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Elimination Chamber VIII - 2/25/2018


Dolfan in NYC

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You know you’re hanging with the right crowd when the only way you find out about #cancelWWEnetwork is when it’s mentioned on your Twitter timeline only to dunk on the dorks tweeting it in earnest. I haven’t given WWE a dime in over ten years, myself; any company who pays Dolph Ziggler is a company I don’t trust with my money.

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$10 a month seems about right for my total monthly contribution to WWE.  I mean, having every major wrestling PPV at my fingertips is worth that to me.  Anything fun in their new content's just a bonus.

Reigns becoming The Man at Mania by cleanly pinning Lesnar is something they've waited three years to do at this point - they're not going to change course now.  But they'd be stupid not to add Strowman to the match, especially with how much they put him over in the Chamber match.  Kicks out of a quadruple powerbomb at two, then kicks out of the AA at ONE.  The dude is fucking over like a motherfucker right now, especially when he's hitting motherfuckers with other motherfuckers.

Continuing on the Braun Train, I enjoy that they don't portray him as this dumb brute, but as a beast that's actually just as smart as everyone else, but he's also HUGE and UNSTOPPABLE and that combination is nearly unbeatable except in extreme situations.   

I think the smartest thing they did was add one more person to the Chamber match - starting it off with three almost forces them to go right into the action and cuts out the slow period before the first pod opened.  It was very noticeable in the women's match, but having Miz as a disturbing factor gave the men's match something to do in the meantime.

I enjoy that the pod walls are treated as impenetrable armor, but someone runs at them at half speed and suddenly they're paper.  

Rest of the show: 

  • I've given up on Bray Wyatt.  They had the next Undertaker in their hands, and they didn't just let it slip away, they actively threw it away.  In response, he's let himself go and obviously doesn't care at this point.  And Matt is a shell of what he even was in TNA; I hope Jeff coming back and helping to expand the Woken universe helps because this has been a complete clusterfuck so far.
  • The solution to making Titus O'Neil appear competent is to book him in a bog-standard tag team formula match - at least it was well done in that regard.  Titus is the world's shittiest Robert Gibson.
  • Nia Jax is one of those that should've stayed in NXT another year at least, and when they start sending main roster people down to NXT to freshen up, she should be on the first flight down.
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I enjoyed the women's chamber match and thought all of the women performed well. That shot of a defeated Sasha and triumphant Alexa was unintentionally hilarious when you think that Sasha foolishly attacking Bayley so soon helped do her in. 

I also liked Asuka/Nia. The two of them seem to do better and better against one another. 

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KInda dull show.  Men's elim chamber was predictable and laid out strangely.  I like Braun well enough, but I'm not all in on him like a lot of people, so letting him lay out the rest of the main event scene only to be killed dead by Roman was sorta dull for me.  Roman's pretty great at most things pro wrestling except audience connection, so the WM match with Brock will probably be good and maybe great, but the prospect doesn't really excite me.  

Cena's aftershow promo was... something.  I'm a big fan of Cena's, but despondent Cena worrying he won't get booked for WM is hard to relate to.  There are certain types of shooty angles WWE shouldn't try to pull off.  I kinda felt like Big Show turning heel because he couldn't feed his family after 10-15 years of main eventing for the company was insultingly dumb.  Kinda feel the same way about John Cena doing a Dennis Stamp gimmick.  Hopefully, the way they're framing this angle means WM will be some sort of redemption angle for Cena and he won't be asked to put Undertaker over.

I really don't get Alexa Bliss' popularity.  I understand why they push her (mega over), but, for me, she's terrible in the ring and her character is stale.  Is she really that much better than, say, Michelle McCool?  To me, she's come along ten years too late and is more a throwback to the McCool/Kelly Kelly/Eve Torres era.  Raw was doing 30 min Ironwoman matches with Sasha and Charlotte before Bliss came over.  Now, everyone's regressed, it seems.  Ugh.

Enjoyed the Bar match, though i didn't really didn't think Apollo/Titus would win a title match.  Rest of show was inoffensive to below average for me.

 

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44 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

Just for the record - its not a lock that Reigns goes on last at Mania

I have to assume that if they are able to get Rock to be Rousey's partner - that match is going on last

Thank god they changed that mindset. I can't remember if the crowd was quieter for Triple H/Y2J (following Hogan/Rock) or Triple H/Orton (following Taker/HBK)

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The Women's Elimination chamber was fun, though it seemed odd to me that you'd bring up this whole storyline of "Absolution is the only duo on the same page" and then have the be the first duo out.  It seems like a final four of Alexa/(Don't Trust) Sasha/ Absolution would have been more interesting.  They really want a Sting/Luger thing with Bayley and Sasha don't they?

