Matthew Roberts takes a look at the latest WWE Home Video release, Elimination Chamber 2022.
Even though it was only February, Elimination Chamber seems a lifetime ago now. No more so that the opening match on the main card where Roman Reigns defended his Universal Title against Goldberg. Maybe it’s my mind playing tricks but Goldberg being in WWE so recently threw me for some unknown reason. The match itself was about what you can/could expect from Bill in modern-day WWE. It was kept short and relatively sweet and at least didn’t have Bill picking up the win. Of course, that would have made zero sense, I know, but with the WWE you can never quite tell.
The Women’s Elimination Chamber match followed and again whilst the result was never really in any doubt, with the WWE you can never really second guess. Of course, Bianca Belair was the heavy favourite to win and that’s the way it went. It seemed short for a Chamber match but that’s not something to be overly concerned about here (and was actually a few seconds longer than the men’s later in the evening). It was designed to get Belair to WrestleMania and that’s what it did.
The Women’s Tag Match that followed was again a step on the road to WrestleMania. We knew it was going to be Ronda against Charlotte there so adding Naomi and Sonya Deville to a tag team mix was a way to take us to that destination. The twist here was that Ronda had one arm tied behind her back throughout in an attempt to even up the odds given Deville’s arm injury…which proved to be nothing of the sort. They kept the “stars” apart for the most part and the match, whilst overly long really, did what it had to do, again, to take us to Mania.
Few people were looking forward to Drew McIntyre against Madcap Moss. It’s that age old story. People online DEMAND that the WWE pushes different people. When they do it’s clear that what people mean is “push the person I want you to push”. This was fine as a big man match. Unfortunately, the main talking point from it was the absolutely sick bump Moss took right on his head. As the replays show that could have been a lot more damaging than it was…
The Raw Women’s Title was on the line next as Becky Lynch defended against Lita. That kind of came out of nowhere, but this is the WWE for you. No “sports-based contendership rankings that we’ll fudge anyway when it doesn’t suit us” here. The match was far better than I had imagined it would be. It wasn’t ever threatening to be an all-time classic but it was enjoyable and told a good story.
We don’t get the advertised Uso’s against The Viking Raiders match as the Uso’s do a pre match attack so it’s straight onto the Men’s Chamber match. This was a much better match than the Women’s although it was hurt by the Lashley injury that he apparently got when Seth Rollins smashed Austin Theory into the champion’s pod and caught him unawares. As I avoid “the sheets” I’ve no idea if this was a planned work or not. I’m presuming so. This made the result even more of a formality but it was great fun seeing Lesnar steamroll his way through everyone else and almost kill Theory in the process of wrapping things up.
Elimination Chamber 2022 was a decent night of action that was obviously more about taking us to WrestleMania than a “must-see” show in its own right. Still, it was an entertaining enough show and rarely was ever close to being boring.
The DVD includes the Kick-Off show match between Rey Mysterio and The Miz which was fine for what it was