WWE Elimination Chamber 2/18/23 Live Blog

Do they not do Kickoff Show matches anymore? We really need a full hour of video packages and talking heads with no wrestling? Either way, I'm excited for how excited people are for this show. WWE hasn't felt like any kind of Hot Product in several years now, but people are downright buzzing about this show. That's pretty cool man. I haven't been watching the TV but I watched Rumble, and my boy Martin caught me up on the angles. I'm in, I can't pretend I have better things to do on a winter Saturday. 

1. Women's Chamber: Natalya vs. Liv Morgan vs. Asuka vs. Raquel Rodriguez vs. Carmella vs. Nikki Cross

ER: This is the best haircut Natalya has ever had, but it coincides with her face turning into a face that is more like Dana's Brooke's 2nd to 3rd face and it would have looked better with Natalya's own face. They got Raquel into the match took quick and all it lead to was Too Many Three Way Spots. I wanted Raquel killing individuals down the stretch. I can't be the only one who can't stand Nikki Cross acting like an annoying 7 year old's impression of an annoying 7 year old, right? Raquel's ring post bump looks good, Liv's bump into the pod looks better, but Liv makes a dumber face after the bump. Feels dumb to go to a big Nikki Crossbody spot wiping out everyone so early, because it just leads to everyone lying on the mat exhausted at like 6 minutes in. Carmella gets nearfalls on everyone who took a single crossbody block 4 minutes ago. Raquel is a wrestler who is great at saving matches like this. Maybe it's not that she has a track record of doing so, but she has the ability to force a long gimmick match into being something good in a way that Liv Morgan or Natalya will never have. When Raquel starts breaking out the big shit - running Nikki through a pod, pulling girls off the cage, taking a huge bump on a top rope sunset flip - the match finally comes alive. 

Raquel ramps up the crowd for two minutes, all leading to Asuka's big entrance, the perfect mood setter. Asuka knows how hot to come in, and Liv's missile dropkick to finally stop her looked great. Liv keeps getting bigger and bigger reactions the phonier her character seems. I thought people in Montreal had no time for phonies? I thought the people of Montreal were the kind of people to announce to the room "Are there any Fake People here? Because if you are, I respect your stance, but get the fuck out of my party"? Liv, you're fake. The run to the finish felt real quick, I think too quick. I'm seeing the words I'm typing and I see myself asking for more time from a Brand PPV WWE Gimmick Match, but this really did feel too short. The eliminations piled up too quick and all felt underdone. At the same time, I thought they actually did the complicated multi-man stuff and big bumps really well, and Asuka/Bianca is a match I would want to see much more than Bianca/Liv. Good match, but could have used a couple of better one on one showdowns. 

2. Brock Lesnar vs. Bobby Lashley 

Bobby Lashley's King Kong entrance is incredible. Think how much better it would be without a giant stupid PS2 graphic Bobby Lashley making a dead eye posing face. I'm excited for this match. I did a Royal Rumble live blog last month and was actually pissed when Lesnar got eliminated from the match so early. In response, now Brock tries to eliminate Lashley's shoulder socket by bouncing him across the ring with a belly to belly. I wish Lashley threw even more behind his spear, but the full nelson stuff was cool and the F5 power out was cool, but isn't it kind of weird how the F5 isn't a killshot? Like Lesnar is turning the F5 into Suplex City but without replacing it with anything more dangerous? I assume the reason he never brought back the stretch muffler was because he wound up shredding everyone's knee ligaments? Because bring that back. Finish was bunk, match pacing got tanked once they started spamming finishers and then Lashley didn't do enough with the full nelson to make it seem dire. Lesnar needed to be way more purple to seem like a man in real desperate danger, like 5 hours of terrible sex purple. 

Boy that Seth Rollins Joker stuff is just about the dorkiest shit around huh? Cowards couldn't even pay for the pedophile hockey arena song? 

