WWE Elimination Chamber 2012
CM Punk(c) def. The Miz, Chris Jericho, Kofi Kingstion, Dolph Ziggler and R-Truth(32:39)
Thoughts: I was that this match would be the main event of the show, so I was shocked when Chris Jericho’s jacket was the first man through the curtain. Now you may recall that I've said that when a WWE Championship match opens a PPV, something shady is about to go down, but that didn't happen. It was just about the match itself and boy what a great match it was! This match had a younger, more athletic roster than the World Heavyweight Championship Chamber match and they proved it by bouncing all over the ring for half an hour. However, I will admit that at times it felt as though guys were hitting the steel just for the point of hitting the steel and not to really further the story of the match. All of the brutality in the WHC Chamber match felt as though it had a point, but many of the spots in this match felt a bit gratuitous. That’s especially true for the “getting tossed over the ropes and landing on the steel” spot that we saw countless times throughout the match. The worst offender seemed to be Dolph Ziggler, who at many times seemed to be purposefully pinballing himself around the chamber. I applaud Ziggler for taking those bumps and I even understand why he was doing it, but I couldn’t help but be reminded of SummerSlam 2005, with Ziggler in the role of Shawn Michaels and the chamber in the role of Hulk Hogan. My only other criticism of the match was the way in which Jericho’s injury was sold. Having Punk knock Jericho out of the ring and cause Jericho to be eliminated without being pinned or submitting was the perfect way to set up Punk vs. Jericho at WrestleMania. However, Jericho’s injury was oversold just a bit too much for my taste. There needs to be a dividing line between kayfabe injuries and legitimate injuries, so that we as fans can sit back and enjoy the story when that’s actually what we’re watching. We’ve all seen far too many legitimate injuries in this industry and some of them have been truly tragic. Wrestling promotions need to be respectful of those legitimate injuries and not try to manipulate us into believing that kayfabe injuries are anything more than part of the story. The look of concern on Punk’s face and his tentative throwing of the X crossed that line for me and for a moment I didn’t know if I was simply watching the story anymore. Obviously, his injury was completely kayfabe and I believe that the way in which that kayfabe injury was sold is indicative of a larger mishandling of kayfabe injuries in today’s professional wrestling industry. But I'm rambling aren't I? Overall, a great Chamber match, despite my complaints.
Rating: ****1/4
Beth Phoenix(c) def. Tamina Snuka(7:14)
Thoughts: This certainly wasn’t a great match, but it did veer precariously close to being a good match and it never felt like a waste of time on a PPV. That’s a lot to say for a WWE Divas Match. The quality of the WWE Divas Championship Matches on PPV had been steadily increasing over the previous few months before this show and I’m certainly pleased that the trend remains. Beth and Tamina worked well together, and as usual, I would have liked to have seen them given four or five more minutes, but what we got here was solid.
Rating: **1/2
World Heavyweight Championship
Daniel Bryan(c) def. Santino Marella, Wade Barrett, The Big Show, Cody Rhodes and The Great Khali(34:04)
Thoughts: This match seemed cursed from the moment it was announced. Mark Henry had to be replaced with Great Khali due to his suspension (in kayfabe) and his injuries (in the real world), although you can argue about whether Henry was ever actually slotted to be in the match. Then Randy Orton had to be replaced with Santino Marella, in essence trading a proven contender and world-class worker with a gimmicky joke. Add those replacements to the fact that the Elimination Chamber environment doesn’t play to the strengths of Daniel Bryan or Cody Rhodes and naturally, you would assume that this match was going to be bowling shoe ugly. But I was wrong on almost every level. Just like great booking should always do, the booking of this match made the best use of every competitor. Khali’s time in the ring was kept mercifully short and Big Show was able to impose his will on both his opponents and the chamber. Watching Show climb into Daniel Bryan’s pod and beat him half to death was one of the best three or four spots in Elimination Chamber history in my opinion. As I mentioned during my comments on the WWE Championship Chamber match, the brutal spots in this match all seemed to serve a purpose. None of them seemed gratuitous and they all played a role in progressing the storyline of the match. I want to give special credit to Wade Barrett for stepping up big time here. He started the match and was in it almost to the end and he drove the action for much of that time. This match was the first time that I could legitimately see Barrett as someone capable of carrying a world title in WWE. And then, of course, there was Santino. Dear, sweet Santino. He’s a joke. He’s a gimmicky comedy character and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think we can all agree that he was a mid-card guy on his best day and we’ve all made our peace with that... or so we thought. But then the crowd went wild for him on Smackdown and then he lasted more than three seconds after his pod door opened and then he was one of the last two men in the chamber and then when he hit D-Bry with the Cobra and went for the cover,I kid you not, I thought he’d done it. When I first watched this, I honestly thought Santino Marella was about to win the World Heavyweight Championship, even though everything I’ve ever learned as a fan of professional wrestling has taught me that such a thing should be impossible. In those two seconds while Santino had Bryan pinned, I wondered if he would lose the title on Smackdown. I wondered if he could possibly carry the title all the way to Mania. But I honestly thought he was about to do it and that, my friends, it the power of great booking! Bryan kicked out and Santino tapped soon after, but that hardly matters. What matters is that Santino Marella can now and forever say that, if only for one night, he was an honest-to-god star in this industry, and he can say that, if only for one night, we believed. Overall, a great chamber match that's almost on par with the earlier one.
Rating: ****
Jack Swagger(c) def. Justin Gabriel(2:59)
Thoughts: I've already explain plenty of time this month why impromptu matches blow, but if you forgotten, then let me list the reasons why they blow.
1)Impromptu PPV matches suck most of the time.
2)This impromptu PPV match sucked.
3)To their credit, Swagger and Gabriel did the best they could with a three minute match, but they need far more time to have a good match.
4)This time could have been used to watch Santino try to seduce the fugly girl from the pet store...Actually scratch that one!
And 5) Yes, this whole thing was precipitated by a midget making a “cut the cheese” joke.
Rating: *1/2
John Cena def. Kane(21:22)
Thoughts: Story of 2012 PPV's: Cena gets the Main Event spot over BOTH world title matches no matter who he is facing. The only way this would've made sense as the Main Event would've been if The Rock showed up, but that didn't happen. The match itself was good, but by no means good enough to go on last. The match was tediously boring to start but got increasingly better as they got to the real bulk of the match, so definitely a step above the bout they had at the Royal Rumble.
Rating: **3/4
Final Rating:
3 out of 5
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