El-P

No D'Arcy, no "original lineup". Dixie Carter has to be the most improbable reason invoked for a rock band reunion tour though. As far as TNA goes, I'm still in 2008. And there are some good stuff there, still.

The R-Truth stuff has to be a rib. Anyways. King Sheamus, without any crown. Damn, Sheamus has been there forever already. Morrison will have one hell of a night, going from the RVD spot to the Shawn-wannabe spot, and mostly making the most of it. Not as good of a first period as the SD match, obviously (come on, Rey…) but decent enough. Sheamus seems to have improved a bit. Orton the Viper. I gotta give him credit, he looks really good in this match, almost playing the Arn of the whole thing. Yes, there's the occasional moment of not doing much of anything or awkward setup (the aforementionned superplex or the drapping DDT), but he brings some good fire and solid looking work. Especially building well his antagonism with Punk. I could totally do without the idiotic "pod doesn't open" spot followed by the equally idiotic Anonymous GM spot (damn, this was the black hole of WWE booking). Cena brings the shit up after this rather idiotic episode. Morrison is bumping like a madman on the steel, the plastic, well, mostly everywhere. Five years earlier, he would sport a crimson mask and that would add so much. R-Truth. Yeah. That's a fucking rib. He does the three spots he does and gets pinned. Why even bother ? CM Punk makes himself the actual MVP of the match with his interaction with Orton (making fun of the Viper maneurism was gold), while Morrison manage to take the Spiderman spot innoved by RVD in 2002 to a new level. Then takes it to the sky, as Tori Amos would say, only to kinda fall in a rather sloppy way, Jim Cornette off a scaffold style onto Sheamus, who's a goner. It all ends up with Cena vs Punk vs Morrison, who also does a terrific job selling his knee after blowing it against the plastic. This is how this match should end, not with a ten minutes self-conscious epic yawnfest. So Morrison gets his and Cena jumps on Punk, throws him onto the steel (again, that's the way to actually use the gimmick instead of simply trading finishers) and wins the thing so he can have a terrible Wrestlemania Moment ™ against the Miz. Yeah, even back in 2011, the whole angle was "John Cena needs his Mania Moment ™ and won't get it unless he wins the EC match". That tells you how braindead the booking has been for the entire decade. Nonetheless, this was a terrific EC match, despite the one moment of booking dumbfuckery. Punk was the MVP overall if you add character + work. Morrison had somewhat of a break on through the other side performance. Orton was almost Jericho-being-Arn. Top tier EC match.

Rey and Edge to start. Wonder why. From who's in the Chambers, it can only go downhill I would guess. Good first part. Rey is gonna be the MVP as always, workhorse and brutal bump master, which is kinda crazy when you think about how banged up he was. So, Wade Barrett joins and actually this keeps being really good, Barrett adding stuff to the table while Rey is adding great spot to the match. Barrett seems like a big "What if ?" of the 10's. Kane. Why ? I'll be fair, he looks better this time around than in any other EC match. Works his ass off. Of course, having good people bumping for him all over the place helps a lot. Still, he's Kane and what the fuck he is doing here ? He's not winning, he's not compelling. Drew McIntyre. No idea who this guy was then. This is the best sequence of the match. Him betraying Wade was all kind of classic, as was the brutal back bump Wade took on the glass (BTW, the announcing has reached new level of awfullness on this show, the 10's really are in, sadly, with a thousand "Road to WrestleMania" hammering on the head along with "Lexon glass most solid glass evah !" shit). This guy is bringing the match back to life. Which Big Show doesn't do, although he also looks better (and leaner) than even before in this context. Rey takes more brutal bumps. Wade gets all fucked up too against the steel. I do miss blood. Then it's time more a bunch of EC typical clichés, with all the guys hitting finishers on Show. Then it's time for Kane going on a rampage. Ok, he's looking decent, but again, he's Kane in 2011. Who's buying ? Not me. And so it's Edge vs Rey, making the whole thing kinda "let's fill time with bodies before we go into ending stretch of big PPV title match"ish. I dunno, it the ending stretch is so much lay down / hit a finisher / counter or kick out / lay down / hit another finisher, that typical WWE big match style I don't care for... So it's actually really well done, although this is a case of Rey going for the 619 over and over again getting a bit annoying as this is not a fucking finisher, really. He still makes Edge awful spear look the best ever. Post-match has some bullshit with ARD and Christian... We've reached that point where the match in itself is not special anymore, with too many warm bodies as opposed to big stars, and the ending has to be worked like every WWE big match ever as opposed to the ending of a multi-man brutal cage match (the lack of blood does hurt the perception too). So, This one was actually very good overall, even excellent maybe if you really like the last part (which I don't, too WWE patterned). Rey = MVP. Drew = best sequence and made the biggest impression. Kane had its best Kane spot ever but he still was Kane.

