it looks like a goddamned Bounce House. Nothing really looks like it hurts and the chains look fake as hell. I’m a little more used to it now but when I saw it for the first time last year I was so annoyed. [NFC: I can understand that, but, I also understand wrestlers not wanting to bump on steel grates anymore.]

So this started off with Bayley/Ken Shamro… err Sonya Deville… then Mandy came in next and “Absolution” beat up Bayley for a bit. Whenever they do 2 on 1 shit on Chamber its kind of hard to care as the pace is a lot slower and you’re just waiting for the next person to come out. Absolution felt like even more of an afterthought after Sasha came in and both members were eliminated in five minutes of her coming in. Have no idea if they even have anything for Absolution at this point… its interesting because it actually shows how much stronger the women’s division is compared to what it used to be. If this was any time period before say 2014-15 and WWE had put the time into making a new heel women’s group they would’ve held the titles within their first month of getting their but now that the women’s division is strong and there’s only one title they end up getting buried and a half assed push. The women truly are being treated equal to the men.[NFC: Absolutely agree. But, because they have so much talent, it makes sense what they did with Absolution. The Chamber was about Bayley & Shasha, and how Alexa was going to survive. So, to have Absolution do work and look dominant in the beginning, get their moment to shine, made perfect sense.]

Mickie came in, got a cool spot with the Thez press off the top of the pod but was eliminated after being in for about five minutes from Bayley. Its really weird that they set up this angle where Alexa and Mickie had become friends again only to not pull the trigger on it…. but instead of scrapping the angle they continued it on Raw. I guess it makes sense for Bliss to want friends with Askua coming after her and that you’re supposed to think Bliss could’ve lost the title last night because Mickie got eliminated but it still feels very half assed. Also not sure if Mickie’s a face or a heel right now as she’s had no promos or character development on why she’s with Bliss. [NFC: She’s still a face, she said the relationship is one of convenience. Where she gets something, and Alexa does as well.]

Alexa came in last and tried climbing up to get away from Sasha/Bayley. This part had me holding my breath a bit as they were really high up and you were wondering who was going to take a bump off the top. It turned out being Bayley as Sasha turned on her AGAIN. [NFC: This was a total Lion King moment, with Sasha being all Scar about the joint, and straight up giving Bayley the boot. Also, is it just me that doesn’t think Sasha is attractive at all? She gets all this fan-fare in terms of her looks, but I think bleh. Bayley is far more attractive if you ask your boy. I think she’s the best looking woman they have. Something I know she’d be over-joyed to hear.] This lead to Raw where Bayley refused to let Sasha get the tag, well thank GOD Bayley finally turned on Sasha. Bayley keeps on getting fucked over by Sasha to the point where she’s looking Sting levels stupid. This is most likely leading to a Sasha/Bayley match which most likely means a Sasha heel turn. Sasha makes a lot more sense as a bitchy, attention starved heel than a Dolph Ziggler face who gets close but can never win (or keep the title). This match picked up A LOT once Bliss when out there, Bayler and Sasha were busy fighting each other and Bliss was able to take out Bayley with a roll up.

Sasha got close to winning a few times but what really shocked me was that she straight up no sold a Twisted Bliss from the top of the pod and just put Alexa in the crossface. I think that was the closest Sasha looked to winning. She did take a lot before being put out though as she ate a shot to the pod and a huge ddt off the top rope. That put her away and Alexa cut a pretty good promo afterwards, where she faked out the crowd acting like she was going to turn face and then just went right back to bragging about herself. Alexa as women’s champ has been great and its going to be pretty sad to see her lose the title at WM. [NFC: I dunno, I wasn’t too big on this promo. A lot of people were, but her fake-crying was SO bad, that I knew she was going to swerve.]

3.5/5.0 Match was slow for the first part, then everyone who had no chance of winning got eliminated QUICKLY but once it got down to Bayley/Sasha/Bliss the match was really good. I think the match was hurt though by the extremely obvious booking as you never really thought Bayley/Sasha were going to win the title.

