A date with the Elimination Chamber

Wrestling. Immensely popular in the States, yet practically unknown in the Netherlands. Whereas other American sports such as basketball or American football are pretty popular here, wrestling remains in a niche of its own. Is wrestling even a sport? The outcome of a match is scripted just like the bigger “spots” of a match, but it definetly takes lots of practice and effort to do it. What is it about grown men in trunks that turn the Dutch audience off

No seriously; the Dutch television is crammed with talenthunts, reality shows and other crap. Wrestling is reality TV too but Dutch audiences have never liked it except for a select group. Very select. Who can blame them? Wrestling is hardly broadcast over here and when it is it’s a few weeks behind on the US. Hardcore fans won’t watch it, they’ve seen it through other channels, so it will never get decent ratings. And ratings is what it’s all about. Hence the reason it isn’t being aired over here.

I guess it’s the pretty sober way that the Dutch look at things. “It’s fake so it can’t be fun”. People like to think that it doesn’t hurt all. Partly true. These guys are trained to make it hurt the least. They do get pretty beat up when all is said and done. The other main argument (results are predetermined) is also just partly true. Yes they are but the viewing audience doesn’t know until they see it. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me being the stupid one here but I could care less. I’ve visited multiple WWE live shows (none of which were in the Netherlands) and I enjoy it. Shame the Dutch that simply convict it beforehand but love to watch random talenthunt #739.628.941. End of rant.

The Elimination Chamber pay-per-view took place this past Sunday and it wasn’t all that bad. It did it’s job of building up to the “season finale” WrestleMania and a lot of matches got their confirmation, at the very least in an informal kind of way. I can only say that the WrestleMania matches that are most likely taking place look pretty refreshing compared to other years, but first we have a date with the Elimination Chamber.

John Cena wins Elimination Chamber Match; Batista defeats Cena (New WWE Champion)
Main story of this was Randy Orton and Ted DiBiase. The student and the master and the inevitable deceit that came with it. Kofi was the obvious highflying spotmonkey in the match, because he didn’t really have a storyline going into the chamber. Never had a chance of winning it though. A very likely Money In The Bank candidate at best. Sheamus went in as the champ and lasted pretty long. At least he didn’t look like a fool by the time he got eliminated. Allthough his insanely white complexion does kind of do that for him…

Cena versus Triple H was the endgame and Cena ended up winning. With a clean submission even. Not something I expected of Triple H. Cena becomes the new champ. At least for the next 3 minutes. Batista comes out and gets a match sanctioned by the big boss himself Vince McMahon and basically pulls a Money In The Bank, but without the briefcase. He would probably tear a muscle lifting it. Eitherway Batista becomes the new champ and will most likely be losing it to Cena in a month again because of the Bret Hart angle they will most likely link to these two.

Intercontinental Champion Drew McIntyre def. Kane
Odds of Kane winning this were probably below any measurable scale. Drew McIntyre got the win over the bigger name and can look forward to WrestleMania. His entrance is quite different from other people which does make him stand out some. Starting to like the persona he’s slowly becoming.

Michelle McCool & Layla def. Gail Kim & Maryse
This was ridiculous if you ask me. The original plan was Gail vs. Maryse for the vacated Women’s Title, but for some reason they changed it into this tag team match. The only goal of it seemed to be to further emphasize the hatred between Maryse and Gail. As if it wasn’t clear already that they were fighting for the title… The next night this match would take place, for the title, on RAW but why remove it from the PPV? The women deserve the same amount of credit for their work, don’t they?

United States Champion The Miz def. MVP
Miz is definetly the man in WWE lately. Three title belts around his waist, an experienced mentor to support him (Big Show) and exposure by training the most experienced guy on WWE’s new show NXT. It definetly isn’t bad to be the Miz these days. He lost on RAW so chances were pretty high that he would be winning when it actually came down to it. There aren’t too many storyline reasons as to why MVP should be the US champion. Both teams will probably battle over the tag titles on WrestleMania?

Chris Jericho wins Elimination Chamber Match (New World Heavyweight Champion)
This was something I’ve been looking forward to. Chris Jericho is simply the best WWE has to offer since his return to the company and they finally gave him some recognition in the form of a title reign. Oddly enough, Jericho doesn’t even need the title. I think he wouldn’t even mind not having it. I get the impression that he just loves what he does and loves to help getting people over when needed. Eitherway his feud with Edge will most likely be great. It is currently still being set up and it will get it’s first match on WrestleMania probably. Hopefully it will continue after that, simply because they’re two of the best guys WWE currently has to offer and a feud between them feels fresh.

WrestleMania is in a few weeks and at the moment the WWE seems like it is somewhat getting back on track. I haven’t watched it in weeks, mostly because RAW hasn’t appealed to me at all. The whole guest host concept has killed a lot of the fun of it for me, because somehow they felt the need to come up with the most stupid things just to suit that concept. It’s getting better though and it should, we’re on the Road to WrestleMania after all. This PPV was fun to watch and I can only hope WWE can keep up their current good work and hopefully even improve some more!

Steven | Wrestling | 24-02-2010 17:23 | 0 reacties

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