WWE Elimination Chamber 2018 Live Blog

Bo Dallas/Curtis Axel vs. Luke Gallows/Karl Anderson

ER: Pre-show matches deliver more often than not, at minimum they give some guys who only get 3-4 minute matches a chance to stretch to 7-8. It starts like an 80s WWF tag as we get an Axel heel in peril section, with Gallows starting a "nerd" chant while punching him (I would have assumed Mojo Rawley would have been the one to get the Ogre gimmick), and Anderson giving him a weird jumping kick to the head. But things pick up when Dallas shoves Anderson off the top and he bumps to the apron, then we get to the part I want, a Bo Dallas heel control segment, and he drops some really great knees and cuts the ring off. Gallows hits a fine standing splash and Anderson doesn't have a great spinebuster but I'll always appreciate a guy at least using a spinebuster. This never amped up to a next level, but it was decent on a pre-show.

Elimination Chamber: Alexa Bliss vs. Sasha Banks vs. Mickie James vs. Mandy Rose vs. Sonya Deville vs. Bayley

ER: Oh wow we're starting with a chamber match! I'm okay with that. I'm Team Rose in this one, and they better not do any shenanigans with her and Deville costing each other the match. Rachel mentioned she wanted to see some one spider monkey up the side of this chamber, and Bayley almost delivers the goods. Much better, obviously, was Deville just clotheslining Bayley right in the stomach, and Bayley brings a nice crumple sell. Totally called the Absolution double team section, and I'm also okay with that. Bayley is the right babyface to fight off both and both Rose and Deville can be great bully heels. And as I type that we get Rose slapping Bayley right into a Deville spear. Yes. There's also something cool about heels wearing white. Rose hits an awesome knee off the top, and Absolution are like two badass girls smoking in the girls locker room and then shoving around the valedictorian. Rose tags a face first bump into the buckles and Deville gets hiptossed into the cage, but Rose cuts low with a nice lariat to Sasha. Mandy gets eliminated first which is officially bullshit, though it lead to a cool moment of Bayley cutting off Deville with a knee. Bayley gets kicked off the cage by Mickie and takes a nice spill, and James hits the big Thesz Press off a chamber to eliminate Deville, cool visual. Booking is all screwy as we're left with Bayley/Sasha versus Alexa, making the last heel, and the smallest person in the match, the underdog. It doesn't help that Bayley/Sasha waited out the countdown without fighting, getting booed for doing so. But we get an awesome moment as Bliss escapes by scrambling up the cage, with Sasha catching her on a pod, and as Sasha helps Bayley climb up she then grabs Bayley's arm and stomps on her neck, knocking her off the pod. Yesss. Bliss commits to Twisted Bliss and bounces right off Sasha's knees, and Bliss has been great in this. Also, it's weird that these matches aren't Falls Count Anywhere. And it makes even less sense when Bliss hits Twisted Bliss outside the ring and tries to pin Sasha. And Sasha does an ugly reversal of Twisted Bliss, which is just her taking the move flush...and then sloppily rolling over into the Banks Statement anyway. The drama over the Statement was decent, but she's usually much better about setting them up. That took some steam out of the finish for me, but Sasha took the DDT as crazily as you would expect. This was good overall.

And MY GOD the Alexa turn during her post-match promo was FANTASTIC. She was full on getting the "You Deserved It" chants and tearing up and I was bummed out as I don't want face Alexa and they were showing little girls holding WWE Women's Title replicas and....then she yanked the rug out. The best.

Apollo/Titus O'Neill vs. Sheamus/Cesaro

ER: A school shooter apparently took the Crews from Apollo, which I guess makes sense? At least one elderly Republican changed something after the shootings. Was Apollo getting booed when he was working his comeback punches against Sheamus? I dunno. Something feels weird. But I like the Bar cutting off the ring. They're both good at giving Apollo hope spots, I think we've gotten four different moments of Apollo almost getting to Titus, getting closer each time. Cesaro has bumped nicely all match, to the floor, off a backdrop, taking a huge Titus biel, and he's always on point with saves. Sheamus almost slips climbing the ropes and the crowd starts laughing, but he recovers and mockingly wags his finger to say they were laughing too soon. But it totally works in kayfabe as he gets caught by Titus (Coachman actually picks up on this psychology, pointing out that he took time jawing with fans and got caught. Nice work, Coach), and I thought the match was just getting started but it ends shortly after Apollo hits a flip dive. This could have kept getting better with a bit more time.