3. Rhea Ripley/Finn Balor vs. Edge/Beth Phoenix 

ER: I should like a couple that looks like absolute shit, but I just cannot get into the couple of Edge and Beth Phoenix. I think they actually finally figured out the Beth Pompadour. They took the bulk out of the sides and slicked them down, makes the angles much better and avoids the Frankenstein wall of hair up top. This version works well. Edge still looks like shit though. I do think everyone's gear looks fantastic. Rhea's whole crew looks great, and the deep maroon/black/gold pattern is a very tasteful choice for Edge and Beth. I hate the moments of Beth Phoenix matches where she has to do acting. I love that Dominik is drawing heat in a real way. Rhea leans into Phoenix's nice running clothesline and takes a hard bump into the steps. Finn leans into Edge's running clothesline the same way as Rhea did, for team solidarity. The timing of everything in this has been great, it's all paced out so well. Dominik's heat keeps growing. The Phoenix superplex looked great, but the build hung Rhea out to dry a bit. Of course the second I type out the words "The timing of everything in this has been great" and then Beth Phoenix comes diving into frame a second too late for a pinfall save and then lies there on her stomach like Willie Mays Hays coming up a foot short on his slide. Rhea's brass knux punch to the side of Edge's head looked perfect. Old Man Edge is much better than Peak Edge in a lot of ways, and it's wild his spear looks this good now. Dominik should have leaned more into Edge's tope, but this was good. Rhea had an excellent performance here. 

4. Men's Chamber: Austin Theory vs. Montez Ford vs. Bronson Reed vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Damien Priest vs. Seth Rollins

ER: Oh damn this is a pretty bad looking match right? I don't think the gimmick much matters, you see these six names and that is going to look like a bad match. I don't get Austin Theory in similar ways that I don't get Ricky Starks. Did Bronson Reed come back in the last two weeks or something? How did he go from not being one of 30 men in the Royal Rumble, to one of 6 men in Elimination Chamber? I was hoping I'd get a callback to the dogshit Gargano/Rollins sequences at the Rumble, so lucky they're the two starting this. It still looks bad a month later. Okay seriously what is the deal with Austin Theory. How does any of this stand? What is that jumping stomp that he does? Vince used to fucking love Dr. Jerry Graham? What the fuck happened? Edge doesn't wrestle as much like Edge anymore, so I'm really happy we have 6'4 guys like Damien Priest to bring some spiritual Edge Offense into 2023. His running slingshot senton looked like it hurt but I think that's because he messed up the landing. Goddamn this sucks. Bronson Reed came back with a cartoon Bluto sneer and it would have been way better if they just brought him back dressed as Bluto. He has the black beard and heard and his torso is comic book large, make him a fucking dock worker. 

To Reed's credit, he has been the most interesting part of this terrible match, as at least he was just smashing people in between his body and surfaces, not doing a series of tumbles and spins. He takes the poison rana really vertical and his selling afterward was an actual good use of WWE dramatic selling. Ford's sheer drop looked great, just belly flopping stomach first over Balor's shoulder from like 20' up. The best part of the match is now gone. The Rollins/Gargano stuff on top of the pod took way too long for what it was, but that huracanrana off the top of the pod was a great spot. Rollins is the worst possible Matthew Justice but he's at least better when he tries to be like Justice. Remember when I said the Women's Chamber match felt like it needed more time? This match feels eternal. Montez Ford does look pretty great. Look at his gear! You look at his gear in Street Profits and then see these tights? Great pair of tights. The repeated flip dives into the cage looked good...but having him get pinned by Theory just tanked this whole thing. What a bad look. Anyone explain Theory to me. I'll listen. They should have had Omos come out dressed like El Gigante to carry Ford out of the cage to the back.  

5. Roman Reigns vs. Sami Zayn 

ER: I used to feel like the biggest Generico critic, a guy I liked so much less than anyone else I knew. But sometime in 2020 I really did a full 180 on Zayn and well, his last few years speak for themselves. The wife and kids at ringside! I always like when they make someone's kid watch their dad take a beating while surrounded by weird strangers with parasocial relationships who think they know them. And this match was good! I don't think it hit the heights everyone wanted it to hit, but I do think it hit several heights. This was going to be a hard match to stick the landing on, and admittedly the long drama segments don't always work for me. Maybe (probably?) they would work better had I actually been watching all of the storyline play out in real time. It felt like the match peaked too soon and then had to be carried by the drama, and I think drama carried by a match would have been a more interesting way to play this. Every week they do the drama, this is when they can do the match. Roman's cut offs were strong, and Sami's cut offs were stronger, as it should be. Roman is much better at dramatic kick outs than Sami, but Sami was great at making it look like he was done. The ref shenanigans weren't necessary and came off weak, Sami and Roman did a good job of recovering the match every time there was a storyline pause. I thought the family would be involved a lot more (Sami's family, which basically wasn't shown after Zayn kissed his wife midway through the match) and I thought the finishing stretch de-escalated the match too much. Working a match with this much downtime scattered throughout isn't easy, and they never lost the crowd for a second, which means a lot. A Sami win would have made the moment better, but I don't think it would have made the match better. 

