WWE Elimination Chamber Review - February 19, 2012

CM Punk successfully retains his WWE Championship.

Solid Raw Elimination Chamber match that featured entertaining action throughout. Kofi Kingston was essentially the John Morrison of this year's Chamber match and truly shined. I was surprised to see The Miz last until the very end, and with that being said, he had a strong showing as well. Chris Jericho's "elimination" from the bout was very anticlimactic as many were expecting him to re-enter at the end, but at least it protected him going into WrestleMania.

Great Divas Championship match that was certainly one of the better ones in recent months. It's no secret that both Beth Phoenix and Tamina have chemistry, and Phoenix was able to carry her opponent to a decent seven-minute match. Now, we can hopefully move forward to Kharma challenging the Glamazon for the strap at WrestleMania 28.

Intriguing segment with the returns of Christian, Alberto Del Rio, and Mark Henry. Other than that, the announcement from John Lauriniaitis fell flat and wasn't really anything noteworthy. It was established that he plans to take the General Manager spot from Teddy Long, but this segment felt meaningless as a whole.

Suspenseful SmackDown Elimination Chamber match that started off slow, but got extremely hot towards the end. Sure, I was beyond frustrated that someone like Santino Marella eliminated two future World Champions in Wade Barrett and Cody Rhodes, but they've been buried over the last few weeks anyways, so it wasn't much to complain over. Besides, the crowd was at its hottest for Santino and it also had me doubting my original prediction of Bryan retaining. Thankfully, Bryan showed some real aggression for the first time in ages and looked strong in successfully defending his World Heavyweight Championship.

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World Champion Daniel Bryan retains his title.

Forgettable United States Championship match that was too short to really mean anything. Why not just set it up earlier in the night rather than five minutes before? Jack Swagger has had an uneventful reign as champ so far, and Justin Gabriel is pure enhancement talent. The bout itself was fine, but it's really ruining the prestige of the belt.

Boring match between John Cena and Kane that was able to hid their weaknesses, but end in a very predictable fashion. I had hope that they were saving this bout for last for a major swerve, but nothing of such sort came to fruition. It was basically a long drawn out brawl that typically gave Cena momentum going into WrestleMania. However, I'm glad that this horrendous feud is finally over with.

Overall, a lackluster show that was just as expected and served little to no purpose. The action was pretty good for the most part, but the entire card was extremely predictable and took away from the show. The lack of title changes didn't make this show noteworthy by any means, but the returns from Christian and Alberto Del Rio were nice surprises. Besides that, this show was completely skippable and merely another footstep on the road to WrestleMania.

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