As it stands after Royal Rumble, Ronda Rousey and Brock Lesnar have punched their tickets to WrestleMania. They get to pick the champion of their choice to fill two of the four world title matches and we’ll likely find out who their targets are by the end of tomorrow’s episode of Monday Night Raw.
And just like that, it’s already time to look ahead to the next premium live event, Elimination Chamber. In the blink of an eye, it will be here, as February 19th is just around the corner. That means WWE needs to start building that card immediately.
Before some of it is announced, let’s play into the speculation. We don’t even know how many Elimination Chamber matches there will be, nor do we know the details. But what should happen and what will happen, logically?
It’s time to toss out some predictions and some fantasy booking!
Men’s Elimination Chamber Match: No. 1 Contender to WWE Championship
I’m not even going to acknowledge the idea of Roman Reigns defending the Universal Championship inside the cage, as it seems clear he’ll face Seth Rollins in a rematch. Likewise, I don’t see the value in Bobby Lashley putting his title on the line when he has no contender.
Brock Lesnar is guaranteed to pick The Tribal Chief as his opponent for WrestleMania. Duh. So that leaves one more realistic option for the men’s match, which is to determine who fights Lashley for the WWE Championship.
As I see it, if we’re limited to the current Raw roster and no outsiders will take part and nobody will shift from SmackDown to the red brand (like Big E doing the opposite this week), that leaves these candidates to compete, realistically—and even some of these are a stretch:
- AJ Styles
- Apollo Crews
- Austin Theory
- Cedric Alexander and Shelton Benjamin (not at all realistic)
- Damian Priest
- Edge
- Finn Balor
- Gable Steveson
- Kevin Owens
- Matt Riddle
- The Miz
- Omos
- Randy Orton
- Rey Mysterio
Over half that field has to be taken out, since there are only six spots.
If this is my fantasy booking, I’m picking Styles, Theory, The Miz, Edge, Balor and Owens. That’s an even 3 heels, 3 babyfaces, with the biggest names checked off that wouldn’t be potentially used elsewhere (Riddle and Orton wrestling as RK-Bro, for instance).
What I think WWE will do is something similar, but a little off. I don’t anticipate Edge competing here at all, and I can’t remember Owens ever appearing on a Saudi Arabia card. If you take those two out, they’re likely replaced by Omos and Priest.
No matter what, if we get anything similar to this, I’d imagine there are only two names to pay attention to. If he’s in the match, Gable Steveson wins. Since so much is put on Ronda Rousey and Brock Lesnar saving the day with the WrestleMania card in WWE’s eyes, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Steveson is hot-shotted to the title picture against Lashley.
But a more realistic pick is Styles, and he’s the one I’d go with, too. It’s not at all what I would be booking if I had full control over the roster, but it’s the best option with what WWE’s working with right now.
Women’s Elimination Chamber Match Options
This is tough. Does Rousey choose Becky Lynch or Charlotte Flair? Whoever she doesn’t choose, do they defend their title to keep this separate from the style of the other match, or is this a No. 1 contender’s match, too?
Let’s assume Rousey picks Lynch. In that case, Flair absolutely can’t defend her title and then establish a challenger after that. There just aren’t enough women on SmackDown to go through five others and have a sixth person who sits that out and is worthy of a title shot that matters, nor is it a good idea to have Flair retain and then just fight someone she’s already fought inside the cage.
If Rousey picks Lynch, the Elimination Chamber should be setting up Flair’s opponent, and it should be cross-branded to allow for more star power. My ideal scenario would be Bianca Belair, Liv Morgan, Rhea Ripley, Sasha Banks, Naomi and a wildcard. You already know it’ll be a babyface who wins, so change it up and have all babyfaces in the match, making it so the fans don’t know who the obvious pick is.
Do qualifying matches to maximize TV time and value. Have Naomi beat Sonya Deville for her spot to finish that feud, for example. Ripley can beat Nikki A.S.H., Belair can beat Doudrop or Carmella/Vega, etc.
The wildcard should be Bayley, Asuka or someone from NXT (Raquel Gonzalez or Io Shirai, most likely). Any of those four women would have more momentum and buzz on her side, which would be interesting.
Then, I’d go with Belair winning. WWE already dropped the ball with Ripley by continually having her lose to Flair in every scenario possible. It’s past time for her to beat The Queen, and it doesn’t feel like it would be a big deal to build up to that right now. So let’s just go with Belair to rehab her from losing to Lynch. Someone like Gonzalez can be called up to the main roster post-Mania instead and the others can find their way elsewhere.
If Rousey picks Flair, then Belair is certainly facing Lynch at WrestleMania and this all becomes a little less interesting, since nobody would trust that someone else would win a No. 1 contender’s match. At that point, you might as well just have Belair win with only the Raw side and put in there Ripley, A.S.H., Morgan, Doudrop and either Alexa Bliss or Tamina.
As far as predictions go, I’m thinking this is more of what WWE will do, wherein if Rousey picks Lynch, the Flair contender’s match will just be SmackDown’s stars. That will see Aliyah, Naomi, Natalya, Sasha Banks, Shayna Baszler and Shotzi competing. Since that ignores Belair entirely, I don’t think that’s what we’ll see, so lean more heavily toward some switch-ups.
What are your thoughts on the potential Elimination Chamber matches? Drop your ideas in the comments below!
