Can you honestly say you’re surprised? WWE presented their annual “Elimination Chamber” pay-per-view on Sunday night in Minneapolis, Minnesota and “The Viper” Randy Orton walked out of the cage as the reigning WWE World Heavyweight Champion. With the way WWE booked the build-up to the show, with Orton losing in singles matches to nearly everyone in the Chamber match itself, coupled with the rumors of Orton vs. Batista at WrestleMania XXX, I expected that much. What I didn’t expect, although I probably should have, was that WWE would throw in a little extra “screw you” to the fans on the way to reaching that result.
The finish of Sunday’s Elimination Chamber main event saw interference from the “Director Of Operations,” Kane. He came out to make sure The Wyatt Family, who had just attacked John Cena and cost him his chance at winning, would leave the ringside area. Bryan attacks Kane, which was a distraction that allowed Orton to hit him with his RKO finisher. Many would assume this would lead to Orton getting the victory, however that apparently wasn’t good enough for WWE.
Nope, WWE wanted to go one step further. They decided to have Bryan kick out of that situation, giving fans false hope that they would actually shock everyone and switch the title to Bryan, which would ultimately give them the WrestleMania XXX main event that they have been clamoring for. As a little bit of added insult-to-injury, they had Bryan roll Orton up out of nowhere with one final false-finish. After this series of events, they doubled back to the originally teased finish, which saw Kane distract Bryan, setting him up for the RKO and pin from Orton.
If you search through all the b.s., you can find some positives included in Sunday’s main event. Outside of the fact that up until the finish the match was pretty solid, they did show signs that they realize a straight singles match between Batista and Orton should not serve as the main event to this year’s WrestleMania. On commentary, they went out of their way to point out that Bryan’s crowd reactions rival Cena’s. In booking that “extra screw you to the fans” style finish, they pointed out that at the very least they know what the fans want. If they’re still teasing it, unless they’re really are just saying “screw you” to the fans, then they will probably end up giving it to them at some point.
With the Bryan-Kane feud (or Bryan vs. The Authority feud, however you choose to look at it) continuing, there is one easy scenario that would make sense and give everyone what they want. They have pointed out recently that there are several times that Bryan will work more than a single match on a given show. They’ve also pointed out that The Authority are trying to “save Bryan from himself” by limiting the amount of matches he has. With Bryan vs. Triple H being a rumored match for WrestleMania XXX, maybe they will book an angle that would see Bryan get the right to be added to the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match with a victory. Basically put, if Bryan beats HHH in their match at WrestleMania XXX, he would be added to the Batista vs. Orton main event later that night. They could always book a “here’s what happens if you lose” scenario to even things out and make the match with HHH that much more interesting as well.
One thing remains clear after Sunday night: there’s no way WWE can book a regular Batista vs. Randy Orton singles match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship as the main event of WrestleMania XXX. If they do, the fans are clearly going to crap all over that match. The fans in Minnesota let their voices be heard loud and clear on Sunday night during the Batista vs. Alberto Del Rio match, culminating with the hilarious “Boo-Tista” chant becoming the number one worldwide trend on Twitter. They boo’d Batista and chanted for everything under the sun during the match, even going as far as to turn Del Rio into a wildly popular babyface for one night only.
WWE has gone out of their way to book Batista in short segments that were clearly designed to give the fans very few opportunities to boo him. They did the same thing with the way they laid out his match on Sunday night, and the fans still found a way to let it be known, with passion I might add, that they want no part of a Batista main event at WrestleMania. Hopefully WWE got the message. Hopefully they aren’t teasing all of this stuff and at the end of the day, still planning on going into WrestleMania XXX with another “extra screw you to the fans” booking plan in mind. Only time will tell. For now, it’s time to get excited for tonight’s loaded edition of WWE RAW. There’s really no way that they can screw this show up.
I’ll be back later today with another editorial on the Elimination Chamber show. The next one will be a much more positive piece, as I’ll be writing about The Wyatt Family vs. The Shield match from Sunday night. Until then, I’m curious to hear what you guys thought about Sunday’s main event. Leave your feedback in the “Comments” section directly below. You can also do me a small favor and add me as a friend over at Facebook.com/MattBooneWZR.
