Just like Uncle Dave or Uncle Shaun before me, Uncle Sam's gon' sit you down and tell you about his passion for professional wrestling while your mother's regaining consciousness upstairs. Yeah, crack open a beer. Sure, twelve's plenty old enough.
Y'see, son, your dear ol' Uncle Sam has large collection of wrestling DVDs and blu-rays and, uh, do you know what a laserdisc is? No, you're right - I suppose that would be before your time. And, y'see, here's the problem: Uncle Sam is a rampant capitalist ****e that can't keep his money in his pocket long enough for it get settled in. This means that the collection is getting added to every day, or near enough - thanks to silvervision.co.uk's low, low prices.
Here's where you come in. Huh? Yeah, snort some coke. Twelve's plenty old enough. Anyway, my collection is so large that I haven't got round to watching even half of them. I've started some, sure, but the Batista: I Walk Alones of this world are getting neglected - and that's just not fair, is it? So I thought, just so I have an excuse to watch these fucking things, I'd come round once a week and - once I've peeled myself off your mother - tell you about them. Sound like a fair deal? No, you probably don't need to go to the hospital.
The first, I'm afraid, isn't Batista: I Walk Alone (we'll get to that sooner or later) but this:
The Elimination Chamber! Fifty miles of square feet! Ten meters of intestinal fortitude! Designed to shorten careers!
No, don't worry - I'm sure Edge will be wrestling for a good while yet.
Take yourself back in time to February 2011. A frighteningly different time. The Miz was WWE Champion. Randy Orton was still doing his patented methodical stomps. CM Punk was wearing ugly black and yellow t-shirts. Alberto Del Rio had just won the Royal Rumble. And, oh yes, The Rock had just come back six days earlier and compared John Cena to a particular breakfast cereal. And that joke would never get old.
Let me ask you a question; how do you kick off a pay-per-view? You want to give the fans a good opener, right? Throw out some big names, some stellar performers to get the place rocking? Well, how does Alberto Del Rio versus Kofi Kingston sound? Adequate? I was hoping you'd say that! Just why ADR and KKK were feuding escapes me - probably because Alberto was being a bit of a dick and Kofi was all, "Hey, stop being a dick." I like to think it was the first round in an ongoing race war.
As race wars go, this one was rather tame. Not a bad match by any means. Some nice spots. I find it difficult not to get drawn in just a little bit when Kofi goes for Trouble In Paradise, even though his weirdly oriented pecs creep me out. The "ADR doesn't get any reaction" squad would be ironically silenced by the pops and chants that he gets here. Booker T - a man ahead of his time - was doing his best to pull the curtain back on professional wrestling by continually pointing out that Kofi had a better chance of winning if he just punched ADR indefinitely rather than running around and taunting. Well, Booker was right - Kofi stopped punching ADR, Ricardo interfered, and Kofi ended up tapping out harder than the cast of Stomp.
An adequate match that lived up to its adequate billing. A match that will go down in history as "Oh yeah, I sort of remember that one." ★★★
The next match smashed adequate to pieces. The next match shat upon adequate. The next match knocked adequate unconscious and locked adequate in an electrified cage in its basement. The SmackDown elimination chamber, ladies and gentlemen, for the world heavyweight championship. Of the world. Edge, the defending champion, versus Rey Mysterio versus Kane versus Drew McIntyre versus Wade Barrett versus a mystery opponent. Turns out it was The Big Show.
Edge and Mysterio start and finish together. Memorable moments include:
Edge retains after what is probably one of the better elimination chamber matches. Great ending, great spots and everybody had a significant part to play. This match actually had me thinking Drew McIntyre might have a future (despite him nearly killing Rey Mysterio). These days, he probably dreams of storylines with Kelly Kelly. ★★★★
Alberto Del Rio came out afterwards to attack Edge. Christian returned, after having his pectoral muscle injured by Del Rio, to help out his buddy, and got a surprisingly huge reaction. Del Rio got laid out by a Killswitch, then a Spear, and Christian massaged his own pecs to show what good shape they were in. Now that's a mark out moment.
Next up we have a tag team match. Which I skipped. Obviously. ★★★★★
I'll skip the pages of tasteless jokes I have about Jerry Lawler (seriously, pages). They're probably alright to use now that he's recovering, but you never know. Jerry Lawler - a saint of a man with no bad attributes whatsoever - was to face The Miz for the WWE Championship. Jerry, whose mother had died just that week, had already won approximately eleventy-billion championship belts, but never the WWE title - nor had he ever wrestled at WrestleMania. Two birds, one stone.
