Last year, we had the first-ever women’s Elimination Chamber match. This year, the Women’s Tag Team Championship will be on the line in the second Elimination Chamber match to feature the women of WWE, as well as the second to feature tag teams.
Clearly, there are other ways to put on an Elimination Chamber match other than to just have the Raw and SmackDown men competing for one of the two world titles or to become the No. 1 contender for the brand that didn’t win the Royal Rumble.
As such, I started thinking of some other things we could see in the future and it got me thinking: “What if the Elimination Chamber was a match put on by the other brands in WWE?”
For this two-part series, I’m going to speculate on how I think WWE would have booked an Elimination Chamber match featuring the superstars of NXT (part 1) and 205 Live (part 2), how the best lineup could have turned out and anything else in the mix.
Obviously, this is all in the name of fun, as it’s not happening this year, so I encourage everyone to chime in with a comment below to give your own suggestions of how you would book this if you were given the keys to the kingdom and how you imagine WWE would go about setting up these matches.
Without further ado, let’s dive into things…
The Women’s Tag Team Championship
First things first, what if WWE opened up this year’s Elimination Chamber for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship to women who are in NXT and NXT UK, rather than just having three teams from Raw and three teams for SmackDown?
Unfortunately, there aren’t six teams of women throughout NXT and NXT UK to be able to actually have an Elimination Chamber of their own. Not even close. WWE would have to pair random people up in ways that wouldn’t make sense, like suddenly trying to say Aliyah is friends with Mia Yim or whatever.
There are two tag teams, though, who could be in the mix come next year, if this carries over into a 2020 Elimination Chamber match for the tag team titles (although I doubt it).
The first team is Io Shirai and Kairi Sane. Those two are best friends who perpetually help each other out and come to each other’s aid, including in this year’s Royal Rumble match. They even have a team name now, according to Mauro Ranallo, in Sky Pirates. Not the best name in the world, but they’re a great pairing and it wouldn’t shock me at all if they were to come up to the main roster together as part of a team.
Then, there is Marina Shafir and Jessamyn Duke. Half of the other set of Four Horsewomen, they are very much tied to each other, with Shayna Baszler acting as the leader of that stable while they distance themselves from Ronda Rousey, who has other goals in mind and is still supposed to be somewhat of a babyface.
Obviously, Duke and Shafir are not at all ready for the responsibility of something like this, but given enough time, months down the road, that is going to change, and I definitely expect them to have those tag titles sometime in 2020 or 2021.
NXT Women’s Division Elimination Chamber Match
The main roster element aside, let’s take a look at the possibilities of the NXT and NXT UK women’s division and how they would be able to put on a solo Elimination Chamber match.
Obviously, one question to bring up is whether this is for the NXT Women’s Championship or for a No. 1 contender’s spot to challenge for that title at TakeOver: New York.
Assuming the belt is on the line, Shayna Baszler is one of the six participants by default, but I’m more interested in figuring out who the other five (or six, if she isn’t in the match) competitors would be.
In my mind, one name that immediately jumps out is Bianca Belair. She’s at the top of the division in all regards except holding that title, she has every right to be in title contention and she has beef with Baszler, so she’d be the go-to pick to win the whole thing.
I’d also say Kairi Sane and Io Shirai would be given options, but they might not want to put both in the match together, as that would potentially set up the two of them to do battle against each other. Picking one over the other depends on the circumstances. If the belt is on the line, Baszler wins, so Sane works better here, in my mind, as another person she can beat. However, if it were to be for a title opportunity, I’d go with Shirai and actually set her up to win the match to challenge Baszler.
Despite her not doing much lately, outside of competing in the Royal Rumble, I’d put Candice LeRae in the mix. Somehow, they haven’t really utilized her since bringing her onto the roster. I expected her to be at the top of the division, but she’s mostly just been hanging around the Johnny Gargano feuds and not doing much on her own. That needs to change and she needs to be booked to be a more serious competitor.
That leaves between 1 and 3 spots, depending on the Sane/Shirai and Baszler situations.
If we’re down to only one person left, I’d opt for Mia Yim. She’s someone they should bank on having a bright future and she’s enough of a veteran that they can trust her in a cage match like this, even though she’s never wrestled in one before. Neither have the other women, so maybe she can help direct traffic.