Well, interesting if nothing else, but quite patchy. First off, there's something odd about R-Truth being put in there. Especially after you had Kofi Kingston also start the match in the previous EC match. I mean... a black guy JTTS doing flips being thrown in to start the match in both occurences... someone just isn't very creative there, to stay polite. Well, R-Truth hasn't even the potential Kofi had. He's been doing the exact same shitty rap and four moves for ten years at this point. Easily of guy I'd be happy never to see again. CM Punk on the other hand, looks like a star here, coming out with the Straight Edge Society and cutting a promo and being an asshole. R-Truth does his stuff, Punk makes sure it looks okay and makes the most of it. Truth is gone (thank God for that). Punk cuts another promo while waiting for a pod to open. Good shit here. Rey is in. Damn, this next sequence is terrific, him and Punk pack in more interesting work and display more character than all the guys in the previous EC match combined during their 45 minutes. Rey takes some brutal bumps too, and it's not over. Punk is absolutely great at making nearfall look like actual false finishes. Sadly, he's gone. Wait, what ? Bad idea, as he's been the most over guy here, getting legit heat from a mostly dead crowd. Jericho next. Traffic directing and pacing master of the EC match. Can't do without this guy it seems. Slows down a bit after some other sick Rey bumps into the fence. Really build into some nearfalls again. Nice job by Jericho, Rey is on fire. Morrison gets in and he's the RVD of the match. Some flying stuff looks super cool, some basic stuff looks terrible. But it still mostly is really good. Rey puts him over. I guess they were trying to make him a single star as the last part will demonstrate, but Rey being gone is kinda disapointing. Morrison really isn't on the same level as the other three (even four, counting Punk). Taker cleans shit up. The last part really is good this time, with some double team, Jericho hiding inside a pod, Taker intimidating him while blasting Morrison, an almost credible nearfall on Taker before the inevitable pinfall. Morrison still had a long way to go. SO it's Jericho vs Taker and it's quite good, although really it does seem Taker like these long one on one ending parts in those match, with finisher kick outs and counters but with Jericho it works quite well because it flows, they don't just switch spots and do kick outs. Still, ending with these two shows how far behind they were in term of making new stars. I mean, CM Punk was right there... Plus, the kind of slow dramatic selling doesn't work that well with a mostly dead crowd who only pop for spots here and there. The ending is ridiculous, as Michaels comes from under the cage to superkick Taker at the most opportune narrative time (as opposed to a logical time in the match) and stands above him, immobile as a statue and with that great terrible 00's Micheals "ILOVEYOU" acting pose, while Jericho gets the pin. Well, it had its moment, Rey was great and the match was excellent when he was in, best part being his sequence with Punk. The last part was also quite good but the ending was goofy as shit. Punk came out as the real breakout star (as opposed to Morrison), Rey was the MVP, Jericho was Arn again, in a much different way this time though as Arn never wins Wargames. Still, Jericho, for the first ten years, has been the EC go-to guy and the MVP of the gimmick since the start. I'd say very good overall despite some odd booking. (damn, the crowd was awful on this show)

Damn ! Don't blame me, but I actually thought 'viola' when I heard 'cello', which is why I thought it was ridiculous. Hey, the fact I even know all these instruments name in another language is good enough. Maybe Brian Alvarez knows music after all...

