WWE Elimination Chamber 2018: 5 Mistakes WWE Made

Credit: WWE.com

5) The Confusing Handling of Elias

In the weeks leading up to Elimination Chamber we saw Elias get victories over John Cena and Seth Rollins, something that was said to be a major step forward in his career. WWE, however, did not want to make John Cena or Seth Rollins look weak, so they had Braun hit his finisher on Cena and Elias steal the win. Elias also beat Rollins after Rollins wrestled for over an hour, meaning he was significantly weakened. This served to protect both Rollins and Cena, but did little to elevate Elias.

What made this book decision even more perplexing was Elias was just pinned by Braun in the Elimination Chamber match with little fanfare. So where is the problem, you ask? I have no issue with Braun pinning Elias, but why have Elias win a match to be the last one to enter the chamber by beating Braun Strowman and John Cena, only to have him be pinned by Braun here in a few minutes?

They didn’t want Braun to pin Cena until the Chamber match, and they didn’t want John to pin Elias clean to be the last entrant, so they had Elias get a weak win by pinning Cena after Braun destroyed him. The problem with all of this is that it was completely unnecessary. They didn’t have to have a match that got Elias to enter last. They could have just had him enter last.

Instead of booking a match on Raw where they really didn’t want anyone to lose because they had a finish planned for Elimination Chamber, then why book the match? The finishes at Elimination Chamber would have meant so much more if Braun just beat Elias and Cena in the Chamber. Simply said, Elias’ wins were rendered meaningless.

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So those are five mistakes that I identified at Elimination Chamber. The PPV as a whole was pretty good, and had two very good Elimination Chamber matches. We also saw a good Asuka/Nia Jax match, and a very interesting contract signing with Ronda Rousey. Lots of things have been setup for WrestleMania. Hopefully we’ll see less missteps in the coming weeks heading into WrestleMania.