Assuming Shirai/Sane and/or Baszler are not in this match, though, let’s try to find two more names to fill up the ranks.
There aren’t a ton of other options available, actually. Aliyah is definitely not worth putting in there, Deonna Purrazzo is good, but they haven’t really showcased her yet. Dakota Kai is injured, there’s no way Duke or Shafir would make sense wanting to fight Baszler, and most of the NXT UK women’s division are unknowns to even the NXT fans.
That leaves me thinking one spot goes to either Taynara Conti or Vanessa Borne as fodder to be eliminated in relatively quick fashion, and another spot goes to one of the two other women to be featured in the Royal Rumble: Kacy Catanzaro or Rhea Ripley.
Ripley is in NXT UK and firmly in that brand’s title contention, but she’s still living in Florida and could represent that side of NXT in this match. She’d also be the most powerful woman in the match, since she’s the biggest.
On the flip side, Catanzaro is the tiniest, but she’s also the most athletic and could ride the momentum of her Royal Rumble appearance. Even if she came up short (which she likely would), she could still use an Elimination Chamber experience to give her a true spot on the NXT roster, rather than still being in the Performance Center recruits section of the roster.
By the end of this, the winner depends on the Baszler situation. If the belt is on the line, Baszler wins by likely last eliminating Belair, or they put the belt on Belair to set up a rematch for TakeOver: New York and then move Baszler up to the main roster. If the belt isn’t on the line and it’s for a title shot, Belair or Shirai wins to fight Baszler in New York.
NXT Men’s Division Elimination Chamber Match
Moving over to the men’s side of things, we have a similar conundrum with the championship and Tommaso Ciampa, so the same rules apply here. Let’s give him one of the spots and determine the other five or six people who could be in the mix.
The easy answer is to just go with the five other men in the Halftime Heat special who help make up the NXT Six: Adam Cole, Ricochet, Johnny Gargano, Aleister Black and Velveteen Dream. That’s simple enough, right? Mission accomplished.
But if Ciampa wasn’t in the match and this was to determine who got the opportunity to fight him at TakeOver: New York, we need to pick one more guy to round out the six spots alongside those other five. That is where things get tricky.
My gut instinct says Matt Riddle. He can lose in the Elimination Chamber and it won’t hurt him too badly, or he can actually win it and prove that he’s ready to skip past the trial period and go straight from his feud with Kassius Ohno into a title match.
For that matter, Ohno could be the go-to guy for that final spot. Maybe he’s willing to put his career on the line in order to convince William Regal to give him a chance, or something alone those lines. That would be an interesting story to track.
Keith Lee is an option, but I don’t feel like they’re willing to push him that far quite yet. I have him about on par with Dominik Dijakovic, who also could be a possibility, but only if they were okay with him losing. That might not happen, as he’s only lose to Tyler Bate (random as hell) in the Worlds Collide tournament and been dominant elsewhere.
Someone like Kona Reeves isn’t getting the spot, nor do I think they’d want to put another member of The Undisputed ERA in the match alongside Adam Cole. They’d want Cole to be the featured player of that stable all by himself.
If it weren’t Riddle, Ohno or Lee, I think the final spot would go to someone from NXT UK or even 205 Live as another byproduct of the Worlds Collide tournament, if not just to introduce some new blood into the brand and get fans used to the idea of cross-promotional rosters.
Cedric Alexander would be amazing in this match against those other five opponents. Tyler Bate would flourish, too. Pete Dunne is busy with the United Kingdom Championship, so I’d rule him out. Jordan Devlin has a shot, for sure, as does a guy like Dave Mastiff, or maybe Tony Nese or The Brian Kendrick.
Again, as far as the winner would go, it would depend on the title situation. Ciampa leaves with the belt if it’s on the line and if it isn’t, and we’re establishing a No. 1 contender, it has to be either Johnny Gargano, Ricochet (dropping the North American Championship to move up the ranks) or Matt Riddle.
What do you think would happen in this theoretical scenario? Would you like to see an NXT Elimination Chamber match go down? Who would the participants be? Keep the discussion going in the comments below!
