WWE Elimination Chamber Review - February 20, 2011

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Alberto Del Rio def. Intercontinental Champion Kofi Kingston (Non-Title)

Del Rio had just won the Royal Rumble the month prior, so this only existed to keep him busy until WrestleMania 27 and to keep his momentum rolling. Kingston was a logical opponent for him being as good as he was (and still is), but I hated that this came at the expense of the Intercontinental Championship, which was a total afterthought here. Nonetheless, they had a nice match to start the show.

World Heavyweight Champion Edge def. Rey Mysterio, Kane, Drew McIntyre, Big Show and Wade Barrett in an Elimination Chamber Match; Christian Returned

This remains one of my favorite Chamber matches WWE has ever done. It's really well paced and the action is excellent. Big Show filled in for Dolph Ziggler, who had just gotten "fired" on SmackDown two days prior. Thankfully, his involvement was limited to eliminating Barrett (The Corre made an enemy out of Big Show shortly before this) and then he was also eliminated soon after. The final four was especially strong and there was genuine drama there at the end with Edge and Mysterio, even though it felt fairly obvious that Edge was retaining the title. Del Rio attacking Edge afterward only for Christian to return from injury and make the save for Edge was a fun surprise at the time.

Booker T and Trish Stratus Addressed the Audience

This was basically a glorified commercial for the new season of Tough Enough that was set to premiere after WrestleMania with Booker and Stratus as coaches. Booker was back on commentary by this point, but Stratus making an appearance here was cool. Unfortunately, the segment itself sucked and the "comedy" was not funny. Not even the crowd found any of it amusing.

The Corre (Justin Gabriel and Heath Slater) def. Santino Marella and Vladimir Kozlov to Win the WWE Tag Team Championship

It's hard to even call this a "match" with how short it was. I wouldn't be shocked if the segment with Stratus and Booker went long and these teams were told to rush. What we got was whatever, btu The Corre taking the tag titles was newsworthy, I guess. Then again, the belts meant nothing at this point and they'd lose them to John Cena and The Miz on Raw the very next night (only to regain them minutes later), so this felt like filler more than anything else.

Trish Stratus Saved Kelly Kelly from LayCool

Yes, Stratus made a second appearance in front of the crowd on this show, but at least it made more sense here. The segment started with Teddy Long reinstating Kelly Kelly, who had been "fired" by Vickie Guerrero while she was the acting general manager of SmackDown a few weeks earlier. LayCool attacking her led to Stratus making the save. Unfortunately for Kelly, she wasn't a part of the WrestleMania match despite that being the implication coming out of this. Snooki (yes, the same Snooki from Jersey Shore) was.

WWE Champion The Miz def. Jerry Lawler

This may not sound like a barn burner on paper, but Miz and Lawler actually had a quality rivalry while Miz was champ and they told a solid story with Lawler never having won a world title in WWE before. Pulling the trigger a month before WrestleMania would've been shortsighted (even if he immediately lost it back to Miz), but he came close enough and the match was well worked. I appreciated that it was a clean win for Miz at a time when he didn't get too many of those.

John Cena def. CM Punk, John Morrison, Sheamus, Randy Orton and R-Truth in a WWE Championship No. 1 Contender's Elimination Chamber Match

The SmackDown Chamber match from earlier was better, but this was great in its own right. Truth was the only one who didn't stand out at all. Everyone else had their moment to shine, notably Morrison. You'd think he would've gone on to do big things after the stellar showing he had here, but instead he was relegated to a throwaway six-person tag team matchup at 'Mania. Super strange. Cena winning was the predictable choice, but it had to happen. This also furthered the feud between Punk and Orton heading into WrestleMania.

Overall Show

I've always had a soft spot for this show, largely because of Christian's return and the two Chamber matches. I'm not afraid to say that the rest was either inconsequential or straight-up garbage, but the main matches make this pay-per-view and are worth seeking out, specifically the SmackDown one. It also did its job of building toward WrestleMania and making it clear what the key matches on the card would be.

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