Caliber’s Review: I echo a lot of Sebastian’s statements. This was clearly made to do a few things. Establish history, push the Sasha/Bayley story further, and make Alexa look strong, but not so strong you think there’s no way Asuka will stand a chance. A very decent match, good on’em. 3/5

2nd Match: Titus Worldwide vs Sheamus and Cesaro (C) for the Tag Titles

Who gives a fuck? This is the problem with doing brand specific shows and putting all of your main eventers into one or two matches, you get shit like this to fill out the card. Actually I’m not even sure if that’s fair as you could’ve drummed up some interest in this match by having it be the Revival or maybe a triple threat with the Revival/Bullet Club/Cesaro Sheamus. Instead you get this and its a whole bunch of I don’t give a fuck. I actually LIKE Titus an Apollo… I even like Dana’s new gimmick.[NFC: Why is it when women dress up like Dana is now, it’s SO ridiculously hot? I have zero idea what it is, but goodness] But they’re such obvious jobbers and they had beaten Sheamus and Cesaro on Raw as the build up to this which means they’re clearly going to lose at the PPV. [NFC: Sebastian is quite right here. I don’t watch the current product outside of a few PPVs here and there, but do read results. That said, I had ZERO idea who Titus Worldwide was. Absolutely ZERO idea.] Which they did… and then they had ANOTHER (and better) match on Raw in a 2/3rds falls match and lost again. WWE’s Creative for tag teams and midcard titles are AWFUL! All they do is the same match over and over again until you don’t want to see it anymore and then they give to you for another month. Seriously, these guys have wrestled each other five times I think, including the 2/3rds match on Raw. Can’t Creative do something, ANYTHING different?

Caliber’s Review: A perfectly fine tag-match, nothing amazing though. 2/5

3rd Match: Askua vs Nia Jax – If Nia wins, the WWE Women’s Title match at WM becomes a Triple Threat

This was pretty weird… Askua won with a roll up but got beaten up by Nia afterwards. I don’t understand why you’d want Askua to look weak going into her Mania match, she’s beaten Nia clean before… the beatdown afterwards seemed unnecessary to me. Granted this is apparently to set up Askua/Nia AGAIN in a week on Raw. So not only are these PPV’s completely predictable and barely matter BUT they’re going to redo half the matches on Raw anyway… the fuck is the point of these shows again?

Caliber’s Review: I don’t get it. Again, I rarely watch the current product, so obviously I don’t watch NXT either. However, I heard nothing about Askua that wasn’t in regards to her being an unstoppable killer. A total bad-ass. I thought she was going to be like a super-cute, tiny, female version of Brock Lesnar. Instead she’s more like Ric Flair from the 80s where she always gets her ass kicked, and survives. For my money, the program with Nia is too soon. This should be something she should have to face after beating Alexa. Where’s she defeats the champion, but her new challenger says ‘hey, the last thing you faced was 5ft, 105lb. Good luck’. Then we really get to see her prove herself. Either way, decent match, but like everyone’s been saying from the jump, I wish Askua was more dominant.

4th Match: Matt Hardy vs Bray Wyatt

Oh Jesus, you want to talk about Creative doing the same thing over and over again until you just don’t give a shit? Here’s this match, which has already been done I think three times. Once on Raw 25, once on a regular Raw and then here. Not to mention that you’ve had these guys interact in the Rumble match AND in a fatal five way a few weeks ago. And that they’ve been cutting horrible promos at each other for months where they do nothing but laugh for like three minutes. Again, who gives a shit? Hardy won clean which would make you think that’s the end of the angle but nope, its continuing on Raw. Granted I didn’t actually see any of it because as soon as I saw it was Bray Wyatt vs Heath Slater I went to take a piss.

Caliber’s Review: Like most, I dig Woken Matt Hardy, and have been waiting for him to debut in the WWE for a minute now. However, it absolutely doesn’t work against Bray. Bray’s a completely different animal than your standard wrestler, and the goofiness of Woken Matt doesn’t gel at all with Bray. They need to place Matt up against someone like The Miz. Someone who’s playing a standard wrestling character, without any excessive gimmicks. Because when you match Matt up with someone who’s already doing an over-the-top character, it just becomes too much. Plus, they don’t have any in-ring chemistry.
I tell you, I think Bray Wyatt is my all-time biggest disappointment in wrestling. By that I mean he had a great gimmick, could put on a solid match, but was absolutely shit upon and wasted. Exactly one year earlier I was very happy to see Bray win the WWE Championship in what I consider the best EC match of all time, and thought WWE had finally realized his potential. Well, that’s an absolutely not, as Bray went on to lose it to Randy Orton in one of the worst feuds of all time.

Rhonda Rousey did her contract signing with Trips, Stephanie and Kurt…. and out of nowhere Kurt started telling Rousey what Trips and Stephanie were saying about her backstage. About how they were going to own her, and she’s a has been, etc… Rhonda got pissed off, put Triple H through a table (!) and then got slapped by Stephanie. Rhonda really wasn’t great on the mic here and I think they should just keep her to being a silent badass (ala what they should do with Askua). Trips going through a table was pretty surprising, wasn’t expecting that at all and it really does put Rhonda over as a badass. It looks like we’re setting up for Rousey/Angle vs Stephanie/Trips but that match doesn’t hold a lot of interest for me and it kind of just feels like they couldn’t have gotten Flex Kavana for it. Normally with Angle in there instead of Rock I’d say it’s a much better match but Angle’s so beaten up that I’m not sure how much he can really do. We didn’t get to see him really go at TLC so it will be interesting from an ability pov. Not that interested in the match itself though and am not all that excited for Rousey. I think Cal used to have a crush on her though. [NFC: Yeah, that’s a big no. Rhonda is cute, but she doesn’t have an ass, and, well, you know. Plus, I don’t dig DBZ.]

