Recently, I’ve expanded my Smark Out Moment Royal Rumble Statistics page to include one dedicated to WWE’s Elimination Chamber match. Upon doing some research for these bits of trivia and random records, a few interesting things dawned on me that I never really noticed before.
So before we dive into the Perth predictions and breakdown next week, let’s take a look back at Elimination Chamber’s history and point out a few noteworthy facts that may go unnoticed.
The Logical Best Spots to Win From
Every year when Royal Rumble comes around, a big fuss is made over how a Superstar has a better chance to win if they’ve received a later entry number. Of course, that makes perfect sense. However, it took nearly 20 years for someone to actually win from the #30 spot.
When it comes to Elimination Chamber, though, WWE has been far kinder to the logic of entry placement.
Out of the 32 matches so far, half the winners have come from the #5 or #6 spots—both with 8 wins each, making it a dead-even tie.
That in and of itself is interesting in the sense that the final spot doesn’t even have a 1-point advantage, nor does entry #7 in the one match that took place have any spot on this statistics board. If anything, that kind of makes it seem like being the second-to-last entry might yield a better chance at winning than to be the last one out.
Elimination Chamber is Triple H’s Game
The whole concept of the Elimination Chamber match was brought about via Triple H’s character. Interestingly, he’s also commanded a foothold in the history books as the most dominant winner of this match.
Over the years, he’s stepped inside the cage 6 times and won a whopping 4 of them—more than anyone else.
Want to know one of his secrets? He’s won 3 out of those 4 matches by being…you guessed it…the #5 entrant!
For the record, his other win was in 2005 when he was the third participant, which was the only time someone had won from that spot up until Jack Swagger would win in 2013, leaving Triple H to an island by himself in that distinction.
One Number Triple H Doesn’t Win is Most Cumulative Eliminations
Since he’s walked out the victor more times than anyone else, you’d assume Triple H has been responsible for the most eliminations over time, right? It’d make sense, but you’d be wrong.
He’s not too far off from that record though, placing second in the all-time cumulative eliminations list with a grand total of 7.
Beating him out with 10 over the course of time, though, is Chris Jericho—who has only won 1 Elimination Chamber match back in 2010 to defend the World Heavyweight Championship.
Speaking of Jericho…
Most Appearances in Elimination Chamber Matches
…Y2J has had more chances than anyone to win, and after taking out more people than anyone else, coming up with only 1 victory seems a bit odd.
For anyone wondering, Triple H’s 6 appearances are tied with Kofi Kingston for third place. Second place goes to John Cena with 7 appearances. Meanwhile, Jericho is tied in first place with Randy Orton for appearing in 8 Elimination Chamber matches over his career.
This year, unless something changes to the lineup, Orton is set to compete in the match once more, which will put him above Jericho as the man who has grappled inside the barbaric structure more than anyone.
When it comes to the women’s matches, Liv Morgan has the most with 4 appearances. No one has been in 3 yet, whereas the rest of the field has been spread out over 1 or 2 appearances.
Naturally, Morgan is also set to compete this year, meaning her grasp on that record will remain in tact when she gets bumped up to a fifth participation this year. And if you’re wondering, everyone who is at 2 appearances is either not in the company anymore (like Mandy Rose or Sasha Banks), currently inactive (Alexa Bliss, Carmella, Sonya Deville) or hasn’t qualified and likely won’t (Asuka, Bayley, Natalya, Nikki Cross, Sarah Logan). Morgan is probably holding that record for quite a few more years.
Which Superstar Has Played Double Duty?
On the subject of appearances, only one WWE Superstar has competed in more than one Elimination Chamber match on the same night.
That would be Edge, who stepped into the 2009 No Way Out pay-per-view holding the WWE Championship at the #1 spot and would be the first taken out of the match, ensuring there would be a new champion crowned. Triple H would go on to win that title, only for Edge to then come out later in the evening, attack Kofi Kingston prior to the World Heavyweight Championship match, usurp his spot, and win.
By the way, he won from the #5 spot, further calling back to that being the true lucky number.
This is naturally also the only time both titles changed hands at an Elimination Chamber event. More on that later. But it arguably makes the 2009 No Way Out event one of the most important examples of how Elimination Chamber can truly change the game on The Road to WrestleMania, even when things seem like they’re set in stone.
The 5 Elimination Conundrum
As mentioned, Jericho has the most eliminations over cumulative Elimination Chamber matches. But who has the most in a single match?
Actually, that’s an odd factoid in that two people have the same answer, but they don’t have the same value to their number.
Braun Strowman and Shayna Baszler both have 5 eliminations, holding the records for men’s and women’s most eliminations in a single match.
What separates them, though, is that Strowman’s Elimination Chamber didn’t have the usual number of competitors. That year, there were 7 men in the match with 3 of them starting.
Strowman eliminated every single person (The Miz, Elias – who had entered #7, John Cena, Finn Balor and Seth Rollins) other than the eventual winner, Roman Reigns, who came out at—you guessed it—entry #5, to take out Strowman’s #6 spot.
