WWE Elimination Chamber 2023

[KawadaSmile]

2 minutes ago, Coffey said:

Roman Reigns is going to go down as an absolute all-timer. Main roster debut in The Shield. This amazing Bloodline angle. This heel run & championship reign. He has a lot of great matches and moments even at the biggest stage. Dude made me care about Braun Strowman for awhile and just made everyone believe Sami Zayn could win the WWE Title. Absolute legend and if we do another PWO GWE he’s going to be high on my list.

He also had a period, from post Rumble 2015 to 2017, where he was just THE workhorse. Made people like Finn and Lashley shine. Gave Bray and a slow as hell Big Show great damn matches. Had a series of zingers with Sheamus (another all timer). 

[KawadaSmile]

Also, watching the EC presser, Triple H also made the Mick Foley/Sami Zayn comparison.

[KawadaSmile]

Thinking about how Roman Reigns said he wanted to provide for another man's wife and won. GOAT.

[Embrodak]

The thing I love about Reigns is he really has a signature swagger, a way he carries himself that is distinctively “him”. 

[strobogo]

Roman Reigns dramatic acting in the ring >>> HBK dramatic acting in the ring

 

 

There's still a lot of juice with this storyline. Where does Jey stand not just with his family, but with Sami? Will KO and Sami ever truly reconcile? Where the fuck was Solo? Roman increasingly losing focus, needing more and more interference to win, but with members of the family against him or missing, and potentially Heyman being written out for a bit really helps set the stage for Cody to topple him at WM.

[KawadaSmile]

Sami on the presser saying how people in the crowd were shoot hurt about him losing. Kinda like Brazilians getting their spirit and their souls crushed in 2014.

[KawadaSmile]

Sami put over Chilean crowds (more specifically from Santiago) as one of the best ever. Shout out to bubba @Jmare007

[Timbo Slice]

Has to be a nod to the orphanage Generico ended up in

[Johnny Sorrow]

That show was fucking fantastic. 

[Jmare007]

13 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

Sami put over Chilean crowds (more specifically from Santiago) as one of the best ever. Shout out to bubba @Jmare007

He came here as El Generico and we basically never forgot about that. Every time WWE toured here and he was on the card he was treated as a top guy by the crowd and dude never forgot about us either.

12 minutes ago, Timbo Slice said:

Has to be a nod to the orphanage Generico ended up in

Not sure this is about the Chile comment but we do have a special relationship with Sami. IIRC he was in mid card limbo last time he wrestled here and he got by far the loudest reaction and chants during any match.

[The Man in Blak]

Not pulling the trigger on the Jey turn was a surprisingly restrained bit of storytelling. I’m happy to be wrong there - guess they’re saving that for WM to put Cody over the top?

[Jmare007]

I'm fascinated by the how Hunter will book Sami after WM. Does he go ever get put in a position to draw as one of their top babyfaces? Does he have another title at some point in 2023? Is he the one to eventually dethrone Gunther? (though I guess that's Brock if he actually wrestles him at WM).

Would be pretty incredible storytelling if the Bloodline angle goes full circle and the end game is actually Jey vs Roman at Summerslam or something (no belts involved).

 

[sek69]

I suppose it will all work out in the end, but way to once again train your fans that the hero babyface will always lose in the end, so why bother getting behind anybody.  Then wonder why they struggle so bad with making new stars. 

Plus they didn't even give us the Sami/KO reunion at the end. Just seems like a huge missed opportunity all around. 

Crafting this masterpiece of a storyline only for the ultimate payoff being Cody winning the belts just seems like a waste of everyone's time in the end. 

[sek69]

I will say it was funny hearing Paul Heyman on the receiving end of a "you fucked up" chant. Time truly is a flat circle.

[El-P]

4 hours ago, sek69 said:

I suppose it will all work out in the end, but way to once again train your fans that the hero babyface will always lose in the end, so why bother getting behind anybody.  Then wonder why they struggle so bad with making new stars. 

Plus they didn't even give us the Sami/KO reunion at the end. Just seems like a huge missed opportunity all around. 

Crafting this masterpiece of a storyline only for the ultimate payoff being Cody winning the belts just seems like a waste of everyone's time in the end. 

This. As an outside observer not caught in the hype, all I see is the usual WWE bullshit of having a guy over as fuck all and still beating him in his hometown because "he's not our guy". They tricked the crowd in the post-match to forget for a few minutes that they just beat Sami in Montreal when he was the most organically over babyface they had in eons, and yet they did not even gave them the great reunion of Sami/KO (and don't tell me about "storytelling", they were in Montreal, that's where you do the big spot, not somewhere else). Meh. 

