What's up, ladies and gentlemen?

My name is Eric Kanes, and just about an hour removed from the 2012 Elimination Chamber pay-per-view, I am here with a complete review of the event.

It was a bit of a disappointment to say the least, but without any further ado, let's get right down to the review.

CM Punk d. R-Truth, Dolph Ziggler, Kofi Kingston, Chris Jericho, & The Miz (***3/4)

The first match of the night was the Raw Elimination Chamber, which I expected to be the main event of the whole show. It wasn't bad by any means, but it definitely had a lot more potential.

As expected, Kofi was the one with the high spots and Dolph Ziggler was the one who took the most bumps. R-Truth was eliminated first after CM Punk taunted Jericho by hitting a diving elbow on Truth. Ziggler was eliminated by a Codebreaker from a fresh Jericho when he entered.

Kofi was forced to tap out to the Walls of Jericho and Jericho tossed him out of the Chamber. Afterwards, Punk kicked him in the head and Jericho apparently hit his head on an object. It's obviously a work by the way they shot it.

Jericho couldn't continue, so the match ended with a back-and-forth exchange by Punk and Miz, ultimately won by Punk.

What can I say?

The match wasn't perfect, but it was fun and it did its job in setting up the title match between Punk and Jericho at WrestleMania. I assume that the story will be that Jericho gets a title shot since he was technically never eliminated.

Beth Phoenix d. Tamina Snuka (**)

This was one of the better divas matches in a while but nothing spectacular. Beth won after a strong Glam Slam.

Bring on Beth vs. Kharma, please.

We got a segment in the ring where John Laurinaitis came out with David Otunga and asked that since the Board of Directors evaluated him, they evaluate Teddy Long as well. Alberto Del Rio, Mark Henry, and Christian all made their returns and talked about the poor decisions that Teddy Long made.

While I don't see why this had to be on pay-per-view, I hope this storyline ends with Laurinaitis becoming the general manager of SmackDown. Teddy Long as general manager has run its course. All he really does is "make this a tag team match, playa" and in kayfabe, he's abused his power more than any other on-air authority.

Daniel Bryan d. The Great Khali, Big Show, Cody Rhodes, Wade Barrett, & Santino Marella (***3/4)

Although I have this at the same rating as the RAW Elimination Chamber, I'd say this one turned out to be slightly better.

The Great Khali lasted less than a minute as he was speared by Big Show. I don't think anyone expected him to last longer anyway.

Next, we got a cool spot where Big Show broke the chains on Daniel Bryan's pod and climbed inside, beating the crap out of Bryan before he could even enter. He beat up Bryan for a while before Rhodes hit several Beautiful Disaster kicks on him and Barrett hit a flying elbow to eliminate him.

Rhodes celebrated in the ring, but ended up being rolled up by Santino. It was down to Barrett, Santino, and Bryan and the three of them had a great back-and-forth exchange, really making it look like it was anyone's game.

Santino ended up eliminating Barrett and it was down to him and Bryan. He really got the crowd behind him and it showed just how good he really can be. When Daniel Bryan won, it gave him a lot of heat. If you haven't seen it, I recommend that you do. It's a shame that Santino is stuck with the comedy character and this was a perfect testament of how good he can be when he's serious.

There was a backstage segment where Hornswoggle was eating cheese and asked Natalya to "cut the cheese" so she farted. I bet the writing team thinks this is brilliant. Vickie Guerrero and Jack Swagger came in and they were insulted by Hornswoggle saying "jack cheese and cottage cheese." Teddy Long came in and made a match between Swagger and Gabriel for the United States title. I'm surprised he didn't make this a tag team match, playa.

Jack Swagger d. Justin Gabriel (*1/2)

This was just a filler match with Swagger quickly winning by making Gabriel tap to the Ankle Lock. It's lame that they have time for Natalya's farting segments and 50,403,409 Hunico vs. Ted DiBiase matches on SmackDown, but they didn't have time to properly build this up.

But hey, at least the U.S. title was defended on the show.

I wouldn't even call this a match. It was pretty much just a brawl with two spots - Kane chokeslamming Cena through a table and Cena hitting an AA on top of the ambulance onto some black thing we couldn't see.

Their last match at Royal Rumble was back-and-forth match with Kane coming out looking strong. Here, Cena just Super Cena'd his way to victory. I get that he needs momentum going into WrestleMania but what was the point of all those super-fake, cheesy segments if it just led to the same thing that has been happening for years? If John Cena ended up turning heel (which we all knew wasn't going to happen) or at least ended up getting a meaner side to his character, that would've been fine. However, I'd have to say that this was a pretty poor payoff.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I have to give this show a 5/10. This is the lowest I've rated a PPV since Over the Limit. All of the right people won but it was streamed awkwardly, there was a lot of filler, and Santino Marella ended up stealing the show, which says a lot.

It is what it is but if anything, I'm glad it's time for WrestleMania season.

Daniel Bryan is as great as ever, The Rock is going to start appearing more on RAW, and the buildup to Chris Jericho vs. CM Punk should be awesome. This should be an exciting six weeks going forward.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this review. Until next time, I'm out!

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