The most interesting things here are not in the match itself, which is a mostly snoozefest. What strikes me is that the same exact match could be presented today, in 2018. Eight years later. There's almost zero difference in the presentation, the announcing (except it's way worse now with the social media shit and Orwellian corporate talk) and even most of the workers, who already have been champions a thousand times by that time. It really paints the picture of how stale the company has been in the last 10/15 years. Stale also describe this match. Orton, in full Viper mode (meaning he does ridiculous overplayed maneurisms). Sheamus, who was the World champ back then already (!!!). Ted DiBiase Jr. (yeah, sorry, can't call him just Ted DiBiase). Three guys with zero charisma, dull look, dull work. The noughties black hole in all its glory. Kofi Kingston is there to bring another flavor I guess. He's like a worst RVD there. Crazy he's been in the company that long and having his best years with the New Day. Not too good sequence with Sheamus. HHH comes in and gets a big pop. He's clearly the biggest star next to Cena. Otherwise, the crowd really doesn't give much of a fuck. Trip is also the second best guy here. Behind Cena. Orton. ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz DiBiase. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz No blood hurt. No sick bump. No use of the gimmick really (except for that time where Orton & Dibiase tried to... hang Kofi on the fence ? Mmkay... that was awkward). Trip is taking the biggest bumps on the steel too. Old-school trooper. Cena finally brings life to this debacle of nothingness. Who cares about the order of elimination at this point. He wins. Then they re-do the old "Cena has to face a guy after winning the Chamber and lose his title". Wow. Creativity zero. Worst chamber match easily. Boring as fuck. Cena was the MVP. Followed by Trip, who put him over at the end. Post match was stupid and rehashed. (this is also the first time I really noticed annoying camera work... and Cena looking at the Mania sign... yeah, the 10's are there, for bett... well, for the worst)

Cool. I think I had not watched more than one or two, including the ECW one, before going through them right now. It's been mostly quite fun to see how the gimmick has been worked. Clearly a success until that point.

That's what has been implied on several shoot interviews, yes. As far as Lawler goes, it's kinda crazy the guy mostly got a pass forever, really.

Stumbled onto RAW. Sasha vs Bailey was quite good. Nia Jaxx promo wasn't. And those awkward pauses.... I gotta admit, Braun and the upright bass (which Alvarez called a cello, meaning he doesn't know shit about music either) was quite funny. Especially with the French announcers who are obviously not being produced and freestyling as all hell. Elias has to be one of the most charismatic guy in the company right now.

Your signature Gif can be interpreted in a whole new way now. Lawler : "Well, I didn't force those little sluts... " Bix throws chair : "You fucking liar !" All joking aside, you should keep digging. I find that all very interesting.

So Edge is throwing himself in after losing in the previous EC match. Tricky booking here. More to come. Jericho has switched to short tights and Code Breaker heavy sleazy veteran work. Slower pacing despite working with Rey Rey, who's doing the Spiderman spot innovated by RVD in the very first Chamber match and reprised by Jeff Hardy. So, good sequence to start. There's really something to be said about how Jericho is the Arn Anderson of these EC matches. Kane gets in. Well, he does his job before doing the job, to Rey mind you. Nothing bad, nothing thrilling. Actually, Mike Knox does a better job playing monster heel, working stiff and gritty. He looks like a proto-Wyatt Family member, really. So basically more of the same as the Kane stuff, only better, before getting out of the way too. Rey jumping on Edge as soon as the pod opens has to be a highlight. These three work well together, including a typical X-division/3-way goofy tower of doom spot. It's truly an orgy of Edge comical facial features, especially when he manages to beat John Cena who only gets to work a short burst of offense. Tricky business like it's been said. Jericho is out next. Crowd is molten for Rey, even more than they were for Hardy earlier on. Him and Edge work a terrific ending stretch culminating by a brutal plastic bump courtesy of Rey, who's having maybe the best EC performance of all time thus far. Edge wins. Holy shit. This one was a slow builder, with the two kinda useless but not bad monster sequences, Knox's being better than Kane's, until a real frenzy of cool work with a big upset in Cena going out and Rey almost, almost winning. Edge has to be one of the goofiest main event guy ever. His spear looks like shit too. All in all, excellent match with a great second half. Interesting, if anything else, 09 edition booking wise, with a cool interplay between both matches. None of the crowd's favourites won though...