Sure, it was a great WWE style main event, both were terrific (as were everybody involved), I can absolutely acknowledge it (see what I did), but really to me there's something about that style that just does not connect (not to mention the announcing which ruins *every* nearfall like they are vocal Marty Asamis). I dunno, probably too much of a "blockbuster" style pro-wrestling where the script overtakes everything. 

And yeah, the fact Cody fucking Rhodes is gonna be the one beating Roman is absolutely hilarious in retrospect. 

[Matt D]

8 hours ago, strobogo said:

Roman Reigns dramatic acting in the ring >>> HBK dramatic acting in the ring

The AEW ref corps >>>> HBK’s dramatic acting.

George Steele, Baron Von Rashcke, Missing Link >>>> HBK’s dramatic acting.

This is not a high bar!

 

[Embrodak]

Cody has been absolutely killing it and is way over with the WWE audience. It seems really weird to talk about WWE “dropping the ball” when they are poised to exit Wrestlemania with two of the most over babyfaces they’ve had in years. Sami versus Roman was never the main beat of the story, either in terms of screen time or in terms of emotional heft; it was always Sami and Jey’s back and forth. They can have Jey go either direction now and have it make sense, and Sami tearing down the Bloodline and setting the stage for Dusty’s baby boy to win the Big One for his Daddy against a denuded Roman Reigns at the end of his God Mode run is like the most perfect booking I can imagine WWE doing in 2023. This is the rare situation where we can have our cake and eat it too, where the only predictable beat of the story thus far was Cody winning the Rumble and where the “swerves”, such as there have been some, have not been bad Russo bullshit. WWE still sucks overall, we can all still have our Two Minute Hate at Chad Gable having the stupidest gimmick for someone of his talent in years or the asinine decision to rehire Top Dolla, but let’s take our victories where we can get them.

[KawadaSmile]

Besides, ending one of the greatest title runs ever at a B PPV when Wrestlemania is just around the corner is wack.

[Matt D]

Blame the company for booking themselves into this situation. 

[The Man in Blak]

Yeah. It’s probably too old fashioned to suggest this, but would a 30-minute broadway worked better as an ending? Sami going the distance with the champ, with Roman failing to get the win and maybe furthering that friction with Jey in the process? If they were dead set on having Sami lose, Jey “turning” on Sami and staying with Roman would have at least given Sami some protection and still setup whatever they wanted to with Sami and the Usos down the line.

As it was, I don’t know that it was all that effective of a match, even with Sami and especially Roman bringing their A-game. It was overbooked to the moon (two ref bumps!) and it still doesn’t feel like there’s much that’s appreciably different coming out as there was going in, other than Sami potentially coming out worse. We’ll see how over he is when he’s not across the ring from the Bloodline.

[Embrodak]

30 minutes ago, Matt D said:

Blame the company for booking themselves into this situation. 

What are we blaming them for? “It’s a huge missed opportunity if it’s not Sami” seems to be an internet phenomenon without much purchase amongst the attending audiences. They’re loving what WWE has been doing with these two storylines, and the way they’re intersecting has complemented both of them. They gave Sami an out by having him basically “win” with no ref in the ring (and Roman, in turn, has the out that he’s not obligated to waste energy kicking out if nobody’s counting), and it makes sense in storyline that it would take two or three top babyfaces working in sync to end the Roman Imperium and Bloodline reign of terror.

[strobogo]

I don't think they booked themselves into a corner at all. Obviously, any result that wasn't Sami winning was going to be deflating to some degree, but there's still a lot of juice left in this angle from multiple directions and threads. It's certainly not going to hurt Sami to not be the one to dethrone Roman, even if it was in Montreal. Perhaps they oversold the possibility that Sami could win, but people would be complaining if they hadn't just the same.

[Coffey]

I really liked the U.S. Title Elimination Chamber, although I'm disappointed that Austin Theory is the U.S. Champion. I don't see anything in that guy. I thought it was going to be used to elevate Montez Ford. I do also really like Bronson Reed, I've always been a fan of hosses, but I get why they eliminated him early as he was pretty gassed out. Sad we didn't get to see the Tsunami or Ford Frog Splash off of a pod though. We did get the Johnny Gargano uber Frankensteiner though!

Also, I just really want to acknowledge how much both Rhea Ripley & Beth Phoenix killed in in their intergender mixed tag team match. The way the match was laid out to let the women shine was great. That Superplex was awesome. 