That means Baszler is the only person with a true clean sweep. Had Strowman beaten Reigns as well, he would have overtaken Shayna’s record and set one that arguably wouldn’t have been dethroned as Elimination Chamber matches are effectively always 6 people.
This means that Strowman has two records to his name that only apply if you notice that it isn’t a traditional match, as he had had the Royal Rumble record for most eliminations for his role in the Greatest Royal Rumble match.
Poor guy can’t get a legit record of eliminations; only the ones with asterisks.
Title Defenses vs. Title Shots
Much like how the Royal Rumble has been used as just a match with nothing on the line, a championship or a title shot for WrestleMania, the rewards up for grabs in an Elimination Chamber match have differed over the years.
To date, it’s still only had two different functional roles: either a championship is on the line, or an opportunity at a championship is up for grabs.
The first 5 were all for titles. In fact, most of the Elimination Chamber matches have been contested for a championship. 67.6% of the time, a belt is the prize, with only 11 out of 34 matches being for a title opportunity (assuming this year’s matches don’t get changed).
Every one of those opportunities, by the way, involved getting a shot at WrestleMania. None of them revolved around winning a chance to fight a champion at another show like Fastlane or a Saudi Arabia event or on Raw/SmackDown.
The number of matches that have involved a chance to challenge a champion has dramatically increased over the years, too. It took 22 matches and 16 years (from 2002 to 2018) to have the first 5 of those title shots established. Then, the next 6 of them have happened since 2020.
This means around that 2018 mark, WWE decided this was a far better strategy than to have the title defended, meaning we can assume this will continue to be the overall trend going forward, even when there are examples that go on the contrary, like Austin Theory defending the United States Championship last year.
Success Rate of Champions Defending Their Titles in Elimination Chamber Matches
When it comes to the champions who do go into Elimination Chamber holding some gold, 11 out of the 23 times, a new champion was crowned. That basically gives champions a 50/50 shot at retaining their titles, making it one of the most brutal things a Superstar can go through on their Road to WrestleMania.
However, there’s a slight caveat to that. In 2 of those instances where a new champion was crowned in an Elimination Chamber match, the belt had been vacated prior to the match starting.
There was no champion defending the World Heavyweight Championship at New Year’s Revolution 2005, nor the Intercontinental Championship at Elimination Chamber 2015.
That means the odds are ever so slightly more in favor of a champion retaining, at roughly 57% of the time.
But while a champion still needs to proceed cautiously in order to retain their title, they have a better track record than the challengers on the flip side.
Success Rate of Superstars Earning Title Shots for WrestleMania
Out of the 11 times the Elimination Chamber victor earned a chance to challenge for a championship at WrestleMania, only TWO have actually gone on to win that title.
The first was Undertaker in 2008, which was the first time this match established itself as a No. 1 Contender’s Match. Obviously, WWE had a plan in mind, executed it to get Undertaker in that match against Edge at WrestleMania XXIV, and pulled it off well.
Triple H that same year didn’t have the same luck. Nor did anyone else up until Bianca Belair won in 2022 to earn the right to challenge Becky Lynch for the Raw Women’s Championship.
Since then, by the way, we’ve only had one other title shot established, wherein Asuka failed to beat Belair that next year.
This year, both Elimination Chamber matches are for title shots. Could we see someone like Becky Lynch win and go on to beat Rhea Ripley? Is Seth Rollins about to lose to his challenger? Or are the man and woman who celebrate in Perth doomed to fall short a few weeks later, based on the event’s track record?
Championships With Zero Representation in Elimination Chamber Matches
Rounding out this list, I had looked at the titles that were involved in the Elimination Chamber in some fashion. Surprisingly, for 34 matches and the option to either fight for the title or for a title shot, some belts just haven’t been in the mix at all.
For anyone wondering, the WWE Championship has the most representation here with 11 (9 defenses and 2 title shots). The World Heavyweight Championship is next with 10 (7 defenses and 3 title shots).
You can see a further breakdown on the full link, but here’s the nitty gritty. All active men’s world titles, along with the Intercontinental and United States Championships, have all been involved in some fashion, as has the unified WWE Tag Team Championship prior to the brand split. But once that brand split happened a second time, only the SmackDown Tag Team Championship has been involved. The Raw tag titles are absent from the mix.
It shouldn’t surprise that the 24/7 Championship or any NXT titles haven’t been involved, nor the Cruiserweight Championship, but when it comes to the women’s division, there’s a glaring omission.
Check off the new/current Women’s World Championship, the Raw Women’s Championship (4 times) and the Women’s Tag Team Championship. Notice the SmackDown Women’s Championship missing from that equation?
It’s not something WWE even notices, I’m sure. I highly doubt there was ever a memo saying “do not include those titles in the future; keep them away from the Elimination Chamber!” But it is odd when these things happen, where the Raw women’s title could be involved in 4 out of the 5 we’ve already seen (and in a way, 5 out of the 6 if you count Raw’s Women’s World Championship in that idea for this year) while the SmackDown women’s roster got shafted over all this time.
Got any interesting bits of trivia about the Elimination Chamber you’d like to share? Drop them in the comments below!
