There is a fan with a “suck it” sign. In 2015. Dork.
There was also a sign which simply said “Hugger.” It’s possible the person who brought it was a Bayley fan, but I like to imagine to that it was Johnny “The Bull” Stamboli looking for work, which is “just retire” spelled backwards.
The best of the bunch absolutely had to be “We Comin’ for You, Ziggla!”
ROMAN REIGNS & DEAN AMBROSE vs. SETH ROLLINS & KANE (w/Jamie Noble & Joey Mercury)- 7.25/10
Dean beating Seth with a flash pin really felt like a rehash of a few weeks ago.
NETWORK PLUG- hmm… so is Elimination Chamber available on traditional PPV outside of the USA?
RENEE YOUNG INTERVIEWS DEAN AMBROSE- oh yeah. He still has to sign the contract… so the match was pretty much meaningless, right? Yeah, it shows us that Dean can beat Seth, but we got a better illustration of that a few weeks ago when Dean beat Seth in a single match.
Anyway, the Stoogerweights get up to some mischief so Dean beats them up. He also accidentally hurt a cameraman. We’ll see where this angle goes.
KEVIN STEEN VIDEO PACKAGE- Yeah… beating Steen at Elimination Chamber would be such a HUGE mistake.
Now that he has dumped his Politiburo handler, Rusev has broken up with the entire country of Russia. You know what? That kind of makes sense.
RUSEV vs. R-TRUTH- eh squash.
Truth should have gotten any offense in at all. Actually, in that case, Truth shouldn’t have been in this match. It would have been awesome if Bo came out and told Rusev that he could have Lana back if he just Bo-lieved, and this led to Rusev murderizing poor Bo.
Rusev is taking the show hostage… and the Authority is okay with this? Maybe they realized that Rusev was too scary to fight, so they ordered Lana to come out.
RUSEV & LANA SEGMENT-
“I know you still want to crush America and crush the American spirit just as bad as I do. Ever since that first day we met in Bulgaria, all of those dreams we had, we can still make it.” Rusev is quite the romantic.
I thought this whole segment was awesome in a “whacky world of pro wrestling” type of way. It’s not often that two xenophobic, bigoted villains get back together and the crowd goes “awwww.”
The only changes I would have made were:
1) take out that “I am no longer your victim” line. It came off as way too strong a term to use and felt very out of nowhere. It’s not like he’s been abusing her for months or something like that
2) more importantly… DO THE BREAK-UP NEXT WEEK! It doesn’t accomplish anything to do this break-up going into the Elimination Chamber because that match can’t showcase the new status quo of the break-up. Let them be together for a week with Rusev winning the title and have everything really feel like it’s back to normal before breaking them up for good, with Dolph coming to save Lana, then you can build up to a singles match between Dolph and Lana at the next PPV.
Also, Lana just running off with Dolph the way she has really makes it seem like Rusev is right and Lana is just doing things to make Rusev jealous. Forget what I said above. MITB is only three weeks away, so you could stretch it out until then, with Rusev making Lana say she was wrong and Dolph seeing her upset backstage because she is being forced to lie, and Dolph could tell her to stand up for herself. Then, at MITB, you could have Rusev order Lana to shove the ladder over and stop Dolph, but she doesn’t do it, and THEN you do the break-up, resulting in Rusev vs. Dolph (w/Lana) at the July PPV.
TRIPLE H, ROLLINS, & AMBROSE BACKSTAGE- good.
HEY! Is that cameraman Will Ferrara? It’d be cool if WWE signed him. Not because I want to see him in WWE, but his absence would open up some space on the ROH roster for someone better.
WADE BARRETT vs. RYBACK- 4.25/10
Ryback does a big splash onto Barrett and isn’t selling his taped ribs. Oh. Now he’s selling them. AND HE STILL WON! Way to make Barrett look like a total chump! Why not just give Barrett the win via Winds of Change and use the hurt ribs both as an excuse for Ryback’s loss AND to get the “Ryback’s injured ribs could cost him in the Elimination Chamber” angle over?
ENTOURAGE STUFF- skipped it. Not in the mood for guest star bullsh*t.
TOUGH ENOUGH VIDEO PACKAGE- wow. This time 99% of them didn’t look like losers.
STARDUST vs. NEVILLE- 2/10
Injured bodypart doesn’t cost wrestler a match. Hmm… where have I seen that before?
