I feel bad for my future wife. As much as I will undoubtedly love her with all my heart, the WWE will always have a special place in there thay may cause me to make some interesting decisions. Ok, perhaps I'm exaggerating, but I have to question myself after stealing my cousin's laptop on a family reunion to get the Elimination Chamber results and to not disappoint my fans here at MouthoftheSouthShore.com. I will return home on Tuesday, but going 4 days without and update, I couldn't live with that. So here I am in Pompano Beach, stealing time just to get some thoughts out there. Hopefully, the effort doesn't go unnoticed.
Given that there weren't many matches scheduled for the card, I figured there would be surprises. To say that I was right would be an understatement. Surprise number 1 was the simple fact that the WWE championship match was first. Usually that signifies a successful title defense, as logic dictates that the biggest surprises be saved for the end of the broadcast. Of course, if you were thinking logically, you never would have seen these results coming. The only thing I successfully predicted was that Dibiase would pin Orton. I didn't think it would be the first pin, but considering it look like Legacy is splitting and perhaps Cody and Ted will face their mentor at Wrestlemania, that part made sense. I didn't like that Sheamus wasn't in the final 2, but then again, who would have thought he whould be in this position 6 months ago? I'm sure fans were mad that one of the "regular title holders" would take the title after Sheamus was eliminated, but the audible Vince McMahon pulled after the match was interesting to say the least. Apparently, working as the boss' hitman has its perks, as Batista got an impromtu title match with the new champ, John Cena, and beat him! So Batista is now champion of Raw. Of course, this means Cena's match with Batista will be for a title at Wrestlemania and before I even read the rest of the results, I knew the Smackdown chamber would produce the man who will inevitably face Edge in the other title match.
The other interesting thing to consider is that unless something completely unprecedented happens, Triple H will NOT be in a title match at Wrestlemania. I wonder if he'll face Sheamus to give the newbie some credibility or if he'll be more involved with Shawn Michaels which I'll talk about more later.
The Intercontinental match happened.......that's all I have to say about that. I didn't see the match so I don't know if it was great, but did anyone honestly expect a title change? Kane is there to make guys look good and I hope he did that for the young Welshman.
The next part i was not happy with. The divas are already a laughing stock. Raw runs an angle where Maryse talks about putting on a good show and not being juvenile like the Divas on Smackdown. There was always the possibility of Maryse trash talking in French while being nice in English, but even still, I was hoping for a quality title match. Apparently, viewers didn't eve GET a title match. They got another excuse to expose two 30 year olds acting like high schoolers. Those juveniles took on the two contenders for the Divas title and Maryse "screwed" Gail in a match that means absolutely nothing. When will they have their title match? It's been like 6 weeks since Melina got hurt and still, there is no champion. If they are going to do the title match on Raw, I feel like that's pretty disgraceful to those women to not even get their title match on Pay Per View so they can instead get this rubbish. Then again, the Rumble match was terrible too so maybe I should just give up all hope for women's wrestling in the WWE.
Next was something I will have to find on youtube later, as Miz got to cut a promo. As much as I don't love promos on Pay Per Views, when Miz talks, you don't want to miss it. Of course, this chat led to MVP getting a U.S. Title shot tonight which adds another match to the card and will take up some time. Of course, part of the interview was to talk about NXT because it starts Tuesday and this is "market the hell out of the new show" time.
Speaking of overmarketing, apparently the paying audience got a pretty useless Regal segment talking about NXT and Edge interrupting and spearing Regal. It seemed like there was some humor there, but until I see the footage, I can't know. I do sense that they are trying to get Edge over as a face but not too "Cena-ish" as such. I like that direction and I'm looking forward to Edge's face run. I think it was also mentioned that Edge will decide on Raw tomorrow who he'll face at Wrestlemania. I'm still pretty sure it'll come from the Smackdown main event.
Before that main event, there was the U.S. title match, which I understand was pretty good. Miz got the victory when his fat partner got the best of MVP's fat partner and Big Show was able to help his buddy retain his gold. I'm glad that happened as I still think it would be cool to do a 2 falls match at Wrestlemania perhaps where the U.S. and Unified Tag gold is on the line. It seems like something of that nature is in the works as both men came out for their match with their tag partners, so it's clearly and important part of the story.
The main event seemed pretty exciting, though when I was reading it, I got kind of a Royal Rumble feel in that Punk got to do his thing early and get on the mic a lot in a match but probably talked too much and got himself eliminated somewhat early in the match. I was somewhat surprised that Rey was eliminated before Morrison but I'm guessing that Morrison had some cool spots. From what I understand, there was a spot where Undertaker was slammed into a pod and it exploded which, if I can find on youtube, will be at the bottom of this article. The final 2 ended up being Taker and Jericho as expected, but apparently they did some great stuff together. As I predicted, HBK made his return from his short hiatus to superkick Taker, giving Jericho the win and the title. This pretty much clinches Edge vs. Jericho for the World Heavyweight title at Wrestlemania. As much as I thought this was a predictable outcome, it was done well so it still has some intrigue. I do wonder what Punk will do at 'Mania, as he can't do Money in the Bank again......if it even happens. HBK might get Taker now, but that still remains to be seen. I'm guessing he got in the chamber through the broken pod, but I thought he might have to sneak in when someone exits. Either way, that's a match on my "must see" list.
The Wrestlemania picture is becoming clearer after this Pay Per View. While we don't know anything for sure, I think it's safe to say that we'll get Cena vs. Batista for the WWE title, Edge vs. Jericho for the World Heavyweight belt, Randy Orton vs. either Dibiase, Rhodes, or both, and perhaps HBK vs. Taker 2 with possibly HHH added in. There's still plenty of uncertainty, but after a show with 2 title changes, the landscape is certainly very different. It seems like I missed a pretty good show, but hey, I'm with family! I'll catch what I can as soon as possible, but for now, I'm going to resume enjoying the golden rays of the Florida coast!
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