Elimination Chamber 2012
------------------------------------------------------by Michael Becker
There have been many questions in the build-up to this year's Elimination Chamber: Will John Cena finally give in to his hate? Will Chris Jericho finally show us "the end of the world as you know it"? Will Santino really walk into the Chamber unharmed? And what can Daniel Bryan do against the angry giant he has been provoking for the last months?
The PPV started with a big surprise: The Elimination Chamber for the WWE Championship was the first match of the night! While CM Punk and Kofi Kingston started the brutal chamber match, Chris Jericho could relax since he knew he would be last to enter the fray (instead, he kept on taunting Punk). After some bumps onto the cold steel outside the ring (which must really hurt!) and every participant dealing blows, the first elimination happened seemingly out of nowhere: CM Punk pinned R-Truth after his Randy Savage tribute Elbow drop. Some minutes later, Chris Jericho pinned Ziggler after the Codebreaker (poor Dolph seems to be a midcard jobber again now) and made Kofi tap in his infamous Liontamer. Jericho then complimented Kofi out of the Chamber - just to get hit by a nasty kick from Punk which sent him flying into a camera guy. Jericho then stayed on the ground seemingly knocked out (and the fans were bereft of a nice finish). Punk then quickly took care of Miz who didn't stand a chance as expected and retained his title after an eventful chamber match which was a bit lame in the end.
Winner and still WWE Champion: CM Punk (32:34)
Santino allegedly ate raw eggs to prepare for his huge chance later ...
Next match was Beth Phoenix versus Tamina for the Divas Championship. And for the first time in months, it was a proper and physical wrestling match rather than just divas hitting each other in weird ways. After Tamina's Snuka-style splash from the top rope and the following kick-out from Beth, she finally pinned Tamina and retained her Divas championship. Hopefully, this promising feud continues and leads to a match at Wrestlemania.
Winner and Still Divas Champion: Beth Phoenix (7:19)
After one more promo showing Santino preparing for his big match by beating some meat (not what you're thinking, he literally beat some meat), John Lauriniatis, the interim general manager of RAW and so on entered the ring together with his legal advisor Mr. D. Otunga. They were joined by the decent heel team of Alberto del Rio, Mark Henry and Christian (who got huge pops). All of them were telling Lauriniatis to apply for the position of General Manager fro both brands. This might well lead to Team Lauriniatis vs Team Long at Wrestlemania ... and both brands at stake!
Surprise, surprise - the next match was the Elimination Chamber for the World Heavyweight Championship! And Santino really made it to the ring without getting attacked earlier on! After a slow start and the early elimination of The Great Khali, things started to get interesting when Big Show tore Bryan's cell apart and gave him a nice vicious beating including completely destroying the cell - just to get eliminated by Rhodes! This killed the tension until Santino managed to eliminate both Barrett and Rhodes. Now we witnessed the confrontation between Santino and Bryan. Yes, it sounds lame but the audience was frantically cheering for Santino and things seemed to get completely out of hands when Santino hit the Cobra on Bryan and the ref counted 1 ... 2 ... But Bryan somehow managed to kick out. Afterwards, he put Santino in his dreaded LeBelle Lock to secure his victory and go to Wrestlemania as the champion. For some obvious reason, Sheamus disturbed Bryan's celebration and made clear he would become the next World Heavyweight Champion at Wrestlemania, flattening Bryan in the process.
Winner and still World Heavyweight Champion: Daniel Bryan (34:05)
An awkward backstage segment followed involving the still farting Natalya (poor thing, she doesn't deserve this humiliation), a cheese-swallowing Hornswoggle, Swagger and Vickie, Gabriel and Teddy Long. After some incomprehensible nonsense, the next match was going to start: Swagger against Gabriel for the United States Championship. OK ... some minutes and no build-up to the match later, the squash was over again: Swagger won and the co-main event was over.
Winner and still United States Champion: Jack Swagger (3:05)
So now it was time for the main event: The second Ambulance Match ever, between the Big Red Machine Kane and Fruity Pebbles John Cena. In an Ambulance Match, you win by putting your opponent into a waiting ambulance and closing the door. One could say it is the PG version of a casket match. Anyway, it was nothing but a big brawl which seemed odd from time to time: If sitting in a wheelchair and being pushed against some stage props qualifies as hardcore action these days, you know what's wrong with WWE. After 21 minutes and an AA from the roof of the ambulance, Cena put Kane into the ambulance and won. Simple as that. No mention of hate, no Ryder, no Eve, just a celebrating John Cena. And that was the Elimination chamber PPV ...
Winner: John Cena (21:21)
Forecast:
Elimination Chamber was business as usual. We all expected Beth, Punk and Cena to win, we were pretty sure Bryan would win as well (especially as the SD chamber was not really well-staffed). Now we are bound to see Punk vs Jericho (Jericho will claim "I didn't lose") and Bryan vs Sheamus. Of course, Cena would win the feud against Kane to be prepared for The Rock at Wrestlemania, but the end was unsatisfying: without twist and turns, it was just SuperCena triumphing over his inner demons and Kane once more ... what a shame.
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