So, this is for the title. One of the two. Not sure which one. Jeff Hardy is over like hell. Edge is the champ. Pretty good starting sequence, despite neither being particulary smooth. Interesting bit of booking here as Edge loses immediately in a small package spot. Another proof we need more of this as opposed to kicking out of finishers. More on that later. The guys in the pods grinning at Edge losing was a nice touch. Kozlov. Whatever happened to this guy ? He definitely had potential in a Goldbergian way. Looks green but also menacing. Good beating up sequence on Hardy, who's being thrown around like a rag doll. More beating up incoming with the Big Show. Again, nice booking with the two monsters playing oneupmanshpip with Hardy as a crash test dummie, before getting to it themselves. Not the smoothest work, but efficient enough and it's a simple and logic story to tell. HHH is next. He pretty much clears the ring because he can. Looks good doing it too. At this point he really knows the deal, and although there won't be any blood (anymore ?), he takes his share of usual brutal bumps. Taker gets out. House of fire. MMA punches. Taker gets a whole lot of pass for a lot of stuff that actually don't look good. Same thing here. He's old, he looks that way, his stuff looks sloppy (awful snake eyes). He does beat the undefeated Kozlov too. Odd to finally beat Kozlov that way in that context. Big spot of the match, Taker doing a superplex on Big Show and Hardy going swanton off a pod on the big guy. Crowd is CRAZY for the guy, who is having a really good night from my perspective (of someone who haven't seen much of his vaunted "great main event stint"). Clear MVP of the match and... fuck. He loses to Trip. The crowd deflates big time. They wanted to have Hardy win the thing. Tone deaf booking. So, it's Taker vs HHH, "the two biggest stars in the WWE" says JR. What, in 2009 ? John Cena says hello. And so they have this "ending Mania stretch" match, which means reversals, kicking out of finishers (or almost in case of the tombstone, feet on the rope will do) and self-cousciousepicery, which doesn't fit the format to me. Twice now Taker has delivered this kind of stuff here. And really, it's annoying because neither guy is really selling the finishers per say. They sell the *exhaustion*, but after a fucking tombstone and a pedigree, you should have your neck all fucked up. But they never sell that way. To me this is way more "video game pro-wrestling" than doing a tons of move actually, because the hugest move really don't matter that much, the damage is not localized, if you will. Anyway, Trips wins the title. Fuck me. His work was good, but this is 2009. How many did this guy win already ? Overall, very good match (could have clearly been better with a non self-conscious epic finishing stretch) with some interesting twists, but the ending stretch is clearly not of my taste at all and the booking was totally tone deaf and turned toward the past when you had the crowd hot for a newer star. Yeah, patterns...

Half of this is quite the classic line-up. Jericho vs Micheals to begin, of course. Good wrestling for a change. Short hair for Jericho. Lazy eye for Michaels. Yep, this is getting contemporary. Umaga is next and the match heats up a bit (crowd is dead for a while, maybe the effect of watching two EC matches on the same card, which is not a good idea at all). Cleans up the space. Good looking work. Then JBL comes in and it's really like a Wargame match. More stiff offense, this is really keeping on a steady pace of really good solid work on all front. Soon Micheals is bleeding. Classic shit indeed. Trip gets next and delivers a great clean-up all fired up offensive stretch. JBL gets eliminated and proceed to bash Jericho's head with a chair (and to the other guys too, after teasing he won't do it to Umaga, because "heel solidarity"). Good shit here. The audience wants Hardy, who's reaching the peak of his overness soon I guess. He's pretty much protected by the gimmick and the number of guys here, he just has to do his offensive stuff and bump hard, which he does. And then we get the classic bump into the plastic door, from Umaga into Jericho. Leading to a great sequence of all guys hitting their finishers on Umaga, including Hardy doing the crazy dive from the top of the cell. Then more cool rapid-fire shit with finishers/elimination galore until it's Trip vs Hardy. Gotta give credit to the Man, Trip does a terrific job with Hardy here, even giving him a Pedigree kick out, which was a great false finish. At this point I'm convinced Hardy will win, and so does the crowd, but they keep working at a fast pace into a swift counter for the finish, Pedigree onto a chair. Yep. Trip wins another one. No idea what the concensus was at the time, there it didn't look bad although Hardy was the hottest guy in the ring for this audience. Hard to pick an MVP, it's the very first match without a bad part/worker (well, Jeff Hardy kinda is but it didn't show here). Maybe Micheals as he was extremely effective all along. Jericho was Arn again. Umaga did his part perfectly and his stuff looks great and brutal. Trip did a terrific job during the ending stretch. Overall, as far as pure work goes, it's the best EC. Maybe not the most epic though as it went a bit quick (again, having two of these in the same show hurt), but that's booking. A top tier EC without a doubt. Jericho, Michaels & HHH are the EC classic players indeed.

Wow. Lawler comes off awful in this. The whole "blame on the girls who were "sluts" (and because of having sex with a black man and/or be bisexual ? wow) is so typical... BTW, I was just watching the post-match of Elimination Chambers 4, with Edge cashing in on Cena and pinning him for the world title. Lawler, who at that point had been a babyface announcer for years, had this to say about Lita "Behind every great man there's a.... slut."