This was during the full-blown Michael Cole, professional Miz fan period - he was basically shrieking like a banshee the entire match, and it still made more sense than whatever Booker T was saying. The match was as entertaining as anything else you might watch on a Sunday. Take that, Songs Of Praise. But seriously, it was pretty bloody terrific. Lawler was in charge of most of the offense and The Miz took most of the bumps. That's not to say that Lawler couldn't have taken as many bumps as he liked though, perfect god of a man as he is. The crowd, typically, were heavily behind Lawler and were as pleased as I was when he chucked Miz over the announce table at Cole. Jerry only had to throw some punches or drop some knees to get big pops - and that's the beauty of it.
Sorry to spoil it, but Jerry Lawler never won the WWE title. He did wrestle at WrestleMania, mind you, in a five star classic. This match pales in comparison, hence why it only gets: ★★★★
You think the WWE Championship not being in the main event is a CM Punk thing? You really are young. The main event, for a place in the WWE Championship match at WrestleMania, is John Cena versus R-Truth versus John Morrison versus CM Punk versus King Sheamus versus Randy Orton.
Yeah, R-Truth. Not even "Little Jimmy" R-Truth - the R-Truth that danced and rapped. He got eliminated in about a minute.
John Morrison provided the big spots, as you would expect, and seemed to genuinely hurt his knee toward the end. Sheamus was, well, Sheamus and Orton was, well, Orton. I mean, they were good. Punk got caught in the pod door, got RKO'd, got eliminated, got reinstated by Hornswoggle, then cut his arse cheek open. Seriously.
There were two real options in this match - John Cena because he's John Cena, and John Morrison because he had a long-running rivalry with The Miz. Once Morrison was eliminated by Punk, they didn't hang about - Cena eliminated Punk to win about twenty seconds later. ★★★★
You know what would have been cool? If Lawler went to WrestleMania to defend against Punk. Or if Morrison went to WrestleMania to challenge Miz. I can't deduct points for it not matching up to my depraved fantasies - it's the same reason I have such difficulty watching pornography.
Verdict: Well worth £6.99. As Booker T might put it, "This show's gon' be like a beef stew with meat and carnage and-- AHAHA! YEAH!" ★★★★
Y'see, son, your dear ol' Uncle Sam has large collection of wrestling DVDs and blu-rays and, uh, do you know what a laserdisc is? No, you're right - I suppose that would be before your time. And, y'see, here's the problem: Uncle Sam is a rampant capitalist ****e that can't keep his money in his pocket long enough for it get settled in. This means that the collection is getting added to every day, or near enough - thanks to silvervision.co.uk's low, low prices.
Here's where you come in. Huh? Yeah, snort some coke. Twelve's plenty old enough. Anyway, my collection is so large that I haven't got round to watching even half of them. I've started some, sure, but the Batista: I Walk Alones of this world are getting neglected - and that's just not fair, is it? So I thought, just so I have an excuse to watch these fucking things, I'd come round once a week and - once I've peeled myself off your mother - tell you about them. Sound like a fair deal? No, you probably don't need to go to the hospital.
The first, I'm afraid, isn't Batista: I Walk Alone (we'll get to that sooner or later) but this:
The Elimination Chamber! Fifty miles of square feet! Ten meters of intestinal fortitude! Designed to shorten careers!
No, don't worry - I'm sure Edge will be wrestling for a good while yet.
Take yourself back in time to February 2011. A frighteningly different time. The Miz was WWE Champion. Randy Orton was still doing his patented methodical stomps. CM Punk was wearing ugly black and yellow t-shirts. Alberto Del Rio had just won the Royal Rumble. And, oh yes, The Rock had just come back six days earlier and compared John Cena to a particular breakfast cereal. And that joke would never get old.
Let me ask you a question; how do you kick off a pay-per-view? You want to give the fans a good opener, right? Throw out some big names, some stellar performers to get the place rocking? Well, how does Alberto Del Rio versus Kofi Kingston sound? Adequate? I was hoping you'd say that! Just why ADR and KKK were feuding escapes me - probably because Alberto was being a bit of a dick and Kofi was all, "Hey, stop being a dick." I like to think it was the first round in an ongoing race war.
As race wars go, this one was rather tame. Not a bad match by any means. Some nice spots. I find it difficult not to get drawn in just a little bit when Kofi goes for Trouble In Paradise, even though his weirdly oriented pecs creep me out. The "ADR doesn't get any reaction" squad would be ironically silenced by the pops and chants that he gets here. Booker T - a man ahead of his time - was doing his best to pull the curtain back on professional wrestling by continually pointing out that Kofi had a better chance of winning if he just punched ADR indefinitely rather than running around and taunting. Well, Booker was right - Kofi stopped punching ADR, Ricardo interfered, and Kofi ended up tapping out harder than the cast of Stomp.