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There Was a King, a Very Enchanted King

Jerry Lawler/Jimmy Valiant vs. Takashi Ishikawa/Great Kabuki AJPW 2/5/85 - FUN

ER: Lawler in Japan is so weird, somehow even weirder than Valiant. He feels so anachronistic here, in the way that Memphis often feels weird in a more solemn setting. Even his appearance is slightly off, as he comes out in tights that felt closer to something Rick Rude would wear than Lawler, not to mention the studded leather cross-chest straps holding his cape on. This is not a Lawler look I've seen more than twice. He worked less than 15 matches in Japan (Valiant worked less than 30), and the two of them were only there for this one week tour. And this match is weird. The crowd doesn't seem to know how to react to Valiant, laughing tentatively as he constantly talks on the apron (rooting on Lawler, talking to the ref, general cheerleading), but they react to Lawler like he's a big deal (he even gets a couple streamers in his intro). But the match is barely 8 minutes and they work it as if it was going 30. So we basically get 7 minutes of a match that was shaping up to be really cool, and then a finish that felt like someone suddenly shit their pants and they needed to get the hell out of there. 

Lawler works wristlocks with Ishikawa, and has a strike exchange in the corner with Kabuki that the camera mostly misses (seriously, who is cutting away while Lawler and Kabuki are striking??) when Lawler hits him with a right and Kabuki throws an uppercut that bounces Lawler to the center of the ring. The only real fire of the match comes when Lawler hits an insane top rope fistdrop (no idea how your aim and body restraint gets that perfect) and a couple more drop down ones, with some of the sweetest moments of Lawler shaking out his fast after each one. There's a neat touch I really liked, where Ishikawa broke up a pin by stomping the back of Lawler's head, and Lawler does an excellent sell of this stomp, the move that essentially keeps him from saving Valiant. Lawler really staggers around holding his head like he took the sickest rabbit punch - an accurate way to sell a nasty stomp from Ishikawa - and stumbles to tag out. The finish is what makes this match so perplexing, as you'd think they'd still be working another 10 minutes, but instead Valiant gets the tag, sort of takes a savate kick from Kabuki, then just quickly taps to a Boston crab. I don't get it. 

Jerry Lawler/Maria/Ashley vs. Santino Marella/Beth Phoenix/Melina WWF Raw 3/24/08 - FUN

ER: I think it says a lot about the abilities of Lawler and Santino that this was as entertaining as it was. This started as a bad Maria/Melina singles match that quickly ended with interference, and Lawler stepping up in jeans and a t-shirt to take another opportunity to punch Santino. Regal makes it into a trios, and it's Lawler and Santino working around several people who don't totally know where they should be. That Santino can actually properly sell a terrible beating from Ashley and Maria - two people who mostly did not know how to hit someone - while selling it within gimmick, is why he was so good. Lawler gets nothing but great shine here, sending Santino high up in the air with a great backdrop, then squaring up to hit a genuinely great standing dropkick for a man in his late 50s. 

The women's stuff was what it was, though it lead to one really good moment where Lawler had to consider whether or not to punch Melina in the face. This was intergender, so the two men didn't have to tag out, and Melina was literally asking for it. But Lawler instead sneaks a tag to Ashley, who throws her only good strike of the match once Melina turns around into her elbow. Santino has several actually funny stooge sells in a relatively short runtime, reacting to Maria and Ashley's light chops and slaps as if he were Maximo being tickled, or selling a Lawler atomic drop by duckwalking to tag out. The final payoff of the match is Santino walking into Lawler on the outside, where Lawler gets to throw his first punches of the match as Santino groggily attempts to escape into the crowd. Lawler is one of the few people in wrestling that has examples over the decades of elevating non-wrestlers in a fun match, and this was a fun look at Santino being one of those guys too. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LAWLER

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