Caliber: Yeah, like everyone said, Rhonda didn’t do great on the mic here, but still looked great. When she puts on her mean face, she looks like a total bad-ass, and you believe she’d have no problem handling anyone. We’re getting Angle/Rhonda vs Trips & Steph, which I think will be a great match. People are doubting Kurt, but I’m telling you, don’t.

Main Event: Elias vs. Seth Rollins vs. Finn Balor vs. Roman Reigns vs. The Miz vs. Braun Strowman vs. John Cena for the number 1 contendership for the Universal Title

It was interesting having 7 people in the Chamber but only four pods as it started off as a triple threat with Miz/Rollins/Balor. Good, fast paced start with Miz trying to form an alliance only for Rollins/Balor to team up on Miz until Seth turned on Balor with a roll up. Cena came out… cute spot where Cena superplexed Finn and Seth superplexed Miz. Oh before I forget, the crowd was DEAD during all of this. I don’t know if they were actually dead or if they were editing out something the crowd was doing but it sounded fucking SILENT in the main event. The crowd seemed dead for most of the show (I don’t blame them looking at this card) but I figured they’d be hot for the two chamber matches. Here the workers were doing crazy shit and the crowd did not give a fuck. I think it definitely takes away from the matches when the crowds not into it and it made it harder to get into.

Regins in next to a chrous of boos, yes the super duper babyface that’s really the best heel in the business. Strauman came in and threw Miz off the pod into everyone in a pretty cool spot. Miz was the first one eliminated from a powerslam from Strauman… I thought this was funny as there was a big rumor that Miz was going to get a big push from resigning his contract and that he could win the EC and face Lesnar at Mania… anyone in the know knew this was bullshit because ROMAN REIGNS but you figured he might look good in the Chamber. Nope, oh and on Raw he had to wrestle two matches in a row and lost both of them to Rollins and Balor. I don’t know whats up with WWE’s obsession lately with having face managers force the heel wrestler into handicapped or completely unfair situations. This makes us EMPATHIZE WITH THEM YOU IDIOTS! Anyway, my whole point is that Miz isn’t exactly going uphill since he resigned his contract….[NFC: Ya know, there was no one more vocal about his distaste for The Miz than myself. He was fucking terrible. However, in the last year he’s been killing it, and I think rightfully earning his way to the top spot. He wasn’t even close back in 2010-2011.]

Everyone hit their finisher on Strauman but Strauman was able to kick out. I liked the spot because usually when everyone hits their finisher on the big guy in EC matches they’re out but here Strauman was that much of a monster that he was able to get out of it. Also you were kind of hoping against hope that Strauman might be able to win this. Elias tried to electric chair Braun but couldn’t get him up because its Braun Strauman so Strauman takes him out with a powerslam. I just realized that Strauman eliminated everyone in this match EXCEPT for Regins with powerslams. I kind of like that they made Strauman look strong but it doesn’t end up mattering and feels kind of lazy. [NFC: It almost feels like they built up Strauman just to make Reigns look that much tougher. It’s borderline ridiculous. Braun has been organically built over the last few years, with the fans really digging him. He’s been chasing Lesnar’s belt for the better part of a year, and gets pretty damn close each time. I want to see him and Lesnar go toe to toe, HIAC, at WrestleMania for the strap. Let these guys bring Godzilla vs King Kong to life. It would be far better than Reigns vs Lesnar.]Cena goes for a dive, gets caught in a powerslam and eliminated. This led to a REALLY depressing promo on Raw Talk where Cena said that he was worried about not having anything to do at Mania. It was a really good promo and Cena made it seem authentic but its stupid because he’s JOHN CENA! Yes he’s not going to have a Universal or WWE Title match but he can still get a match on the card! s

