This year’s Elimination Chamber is emblematic of WWE’s current creative malaise.
WWE has felt stagnant for the better part of a year now. Wrestlers feel trapped in their pre-ordained spot on the card, and all of the stories feel like we’ve seen them in some form before. The 2025 edition of Elimination Chamber gave WWE a shot in the arm leading into last year’s WrestleMania, thanks to John Cena’s heel turn. While that didn’t turn out how most would’ve liked, it was a much-needed jolt of energy on the road to WWE’s biggest show of the year.
This year’s edition of the show doesn’t have anything like that.
Women’s Elimination Chamber
The women’s chamber match felt much more open than the men’s match coming into the show. Four former world champions entered the match, five if you count Raquel Rodriguez’s NXT Championship reign. Kiana James was an interesting wildcard. She was mostly benign here. James opened the match with Tiffany Stratton, and while she showed flashes of elite athleticism and improved ring psychology, she’s still super green, and a lot of stuff involving her was slow and sloppy.
Rodriguez was the star of the match even though she came out last. She’s always been a great powerhouse, and multi-women matches like this let her showcase her strengths. Rocky pinning James and Asuka at the same time was a great spot, and didn’t really make the latter two look bad. Stratton put in a good showing. She shook off the ring rust and took some punishing spots into the pods and chains. The women overall did a much better job than the men selling the brutality of the chamber structure and match.
Rhea Ripley remains the most popular woman on the roster, possibly the most popular wrestler in the promotion in general, and she was the right winner here. Ripley and Jade Cargil should be a fun match of powerhouses if they can get on the same page before Mania.
Final Grade: ** 3/4
Becky Lynch vs. AJ Lee for the WWE Women’s Intercontinental Championship
This matchup between two legends of different eras of women’s wrestling was simply not good.
AJ Lee was one of the best wrestlers of the diva era of WWE. It’s been incredible to see her back on our television screens, sporadic as it’s been, and that won’t change anytime soon. That being said, the ring rust is real, and she isn’t shaking it off quickly. On top of that, there doesn’t seem to be much in-ring chemistry between these two women. They tried to tell a pretty classic wrestling story, but it just wasn’t clicking. Striking exchanges looked too soft, and a fair bit of the grappling exchanges were clunky.
Their acting was good throughout the match; Lynch had some killer facial expressions, and they did some fun stuff outside of the ring. Unfortunately, much of the match stayed in first gear. Lee won with a Black Widow, which both women make look good enough. Lee winning the Intercontinental Championship is somewhat of a shock. It could give her a chance to work with young wrestlers who idolized her growing up; hopefully, these two women are done with each other.
Final Grade: * 1/4
CM Punk vs. Finn Balor for the World Heavyweight Championship
Before getting to the match, the story coming into this match has to be addressed. An essential part of the story is how much it would suck if Finn Balor took CM Punk’s spot against Roman Reigns for WrestleMania and how bad it would be for business. The whole story makes Balor look bad. It also makes his subsequent feud with Dominik Mysterio and the rest of Judgement Day worse as a result.
The match itself was good, the best of a bad night of matches, although it wasn’t as good as their match in Belfast. Punk received a hero’s welcome and an awesome 90s Chicago Bulls-inspired entrance in his hometown. The result of the match was a foregone conclusion, but both men did their best to put on a show. Balor attacked the mid-section throughout the match, and Punk sold it really well. Balor sold a GTS like death and fell out of the ring in a particular match highlight.
Punk ultimately put Balor away, cementing his spot in the main event of WrestleMania. His match with Reigns is one of the biggest they could do, but I’m not particularly interested in seeing that match. Balor/Mysterio is a much better and more interesting matchup, but the end of this feud hurt his image.
Final Grade: *** 1/4
What’s In The Box?!?
Two things can be true at once.
Danhausen is a perfect fit for WWE if he’s used in certain ways. He can print money with his merch, and he has a certain dry humor that fits well in WWE’s world. If they limit his ring time, don’t overdo his schtick in backstage segments and use him as a comedy foil, unlike what he wanted in AEW, then he’ll be fine.
At the same time, this debut was dogwater. The box was stupid and goofy from the beginning, but not in an endearing way. You couldn’t debut anyone important that way, so Danhausen was a good fit in that regard, but five minutes of nothing and then him leaving was a bad move. There were a few cheers of recognition at the beginning, then silence for 95% of the debut, and then boos. That’s because the whole thing sucked.
I think he’ll be fine, and his usage on RAW is a nice start, but that doesn’t change how much of a wet fart this segment was.
Men’s Elimination Chamber
This match was doomed from the start.
There were three exciting choices to win, who had no shot to actually win, two obvious choices and then there’s Logan Paul. This might have been Logan Paul’s worst big match performance since joining WWE. They slotted him into a role reserved for Bron Breakker or Bronson Reed, and he does NOT fit that mold. Giving him three eliminations against the actual interesting options was a complete miss, booking-wise. He didn’t show anything in the match to deserve that kind of booking protection and could’ve hurt Evans with a bad botch on the Paulverizer. His slingshot lariat looked bad in this match as well.
This barely felt like a chamber match; this could’ve been any random six-way match on weekly television. None of these men was at their best, either, and plenty of things were sloppy if not outright botched. Rand Orton gave the best performance of the men in the match, putting on the same Orton performance you’ve seen for years now. The Seth Rollin’s reveal was the obvious, boring and correct choice, but didn’t add much to the match.
Orton and Cody Rhodes finished the match out, but Drew McIntyre ruined their match-within-a-match. Orton won the match in a fine finishing sequence that should’ve been foreshadowing towards a three-way at Mania, but to be a fan of McIntyre is to know only pain.
Final Grade: * 3/4
Final Thoughts
Nearly two weeks after WWE held their final PLE before WrestleMania, time hasn’t softened the rough edges of this show. The build leading up to Elimination Chamber didn’t do the show any favors. For the first time in a long time, the in-ring product couldn’t make up for the subpar storytelling/booking. WWE didn’t allow the wrestlers much time to do that, though, with only 85 minutes of a roughly 165-minute runtime featuring actual wrestling.
This show cemented the four world championship matches for WrestleMania this year. Unfortunately, none of them really stand out or spark much interest. The matches should be good, but the build to this year’s WrestleMania is noticeably worse than in previous HHH-led years.
Final Grade: **
Featured Articles
Featured Writers