So this is the era of the bastardization of the gimmick. A yearly PPV. The "right to fight the champ at Mania", which also weakened the Rumble. Two matches a card. And this one has the major sin or all : it's boring. Taker & Batista to start which is odd since they are the two biggest star. It's not very good, really. Not a huge fan of MMA Taker and the more I see of him the less I think of him. Things actually pick up when Mabel gets in. They say that Matt Striker is his "handler", which is not racist at all. Man, pro-wrestling needs a fat as fuck giant tomorrow. Plus he can do shit and it actually gets better thanks to him. Sadly he gets eliminated. Well, that will end up being the most fun part of the match to me. Great Khali. Gaawwwd. This guy is bad. Freakish, but really. More than two minutes are two much. Well, he's gone too. Finlay gets in and the match goes nowhere. Finlay is overrated BTW. He's a super solid worker. Kinda like Bob Holly, ya know. Can't get over either. I really begin to fall asleep watching this. MVP. Great gimmick. Taker fucks him up before he can get out, which is as much of a storyline you'll get. More boring acting until MVP gets thrown off a cell. Really, who thought any of these guys except Taker or Batista could win ? Man, Hornswoggle got into the chamber to pass the stupid baton to Finlay. That's what this match needs, silly shit. Finlay out soon. Takes a hideous bump on the steel, which Cole calls 'concrete'. Yeah, the announcing has sunk too at this point. So it's Taker vs Batista working the ending sequence of a Mania self-conscious epic, with finisher kick outs and reversals. How much can I blame Taker for this way of working BTW ? It's just not very good, although the final reversal using the ropes does look cool. Well. Best sequence was thanks to Big Daddy V. Best worker... well, no one shined, really. Boring match from start to finish. I'd call it the worst EC match because although the ECW one was terrible overall, it had its fun moments and crazy bumps. This was Taker vs Batista working a boring, plodding match while bodies served as distraction. Bastardization, like I said.

Again ?

Well, ok. The gimmick isn't bulletproof. This is a well known debacle. RVD starts with Holly, who took the place of Sabu in a first tone deaf booking decision. No heat. Pretty poor work. They had a really good match on TV, this isn't it. RVD re-does a bunch of his spots from the first EC match in 2002, but Holly isn't over. Has this guy ever been over ? RVD should never do running clotheslines, they look Ultimate Warrior level bad. CM Punk gets in and the crowd wakes up. They want him to win. Heyman did too, but that wasn't happening. He's the MVP of the match, turning it up a notch, doing the old Jerry Lynn double counter spot with RVD. That's the best and most heated the match will ever get. Then Test gets it with a crowbar. Inside joke I guess. TBH, he's not that bad here and actually is quite the trooper taking some good bumps. No-one cares apart from Stacy Keibler. What else ? Not much. CM Punk is eliminated by RVD, to deflate the disapointment a bit I guess, which doesn't work. Crowd boos and dies. Holly's elimination gets all fucked up by the ref. More boos. RVD gets eliminated by Test after an insane elbow from the cell onto a chair on his face, which looked like Concussion City. Crowd boos even more. How tone deaf can you get ? Now Test is by himself, alone, and no one gives a fuck about anyone. "Bullshit" and "Where's our refund ?" chants. Then Lashley can't get out because of Heyman's security. Yawn. Finally he uses the table inside the cell (well, weapons because it's EXTREME) to break the linked chain above. Looked crappy. Ok, so Test now bumps into the plastic like a maniac. Test goes away. MORE DEAD TIME. The final part with Lashley & Big Show, who was fat as fuck and coming off a godawful stint as ECW champ, was actually ok thanks to Lashley being a freak athlete hoss. Show sucked, and not just the wind, but it was watchable. Lashley winning actually got a pop. Mercy killing, really. Well. Terrible match, terrible, terrible tone deaf booking on all front. CM punk was the only real good worker. Test was a trooper. RVD and Show pretty much sucked despite doing some crazy stunts (including Show going through the plastic, which was expected and had not happened on the last EC match). Lashley was at least fun as a green-as-grass Batista-like jacked up hoss with no charisma but freakish athleticism. Yeah, finally, the Elimination Chambers gimmick layed an egg. Awful booking can kill anything.

Did you hate it so much that you're doing a live blog about it over at Segundo Caruda? You just cracked me up, man.

Yeah. Women's Revolution ! WWE is so ahead of the curve. Well, ok, forget it, you know it's bullshit from a family who's actively taking part in Donald fucking Trump's administration.