An adequate match that lived up to its adequate billing. A match that will go down in history as "Oh yeah, I sort of remember that one." ★★★
The next match smashed adequate to pieces. The next match shat upon adequate. The next match knocked adequate unconscious and locked adequate in an electrified cage in its basement. The SmackDown elimination chamber, ladies and gentlemen, for the world heavyweight championship. Of the world. Edge, the defending champion, versus Rey Mysterio versus Kane versus Drew McIntyre versus Wade Barrett versus a mystery opponent. Turns out it was The Big Show.
Edge and Mysterio start and finish together. Memorable moments include:
- Drew McIntyre tossing Mysterio through a pod and nearly breaking Mysterio's neck.
- Drew McIntyre shoving Wade Barrett through a pod and not nearly breaking Wade's neck.
- Drew McIntyre being in a match for the world title.
- Everyone hitting their finishers on Big Show to eliminate him.
- Kane chokeslamming everybody.
- Edge and Mysterio, as the last two, trading finishers and getting nearfalls.
- Mysterio hitting Edge with the 619, only to get speared out of the air when he went for a splash (and subsequently pinned).
Edge retains after what is probably one of the better elimination chamber matches. Great ending, great spots and everybody had a significant part to play. This match actually had me thinking Drew McIntyre might have a future (despite him nearly killing Rey Mysterio). These days, he probably dreams of storylines with Kelly Kelly. ★★★★
Alberto Del Rio came out afterwards to attack Edge. Christian returned, after having his pectoral muscle injured by Del Rio, to help out his buddy, and got a surprisingly huge reaction. Del Rio got laid out by a Killswitch, then a Spear, and Christian massaged his own pecs to show what good shape they were in. Now that's a mark out moment.
Next up we have a tag team match. Which I skipped. Obviously. ★★★★★
I'll skip the pages of tasteless jokes I have about Jerry Lawler (seriously, pages). They're probably alright to use now that he's recovering, but you never know. Jerry Lawler - a saint of a man with no bad attributes whatsoever - was to face The Miz for the WWE Championship. Jerry, whose mother had died just that week, had already won approximately eleventy-billion championship belts, but never the WWE title - nor had he ever wrestled at WrestleMania. Two birds, one stone.
This was during the full-blown Michael Cole, professional Miz fan period - he was basically shrieking like a banshee the entire match, and it still made more sense than whatever Booker T was saying. The match was as entertaining as anything else you might watch on a Sunday. Take that, Songs Of Praise. But seriously, it was pretty bloody terrific. Lawler was in charge of most of the offense and The Miz took most of the bumps. That's not to say that Lawler couldn't have taken as many bumps as he liked though, perfect god of a man as he is. The crowd, typically, were heavily behind Lawler and were as pleased as I was when he chucked Miz over the announce table at Cole. Jerry only had to throw some punches or drop some knees to get big pops - and that's the beauty of it.
Sorry to spoil it, but Jerry Lawler never won the WWE title. He did wrestle at WrestleMania, mind you, in a five star classic. This match pales in comparison, hence why it only gets: ★★★★
You think the WWE Championship not being in the main event is a CM Punk thing? You really are young. The main event, for a place in the WWE Championship match at WrestleMania, is John Cena versus R-Truth versus John Morrison versus CM Punk versus King Sheamus versus Randy Orton.
Yeah, R-Truth. Not even "Little Jimmy" R-Truth - the R-Truth that danced and rapped. He got eliminated in about a minute.
John Morrison provided the big spots, as you would expect, and seemed to genuinely hurt his knee toward the end. Sheamus was, well, Sheamus and Orton was, well, Orton. I mean, they were good. Punk got caught in the pod door, got RKO'd, got eliminated, got reinstated by Hornswoggle, then cut his arse cheek open. Seriously.
There were two real options in this match - John Cena because he's John Cena, and John Morrison because he had a long-running rivalry with The Miz. Once Morrison was eliminated by Punk, they didn't hang about - Cena eliminated Punk to win about twenty seconds later. ★★★★
You know what would have been cool? If Lawler went to WrestleMania to defend against Punk. Or if Morrison went to WrestleMania to challenge Miz. I can't deduct points for it not matching up to my depraved fantasies - it's the same reason I have such difficulty watching pornography.
Verdict: Well worth £6.99. As Booker T might put it, "This show's gon' be like a beef stew with meat and carnage and-- AHAHA! YEAH!" ★★★★