There appears to be a mom in the front row with Road Warrior Animal facepaint. And the Andre documentary looks TREMENDOUS.

Nia Jax vs. Asuka

ER: I could see this match going either way, and I'm a big fan of both. Nia working as fast monster is so much fun, her twisting elbowdrop was killer, and I loved the sequence around Asuka grabbing for an ankle and Nia hoisting her into a bearhug (and running her into the buckles). Asuka is nice and tenacious and good at putting over the size difference (struggling even to lift a Nia leg for the pin cover), and Nia misses a banzai drop in the corner with tailbone shattering speed. Man she came down hard on that. Asuka doesn't roll enough to get missed by the senton, but she's cool enough that she just adds it into the match and starts selling her leg. The sudden finish kinda works and kinda doesn't, as the flash rana makes sense as Asuka kind of narrowly escaped with a win while only taking 25% of the match, but it didn't quite work for me just because I wanted a couple more minutes of match. Still, what we got was really good, Nia took a great ringpost bump to set up that finish, and the flash pin was well done. Post match rules too, as Nia wrecks a the timekeeper's barricade by using Asuka's body as a battering ram and storms out of the arena. Cool with that.

Matt Hardy vs. Bray Wyatt

ER: Well we've all been more excited for a match. And the crowd is actually giving Wyatt some heat, and a decent crowd could make this work. And really this isn't bad. Wyatt locks on an early chinlock for heat, and it works. Usually chinlocks in WWE matches just take place on TV right before a babyface comeback, here it actually draws a reaction. I liked their brawling on the apron, both feed the other's spots nicely, and I thought the finishing stretch was nice and didn't overstay its welcome: Wyatt hit a big avalanche, tried setting up Sister Abigail, Hardy reversed and got kicked in the face, but hit the Twist of Fate. There were no surprises, but this was a fine house show match.

Hey, this Rousey signing is sure taking awhile. I usually like a good contract signing, but Rousey is the weakest part of this and it's more about sniping among the adults (which we probably expected), although Angle the informant was pretty amusing. And I did enjoy the Ronda/HHH interactions. HHH looks like the coolest possible Dana White and eats a suplex through the table well, but I really wouldn't have very high hopes for an Angle/Ronda vs. HHH/Steph match.

Elimination Chamber: Elias vs. Braun Strowman vs. John Cena vs. Roman Reigns vs. The Miz vs. Seth Rollins vs. Finn Balor

ER: A Balor/Miz/Rollins triple threat sounds like just about the worst combo of all these guys, so at least we get 5 full unspoiled minutes of it. And they're having a boring triple threat match as if they weren't actually in a giant cage. This whole thing really isn't doing it for me. All men are down when Roman comes in, but nothing really noteworthy has happened. Everything has been really broad. Everybody is selling death WAY too early. Miz standing in the middle of the other four, all breathing heavily on their knees, went on so long that it really stretched believability. Literally seconds later they are all up and rope running, yet just seconds earlier they were all so famished that they couldn't make it to their feet while Miz played a call and response game with the crowd. This is pretty lousy. Michael Cole breaks out "Many people believe this has been one of the most evenly matched Chamber matches EVER." So I guess the verdicts are all in? "I've heard things. Many people are saying." This is sluggish. Braun catching Miz on top of a pod and smashing his face into the plexiglass, before tossing him onto everyone, was the first cool thing to happen in this match, 20+ minutes in. But cool is cool. This is - from memory - the clear worst Chamber match in the gimmick's history. Braun made it slightly more interesting, and Elias has made it better, but it is still nap city. Strowman is eliminating everybody so far, which is smart. At least they'll be able to make a cool Braun highlight package out of it, so it's not totally worthless. The Rollins frog splash was nice, and I'm very happy about it coming down to Braun/Roman instead of Roman/Rollins. Braun crashes through a pod nicely, and the fans are hating Roman as he takes Braun apart. I was happy when this ended. It defeated me.

ER: This was a real fun show with a real yawner of a main event. Nothing like ending a show with an absolutely flat 45 minutes. Hard not to put a downer on the evening.

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