This lead to another promo on Raw where he called out the Undertaker only to tell the fans that he was fucking with them because he couldn’t get that match and is going to go over to Smackdown to find something to do at Mania. I’m kind of hoping this leads to a Taker/Cena match because its something we’ve wanted to see since like 2006 and for some reason it never happened.[NFC: I want to see it too. I want it to be Career vs Career – with it either being an I Quit match, or a standard match. I mean, imagine an i Quit match between two guys who NEVER quit. EVER. So, we’d know that this match would end the career of one of these guys, AND it’s going to end with one of them saying “I quit”. It’s perfect, because you can’t imagine either saying it. Now, if it’s a standard match, then we need to see Cena unable to put ‘Taker down, and ends up cheating to win. BAM, instant heel turn. Cena retires ‘Taker by cheating. Good times.] If Cena is going to Smackdown though, its like what is he going to do over there that he can’t do on Raw? The WWE Title picture already has a fatal fiveway at Fastlane so its too late to get in on that train (unless they really do make it a six way) so he’s most likely going to end up feuding with someone entirely random on Smackdown or maybe going after the US Title? If he wanted a good feud at Mania why didn’t he just challenge Strauman, someone who’s beaten him multiple times and put him out at the Chamber?

Braun eliminated Finn and Rollins with powerslams…. when Rollins got eliminated a lot of the excitement went out of the room. This dude just had a major gauntlet match on Raw where he lasted sixty-five minutes and had a lot of momentum behind him. And then he was eliminated just like that and it was down to Strauman/Reigns. Jesus, who do you thinks going to win that? Reigns hit Strauman with a bunch of superman punches and spears and wins the match. Jeez what a shock.

3.5/5.0 Decent match but nothing great, the crowd was dead and Reigns winning was so goddamned obvious.

Caliber: I thought this match was a lot of fun. I think it would have done wonders if they’d just had Strauman win, and then have him lose to Reigns on Raw or something for the #1 contendership. I just don’t get how Vince can see the crowd reactions that Braun gets, and think, nah. It just doesn’t make any sense. They want to make a star out of Reigns, but they HAVE a star, primed and ready, with Braun. Plus, Reigns is a star already. I don’t know what more they want.. 3.5/5.

I think this leads back to discussion about Reigns being the number one contender. I mean this was so obvious that a lot of people predicted Reigns to win the Rumble last month. Instead they did the smart thing and put Shinskue over…. but that still leaves us a ppv that’s mostly an excuse for Reigns to make it to Mania. The thing is you have a lot more interesting stories you could’ve told. Finn winning and having to overcome Lesnar despite his size and with the Club in his corner would have worked. Seth just lasted sixty five minutes and had a lot of momentum behind him so you could’ve done that. Miz getting beat up and trying to survive Lesnar with Miztorage taking German Suplexes would’ve been entertaining. Even Cena has an interesting story with him feeling washed up and trying to make up for getting so badly beaten by Lesnar at Summerslam 2014. Strauman/Lesnar again, while we’ve seen it once and they did a triple threat at the Rumble, still has heat behind it and could be a good match that the crowds into. Even Elias is something interesting and seeing him and Heyman play off each other would’ve been cool. Instead we get The Guy Roman Reigns. Why?[NFC: Absolutely agree. Just about everyone here would have had a better story than Reigns. I’d love to see what Finn vs Lesnar would look like, considering how damn good AJ’s match with Brock was. Argh.]

Because Vince has a hard on for him. He thinks he’s the guy and anyone who says differently is wrong. Reigns could be a PERFECT heel and instead he’s forced as this babyface and its so wrong that the crowd hates it. It feels like Nash when he was forced to be babyface as Diesel in the mid 90s. There was a level of disconnect there that immediately went away when Diesel turned tweener. But Reigns can’t even be a tweener, he’s just a smiling douche babyface that everyone hates but is being forced down your throat as superhero. Reigns is a PERFECT example of Vince refusing to listen to his fans and adapt his product because he KNOWS he’s right and you’re wrong. So get ready for a rematch that no one wants to see, that no one wanted to see the first time and where the crowd is going to cheer the fuck out of heel as fuck Lesnar (no matter how many good, pissed off promos Roman cuts he’s still going to be booed out of the building in New Orleans).[NFC: The thing is, has there EVER been someone who was over, that was made to be over? By that, I mean someone Vince thought “He’s going to be a star! He’s GOING TO BE A STAR!!”. You could argue The Rock, however, he didn’t get over the way they wanted. He went the complete opposite way. Hogan, Macho, Warrior, Hitman, Michaels, Austin, Foley, Triple H, Cena, they all got over organically. They worked their way up, and slowly the fans got behind them until they were champion, and killing it.]

Final Thoughts: The Chamber matches were good but this show really highlights how useless the PPV’s are in between Rumble and Mania. Everything was extremely predictable, felt unexciting and the crowd was dead. BUT OH BOY I CAN’T WAIT TO DO FASTLANE!!!

Caliber’s Final Thoughts: Yeah, I pretty much echo all of Sebastian’s thoughts. The Chamber matches were the highlight, with even those not being ground-breaking.