The road to WrestleMania took a swift detour last night with WWE Elimination Chamber 2019, a night that successfully continued the buildup towards the big show with an overall stellar showing despite a couple of lackluster moments along the way.
WWE Elimination Chamber 2019 was centered around the two big chamber matches, but while both of those matches lived up to the hype, there were a few other matches on the card that exceeded expectations for the most part.
The main card kicked off with the Elimination Chamber match to crown the first-ever WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions, and what a match it was. In what could be argued as the match of the night and the best women’s Elimination Chamber match to date, all six teams involved really showed out. The IIconics really stood out early on, Nia Jax and Tamina’s dominance was impressive, Naomi and Carmella had some flash, and The Riott Squad made its presence felt.
However, it came down to The Boss ‘N’ Hug Connection and Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville as the final two teams. It appeared as if it could go either way for a while, but Sasha Banks and Bayley managed to reach the mountaintop and win this match to make history. Their post-match interview in the ring was particularly great to see given the real emotion the two had in making history and taking the women’s evolution to another level.
The SmackDown Tag Team Championship was on the line next when The Miz and Shane McMahon defended their titles against The Usos in what turned out to be an action-packed, intense match despite its otherwise shorter duration for a pay-per-view match. This was a very impressive match, but Shane O’Mac’s high-risk offense came back to haunt the co-besties when Jimmy and Jey walked away with their sixth tag team title reign after Miz fell victim to a roll-up.
Finn Balor’s quest to become Intercontinental Champion followed when he took on Bobby Lashley and Lio Rush in a handicap match with the title on the line. This match turned out to be pretty good when basically nobody was excited about it, but what really excited everyone was the finish that saw Balor take out Lashley and Rush on the outside, only to bring Rush back in the ring and finish him off to win his first-ever Intercontinental Championship.
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The Raw Women’s Championship was on the line next when Ronda Rousey defended against Ruby Riott with Charlotte Flair watching from ringside. This match turned out to be a huge injustice to Riott, who lost to Rousey in no more than two minutes after getting in no offense at all and tapping out to the armbar. This was wrong to do to Riott and it makes her look out of Rousey’s league. However, things did pick up after the match was over.
Charlotte came face-to-face with Rousey in anticipation of WrestleMania, but Becky Lynch came through the crowd on crutches to approach them. The Man snapped and attacked The Queen with her crutch after Charlotte re-injured Lynch’s knee at a live event the night before. Lynch told Rousey to go after Charlotte, but it was just to catch her from behind and beat her down with the crutch. This segment was great, but the preceding match was borderline disgraceful.
The most random match of the night came next when Braun Strowman took on Baron Corbin in a no disqualification match. This match felt like it should have been on Raw rather than a pay-per-view, and it went even farther when Lashley and Drew McIntyre came out to help Corbin take out Strowman and defeat him. This was pointless and hurt Strowman’s character at a really bad time with WrestleMania getting closer.
The main event took center stage after that when the WWE Championship was on the line inside the Elimination Chamber. Daniel Bryan and Samoa Joe started the match before the sentimental favorite Kofi Kingston joined in. After a few more entrants, Joe became the first person eliminated thanks to AJ Styles. After hitting a high-risk move, Jeff Hardy was eliminated by Bryan and then Styles was eliminated by Randy Orton.
Kofi eliminated Orton to bring the final two down to himself and The New Daniel Bryan. The fans were going absolutely crazy for Kofi and everyone deep down started to believe he would win, and a few of those dramatic near falls only made fans believe even more. This sequence between Bryan and Kofi was as dramatic as it gets, but ultimately, Bryan got the win and dashed Kofi’s dreams and the dreams of the WWE universe.
This was a very good pay-per-view as a whole. There were three high-quality matches, including two of the better Elimination Chamber matches in a while. The only couple moments that brought this show down were Riott getting squashed against Rousey and the entire Corbin vs. Strowman debacle. Neither even needed to be on the card in the first place, in all honesty. But those two examples aside, there was nothing else to criticize this show for.
The Boss ‘N’ Hug Connection made history, The Usos won the SmackDown Tag Team Championship in a captivating match, Balor won the Intercontinental Championship, The Man made an action-packed appearance, and Kofi stole the show for the second time in a matter of days even in defeat. There is a lot to look forward to with WrestleMania plans starting to take shape.
The last pay-per-view stop on the road to WrestleMania comes at Fastlane in a few weeks, but Elimination Chamber did a nice job of adding intriguing layers to the buildup towards the granddaddy of them all.