The Tag Title match was okay but if Titus Worldwide was going to field a team, I think Tozawa and Apollo would have been much better.  I mean it's not like Tozawa's doing much of anything at the moment.

Asuka vs Nia was probably my favorite match, those two just love to beat on each other.  The postmatch beatdown was great and I might actually watch Raw to see where it goes from there.

I fell asleep during the Men's EC match, so I re-watched it again this morning.  It had some fun bits in it, but was just kind of there.  The thing I can't shake is the feeling that they are intentionally trying to burn everyone out on Braun.  Braun taking out everyone felt to me more like the Rumble where Big Show went around KO punching all the internet darlings out then some huge "Wow!" moment.  And this is coming from someone who wants Braun to be The Guy; but I can't help but feel like their idea of getting Roman over is to now just de-push everone else.

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I was actually enjoying the show quite a bit and then came the main event. Wait, that's not accurate. I was totally into the main event when it was Vince and creative realizing that Braun was the man, making an audible, and rightfully booking him in the SCSA role where he just whips everybody's ass. And then came the finish.

Up until the finish I had it in my mind that I would be fine with Brock vs Roman at WM and Braun vs Miz for the IC title. It's one of those things where I just resigned myself to the fact. The main event happens and Braun is positioned as this god-tier hoss, he eliminates everybody, and then he loses because Roman MUST GO OVER.

Once Roman won I was disgusted at the prospect of attempt #5 to make Roman the very top guy in the company and the guy they're going to build around while Braun likely settles for the IC title. What a step down that is too. If Braun doesn't eliminate every single main event guy except for Roman then I would be a little more OK with him challenging for the IC title. Then they established him as being someone way, way, way beyond the IC title and he's just going to have to accept a lesser belt. I'd rather he just go without any championships except for the Universal or World titles.

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The problem with Roman isn't really even a problem with him, so much as a problem he has. In the opposite way the "being John Cena" championship elevated everything he was involved in, "being Roman Reigns" is just an albatross on everything he does. So although he's really good, it hardly matters at this point; the meta-narrative surrounding his push suffocates any story they try to tell. Maybe getting the Brock match over with will end that, but I doubt it.

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I truly thought Alexa was buttering up Mickie James so she had someone on her side against two sets of partners and then would turn on her but nothing like that really came up. Alexa pretty much went it alone and won. She's oddly booked for a heel champ.

I wasn't disappointed with the main because I reached the Acceptance stage of the Roman Reigns push months ago. We've heard all year (the wrestling year, Mania to Mania) that he was going to dethrone Lesnar and I had no reason to think they'd ever go another direction. Sometimes I think the whole company is on "Let's Just Get Through This" mode. I agree that Lesnar/Reigns has a good chance of being a total cluster from an audience perspective. I don't even know what they could possibly do to make anyone give a care.

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Last night was the first time HHH looked/sounded old - I don’t mean wrinkles, just the way he seemed.

Did Coach inadvertently spoil that Braun was coming out next? Commentary got a little quiet and stilted right after that.

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Again, HHH in a suit is Obediah Stane. Last night he looked even more like Stane. HHH just looks so old in the face now. I started wondering about the age gap between he and Vince because I swear HHH is as old in the face as Vince is now. I can't imagine what HHH will look like when he's Vince's age. Dude may want to consider a good night's sleep with those bags under his eyes because he's got that CM Punk thing going on.

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13 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Again, HHH in a suit is Obediah Stane. Last night he looked even more like Stane. HHH just looks so old in the face now. I started wondering about the age gap between he and Vince because I swear HHH is as old in the face as Vince is now. I can't imagine what HHH will look like when he's Vince's age. Dude may want to consider a good night's sleep with those bags under his eyes because he's got that CM Punk thing going on.

Part of that is him and Steph seem to have gotten into that Midnight Workout trend which might be screwing with his sleep patterns.

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2 minutes ago, Raziel403 said:

Part of that is him and Steph seem to have gotten into that Midnight Workout trend which might be screwing with his sleep patterns.

Holy crap. I looked this up because it didn't sound like a real thing.

Yep. It's a real thing. I guess if you need to get a workout in then you need to get a workout in. Doing that at sacrifice of restful sleep doesn't sound like the best idea though.

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