WWE Elimination Chamber 2021 review

Well, that was certainly a show that happened.

February 22, 2021

Welp, Elimination Chamber sure was a show. Those wrestle bois sure did wrestle? Was it any good? Eh… I mean there were sometimes good spots. But let’s get into it further and see just how much this thing muddled about last night.

Smackdown Elimination Chamber: The best parts of this match were by far Daniel Bryan and Cesaro, so much so by the end of the match that is all I wanted. I could have done without the rest of the chamber match. That’s not to say there weren’t any other parts I enjoyed — Sami Zayn in particular was fun as always. But nothing else in the match really engaged me at all.

I will say, though, that the end was pretty good. Getting knees usually does not look good and usually breaks my immersion. There are few times where I believe that it actually hurts, but the end to this match absolutely was one of those times. It was a solid ending.

Roman Reigns (c) vs. Daniel Bryan (Universal Championship): Roman Reigns pulling the Yes Lock apart was my favorite image from the night. His face was equal parts hilarious and terrifying. I liked Roman using his leverage to get this really easy match, and even though it was a squash, it fit it the narrative and Roman’s character, so all around I liked it.

WWE Elimination Chamber 2021 - Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns — I absolutely could not stop laughing at this.

Bobby Lashley (c) vs. John Morrison vs. Riddle (United States Championship): I am not usually a fan of Bobby Lashley but I’ve been liking him more and more since the Hurt Business formed. And while I usually find his style boring, there was just something so much fun to see him absolutely destroy Riddle and Morrison for the match. I also very much enjoyed MVP and John Morrison interacting. It gave me a good laugh.

As for the result, it was a bit predictable, and not necessarily what I would have liked to see. I’d be fine with the Hurt Business accumulating more power and starting to become a top card threat, but I guess we have to deal with Riddle being slowly pushed up the card further and further instead.

Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax (c) vs. Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair (Women’s Tag Team Championship): The “hole” joke got old fast, and they really need to learn when to kill something. But then again this is WWE so they ignore anything with promise and drive everything else into the ground.

Sasha and Bianca’s relationship kind of confuses me especially since it was hard to tell if Sasha was face or not until about a month ago. So the dynamic between the two is very weird, especially knowing that one of them will most likely turn heel in time for WrestleMania. I can’t imagine them doing a face vs. face championship match for Mania.

I’ve said this before, but I love Shayna. I normally hate submission-heavy styles, but Shanya obviously knows what she’s doing with her MMA background. And her facial expressions just really do so much to help sell everything.

The ending was extremely bad, and it really undermined the rest of the match for me. I still liked it, but the ending made the match feel like it was all leading to nothing.

Raw Elimination Chamber: McIntyre and Sheamus has been a pretty bad plot. It came out of nowhere and Sheamus turned face just for this couple month program without recognizing his change, only to then turn heel again. It’s honestly come across pretty sloppy.

Whenever there are these type of gimmick matches, I want shenanigans or at the very least some amazing wrestling to distract me from the lack of shenanigans. Because of that, I really didn’t enjoy this match until Kofi got out there. Even then, there were no huge moments. The high spots in the match were all right, but didn’t feel like “holy sh*t” moments. It wasn’t bad, but it just felt like a Raw match, not a PPV one.

The main issue is I just absolutely do not care about any of the people on Raw currently. None of them have sold me on their motivations or any other reason to have me care about them.

WWE Elimination Chamber 2021 - The Miz vs. Drew McIntyre — *WWE*

Miz vs McIntyre: I think everyone kind of had it in the back of their minds that this might happen, and if you watched the pre-show you knew it was going to happen. Yet it was just as surprising just because of how weird it felt as a close to the night.

Yes, the Money in the Bank contract is supposed to be surprising and allow for someone perhaps not in the same tier to get a world championship, but at the same time it just felt perplexing that they would strip the title of McIntyre in such a manner. It felt undeserved from a narrative point of view and just kinda made me think “Huh. Sure, whatever.” I don’t know how to express my thoughts on that more than that at the moment.

Let’s discuss the women: The shaft they gave the women was absolutely terrible. It was AEW level stuff, but at least with AEW we know that they’re bad about it. There was no women’s Chamber match at all, even though the Raw Chamber was completely unnecessary

And then we have Asuka. Man, is WWE treating Asuka like crap. It is absolutely disheartening to see just how little they seem to care about her. We got absolutely no notice that she wouldn’t be competing, and they kept talking her up on the pre-show as if it was, only then to just ignore it completely. Total BS.

In Conclusion: I guess there were some good moments? I mean, The Miz winning the WWE Championship was a surprise I suppose, that’s something at least. But I would have been more than content watching highlights on YouTube the day after rather than having to sit through that slog of a show.

WWE Elimination Chamber 2021 review

WWE Elimination Chamber 2021

I guess there were some good moments? I mean, The Miz winning the WWE Championship was a surprise I suppose, that's something at least. But I would have been more than content watching highlights on YouTube the day after rather than having to sit through that slog of a show.

Reader Rating0 Votes

4.5

Meh