Elimination Chamber Gimmick

[Hanley!]

What do you guys think of this stipulation?

Sunday's show featured one thoroughly mediocre chamber match, and one awful chamber match. I had been looking forward to these, but neither of them delivered. It did seem like people were just having an off night (and there were some booking/production issues that didn't help matters).

But thinking back on it, I'm disappointed in this match more often than not. There are very few Elimination Chamber matches which stick in my mind, and even those ones weren't great. I seem to recall the chamber matches were good the year that Edge was in two in one night. But other than that, I haven't been a fan of many. I was even underwhelmed by the first one when I went back to watch it recently.

It's weird, because I love elimination matches as a concept. I always get psyched for the Survivor Series tag matches and I wish WWE used elimination rules more often. So I usually look forward to Elimination Chamber a lot. But it rarely delivers for me.

Part of me thinks the structure itself is partially to blame. The "glass" doors look terrible when they're used for spots. These are supposed to be some of the biggest spots of the night, but invariably they look awful. Mostly because it's so clearly not actual glass. I think if the doors were just chain, or cage material instead that might work better.

Also the roof of the pods are a little awkwardly sized. People tend to climb up onto the pods to do big high spots, but they have no room to move up there and the spots tend to look awkward.

I'm wondering if they could alter the structure slightly (which they did to the Hell in a Cell a few years ago). To make it easier to do high spots, and so things look more natural. And I feel those big spots are necessary given the lack of blood in today's programming.

I want to like the chamber matches more than I do. I always look forward to them, but they seldom deliver. Is it just me? Do any of you guys consistently love these matches?

[Viazon]

The first chamber match was by far the best one and none has ever lived up to that. There have been only a few decent ones since then. Do you remember the one with Santino Marella? That was actually an enjoyable one. But you are right. More often than not, they disappoint.

[Hanley!]

The first chamber match was by far the best one and none has ever lived up to that. There have been only a few decent ones since then. Do you remember the one with Santino Marella? That was actually an enjoyable one. But you are right. More often than not, they disappoint.

I remember hearing about the Santino one, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't watching WWE during that period.

[KaiserGlider]

Elimination Chamber can be a really good match when done right, and there have been some pretty good ones besides the first. The one at New Year's Revolution 2005 is one of the matches I nominated in my top 20 of all time. The one with Santino was good. As mentioned earlier both chambers at No Way Out 2009 were great. I remember the second one from No Way Out 2008 being a great match. The one with Goldberg at Summerslam was cool. The other ones aren't as memorable in my mind, but I remember some of them being good matches.

I think the gimmick has taken the most damage from being done twice in one night, and being done so many times in general. The nature of the match means it's 30 minutes of 6 guys trying to be as creative with the gimmick as possible, and that's hard to do when we've seen so many different spots done already in chambers past. On the last PPV, when Dolph Ziggler was slammed through the plexiglass the crowd barely reacted. Granted, the match itself had already killed off any enthusiasm, but that spot has gradually lost its coolness because we've seen it a bunch of times. Mark Henry entering the match after Wade Barret broke his pod was the most original use of the chamber in a while, I was very surprised to learn that it was actually a botch. And like I said before, doing the match twice in one night is the worst thing. How is the crowd going to be as hot for the second chamber as it was for the first one? It's hard as fuck for the wrestlers and the bookers to make the match engaging, which is why oftentimes in these Elimination Chambers PPVs, one match is clearly better than the other one.

I guess my point is that while I do still like the Elimination Chamber gimmick and think it makes for a great match if done/booked right, the frequent use of the match has definitely hurt it over the years. The same thing is said about Hell in a Cell, but with Hell in a Cell I feel like it's more about having a great match that settles a grudge feud through violent means. Elimination Chamber is more about having high spots with multiple wrestlers and finding creative ways to use the chamber, which gets harder and harder to do as time goes on.

[Str8Shooter]

I see what Kaiser is saying about it being used too much, because in our minds it feels like it is. But is it really? It happens once a year, which really isn't all that often. I think when it happens is the bigger issue. It's at the same time every year at a PPV called "Elimination Chamber", and therefore the story doesn't always need the Chamber, it just so happens that they have to shoehorn everybody into it. I'd rather they used it organically when there might be a plethora of potential title challengers instead of a set month.

The Chamber match also doesn't seem all that conducive to a whole lot of creativity either. The pods aren't all that interesting, we've seen guys bust through them and throw people through them, and fight in them. Jumping off the pods is hard because of the sloped roof, RVD almost killed Triple H once because he couldn't get enough height off it. Climbing the sides has been done and climbing up the roof because of the slope is tough, just ask Kalisto.

It didn't help that the tag chamber had 3 teams that were essentially jobber teams in The Ascension, PTP, and Matadores, and Lucha Dragons are new and haven't been pushed really. If the Usos were around that would have helped.

The IC Chamber was hurt by Rusev's last minute injury and Mark Henry wasn't a great replacement. The inclusion of R Truth was baffling and it hurt the match just having someone of his place on the card even in it.

[JPG619]

I always liked the Chamber matches however in recently years and the lack of hard core elements in recent matches (Same can be said with Hell in Cell matches) I think they need to make the match look more violent then just a normal match with a wrestler entering the match every 4 minutes.

This years tag chamber match seems interesting on paper since it was never done before but I found it to be a let down as the match went on. I think if they had it more like an elimination match when say one member that gets eliminated his team is still in but then again that make one hell of a long match to eliminate 16 guys.

[War Daddy]

Nothing will ever top the first 2 chamber matches. Should've been tapered off since then. If we had maybe Kevin Owens and all 80 of his feuds in it, it would make sense

[The Legend]

I actually really enjoyed the tag match as it really freshened things up from my prospective. Now, I think the biggest problem is WWE struggles to come up with stories that make six people in the match make sense these days. That absolutely hurts it. Of all the gimmick PPV's this one was always the silliest. You need to wait for a story that six people involved makes sense and it shouldn't be annual.

I agree they need to re-structure the chamber a little bit to offer some greater options for spots.

[Westcoastvibes]

I think the tag match should have been a 3 team match with 2 guys starting and one guy in each pod with no eliminations until the last guy was let out. This would have provided a sense of urgency and importance with each entry.

Second, the match has lost its wow factor, its used to often and the fans have become stale to it. Gimmick matches are fun but wwe has taken every gimmick match they could and overplayed them by having multiple in a night and centering PPV's around them. Just like hell in the cell used to be something special that has been road hard and put up wet, the chamber has been overused and lost its appeal.