I'm glad that Asuka won the women's Chamber too. Asuka Vs. Bianca should be a really good match. I'm kind of over WWE presenting Liv Morgan as any sort of credible threat though. It looks ridiculous. Credit where credit is due however, because that off-the-pod Sunset Flip Powerbomb was gross!

EDIT: Online, I'm seeing a lot of people mention that Sami winning would have been the correct decision but I think maybe too much emphasis is being put onto the hometown crowd? It happened with Drew McIntyre at the Clash at the Castle show too. A hot crowd makes a show a lot more enjoyable but just like Wrestlemania X-8 in Toronto when the crowd was mega over for Hulk Hogan against The Rock, it doesn't necessarily mean you put over Hogan (or Drew or Sami). I don't know, I can see it both ways. I thought it was a misfire when AEW didn't put over The Acclaimed the first time when they were super over but it worked out (until they just lost to the Gunns). The point made earlier in this thread about how WWE has conditioned their fans to never expect the favorite to win the big one is valid, for sure.

Edited February 19, 2023 by Coffey
Random thoughts about hometown/favorable crowds

[DMJ]

I wasn't expecting Sami to win, so I wasn't disappointed at all with the finish.

However...I do think the fans (myself included) wanted to see that KO/Zayn hug, especially with Zayn nearly crying in the ring to end the show. It would've been a cool moment to see KO slide in the ring and give him that literal shoulder to cry on and then raise his hand, in front of their hometown crowd, as if to say, "You may not have won, but fuck that, you won!" I dunno. If you're going to go with schmaltz in wrestling, its okay to lay it on think when the moment comes for it.

Other missteps on the show...

- Terrible mistiming during the Judgment Day match as Beth Phoenix was a full second late during a late-in-the-match nearfall save. Fortunately, the crowd was so damn hot for the babyfaces and were so damn hateful towards Dominik and Rhea that they didn't shit on the rest of the match. In front of a more hostile crowd, that would've deservedly been met with "bullshit" chants.

- Where was GUNTHER? Where was Bianca Belair? Where was Charlotte Flair? Becky? Let's start with GUNTHER. He just had a huge showing at the Royal Rumble. To me, you gotta give that man a backstage segment (maybe a face-to-face with Brock? Or Lashley?). He went 70 minutes at the Rumble, give the dude 70 seconds on your most anticipated B-level PPV in years. Similarly, no Belair and no Charlotte felt like another missed opportunity to give some screen time to your champions (I would've had Belair and Charlotte also do a backstage bump-into-eachother segment, with each claiming their title is the most important). Really, this show was built around the main event so you didn't necessarily need all the star power on your roster to show up...but, yeah, with the Chamber matches being kinda thin, I would've liked to see more capital-S Superstars featured in cameos. 

- Weird booking for Montez Ford/Austin Theory/Rollins, though I do think I "got it." Rollins hits the Curb Stomp to incapacitate Ford and reinforce that the Curb Stomp is an instant match-ender (remember when the F-5 was that?). Theory makes the pin. Ford sells it like a legit injury and does such a good job that the audience clearly thought it was a legit injury. Rollins and Theory don't interact while they take him out of the ring - opening the door for Logan Paul to come in. But when the match "restarts," I thought it was noticeable that there was a little bit of heat on Rollins as he was the guy who put Ford out. I know that Rollins is a "tweener," but still, kinda deflated what should've been a moment where the babyface is about to capture the title. Logan Paul comes in, hits the Buckshot, and then a Curb Stomp of his own - further cementing the move as lethal. I thought they kinda sacrificed Ford to re-establish a move that didn't need re-establishing, killed the flow of the match and made Rollins unsympathetic, and didn't put any heat at all onto Austin Theory. Just seems like nobody in this match came out of it stronger at all. Not Theory. Not Priest. Not really Gargano. And, with Ford, unless this is leading to some long-term story, we've now got him having to sell a kayfabe concussion/neck injury caused by the most over babyface on RAW. They should've had Theory be the one to do something horrendous to Ford because, honestly, a Ford/Theory rivalry would probably serve both guys really well this spring/summer.

[KawadaSmile]

Also, I don't know why KO and Sami would hug it out. Sami punched that man in the balls and kicked his head off at War Games, being fully embraced by Jey Uso. Sami then had to watch KO get jumped by an entire fucking family and only stood up for himself when Roman was gonna use a chair and forced HIM to beat his former friend with it.

KO just returned the favor, but they still are not on terms, storyline-wise, that would make them hugging it out an earned moment.