AFTER-MATH- GREAT! I really like this Bo vs. Neville feud. We all know Neville’s going to beat Bo at the PPV, but that’s the point. If you put Neville in one of the chambers or follow up on his DQ victory over Cena and aren’t going to put a belt on him, then he has to lose. This was, he gets to win, and Bo gets to show his stuff a bit, which should add to the diversity of the card.
ENTOURAGE GUYS AND SOME
One of the Entourage guys tells Ryder that he should do something now that tonight is the last show in Nassau Coliseum. That is because that sh*tty old building belongs in the scrap heap, just like it’s hockey team.
Sorry. Got off track there. I assume he is talking about having Ryder answer Cena’s open challenge for tonight.
DOLPH ZIGGLER vs. SHEAMUS- 5.25/10
What? No! WHY?! Didn’t we just finish this feud? Can’t they move on to something else?
Well… Cole had told us that these two would “renew their rivalry” tonight, and yet the announcers spent the whole time talking about Ziggler and Lana or the Elimination Chamber, not mentioning said rivalry even once. And Lana came out to watch. And Rusev showed up to distract Dolph. WHY? We already got a segment building up the Rusev/Lana/Ziggler deal tonight. Why do another one? Why not just give Sheamus a clean win over someone else? That way you wouldn’t beat a dead horse with the Rusev/Lana/Ziggler stuff, Dolph wouldn’t have to lose, Sheamus could get a clean win, and you would have to put on a match we’ve seen a million times in the past few months.
POST-MATCH ANGLE- not bad (aside from the aforementioned horse beating), but you’ve got SEVEN WEEKS until you’ve got a one-on-one PPV match between these guys (I’m assuming that at least Dolph will be in MITB because he always is). How many angles to do you think you’ll be able to come up with I that time (and especially with the rate that WWE blows through these angles) without people getting sick and tired of seeing the same thing? Why waste a good angle at an entirely unnecessary time?
JOHN CENA PROMO- great stuff. Once again… For Kevin Owens to lose at Elimination Chamber would be a HUGE mistake. He NEEDS to win cleanly, because if he doesn’t, he’ll become just one of those “failures” who Cena talked about who tried to knock him off of the mountain and failed.
It’s a non-title match, so give Owens the clean win. Spend time building up to an actual title match at Battleground, and then, if you don’t want to beat Cena cleanly twice, you can have someone screw him and cost him the title, which results in Owens winning the title and Cena being set up with opponent for Summer Slam, but most importantly: Kevin Owens will have succeeded, and initially done so cleanly. INSTANT SUPERSTAR if you do that. Guaranteed.
WWE UNITED STATES TITLE MATCH: John Cena(c) vs. Zack Ryder- 5/10
Fun. Ryder, of course, doesn’t get to kick out of the AA like everyone else has. He did get to do a 450 though. That was unexpected.
OWENS JUMPS CENA- good.
RENEE INTERVIEWS THE AUTHORITY- good.
PAIGE vs. TAMINA (w/Naomi)- 3/10
The Bellas were on commentary for this match, and despite being babyfaces and trying to put their fellow babyface over, still managed to come off as bitchy heels.
THE NEW DAY PROMO- fun!
HADICAP MATCH: The New Day vs. Los Matadores, The Prime Time Players, The Ascension, the Lucha Dragons, & the Upper-Cats (w/El Torito & Natalya)- DUD!
Things almost immediately broke down for absolutely no reason and the ref threw the match out, making the whole thing pointless. Wait. No. It’s not a double DQ… just a one-sided one. It would have been better to do New Day’s promo earlier in the show and then just let the five challenging teams cut promos throughout the show to build the match up.
JUSTICE REVEALED!- It turns out that Rollins pushed the innocent cameraman into the way, causing Ambrose to CM Punk the poor fellow.
CLOSING SEGMENT-
Roman Reigns swerved the Authority by coming down the ramp instead of through the crowd. Brilliant!
Roman makes a fight of it, but gets his butt kicked until Stone Cold Dean Ambrose drives a police van out to ringside, beats the Authority up (with a bit of help from his pal Roman), and signs the contract. Decent stuff. It would have been better if it wasn’t quite so silly (maybe not have Dean dressed up like a cop and driving a police van with its lights and sirens on. Shouldn’t he be arrested for impersonating a cop?
A frustratingly booked Raw.