Who the fuck cares ? I mean, really. Reddit ? I thought reddit was only good to get the leaking sex videos. Well, apparently it is. (yeah, that's a running gag of sorts).

I though reddit was only good to get the leaking sex videos and shit. Well, it is actually.

Yep, look interesting. Again, Pro-wrestling badly needs different presentations, and LU changing the look a bit after only 3 seasons is great. Keeping things moving.

Which ones of these names are not like the other ? Damn, the match already sucks and we're only about the intros. Ok, it'll only get better. Cena vs Michaels to open the match, which is quite the great match-up. Damn, the crowd HATES Cena at this point. He still displays way more poise and charisma than Roman Reigns though, not to mention he works way, way better. Either of these two guys end up being the MVP of the match. Carlito comes in. Seriously ? Well, he does try to kill himself a few times in the structure, so that kinda makes up for the fact he's a goon and not a main-eventer by any stretch of the imagination. He's ok here. But who can believe he can win ? Angle inside his cell works better than Carlito. When he gets in, he gets into a frenzy of suplexes which gets tons of heat. Well, the match can only go down from here. Especially when Angle actually gets eliminated. Damn. So, Kane, without the mask, gets in and do what he does best, kills his opponent, the match and the heat. Then does the job. Hey, this guy made a career out of putting the fire out, which is kinda ironic considering his gimmick. So basically we get Masters & Carlito putting heat on the two tired babyfaces. Shawn also bleeds like it's Mid-South. Well... Masters & Carlito actually display ok work, but again, what's the point ? Ok, so Shawn actually does the job for Carlito. Holy shit. He has so much to be forgiven for. Cena does a masterful job out of selling (and bleeding too) for these two, as we're informed that they are the three youngest in the match also. Ok, so, New Generation and shit. Cena really is getting a real Hogan moment here, being double teamed by two goons who have no chance in hell of winning. I get why it can work though. Finish is actually pretty fun with Carlito betraying Masters and getting pinned in a craddle move himself too, a-la Bret Hart, by an exhausted Cena. Refreshing in an "only finishers matter" era. Well, really when you put everything together, despite the useless Kane spot and the lack of star power on the heel side, it was pretty well thought out. Especially since it leads to Edge cashing in on Cena and getting the title, which really came off as a hot moment. So yeah, I'd say overall, maybe the third best as a match but certainly was much better booked than the Goldy/HHH debacle, so I'd put it above this one. Surprisingly good, with two strong showings by Michaels & Cena and Angle delivering the hottest sequence. This gimmick can't seem to go wrong. Right ?

They were in PR ? Ok, I get the counting in spanish then. I had no idea WWE ever ran a PPV over there. So, they start with Benoit & Jericho. Wonder why. Damn, Benoit was good. *sigh* It's obvious though that these two are warm bodies at this point, playing the Arn & Windham of the EC gimmick. The real focus is on the Evolution guys. Which means HHH is next, because he has to teach these two how to work. Ah ah ah. Well, actually, Trip gives one of his best performance I've seen, bumping like a maniac on the steel, bleeding like a pig and playing off his relationships with his two Evolution (well, former for Randy) guys. Edge is next. And honestly, he looks good here. This match never slows down thanks to the workhorse. Then we get to the hard stuff with Randy, who's all fiery babyface, which looks odd today. He's also less over than his finisher. People just want to see Batista. This guy was the Next Big Thing. Fun spot where Trip is put in the Lion Tamer and the Crossface at the same time just before it's time for Batista to get out... and the ref can't seem to open the door. Let's pretend Trip ask the ref to do that on purpose so he could stay in both submission holds at the same time a wee bit more while not submitting. That would be so gloriously carny. So there, the warm bodies are being disposed by Batista, who's not as impressive as Goldy but still quite the presence. Orton is clearly not on the same level, meanwhile, special ref-Shawn superkicks Edge, setting up their program. No idea how Flair got in at one point to fuck with Orton, that was weak camera shit there. Tension built between Batista and HHH, which will end up culminating at Mania in a star making moment and another one of HHH high point. Likewise, he's really the MVP in this match, which ends up with him winning, this time in a climatic finish. Great match, best Elimination Chambers. No weak link really, although Orton was the worst guy in the ring overall, and that's counting Shawn as the ref who didn't take any attention before his spot with Edge. Well, this was N°3 and it's only got better and better thus far...

This. He makes Edge look like Kawada. Yeah, he should work on being a show-off heel, because I can't understand for the life of me how you can even like that guy as a character.