WWE Elimination Chamber: 14 Things I Loved and Hated

Last night marked the final stop on the road to WrestleMania 28. Both CM Punk and Daniel Bryan managed to retain their titles in their respective chamber matches, solidifying their spots on the grandest stage of them all.

Alongside the two namesake matches, there was a Divas Championship match, John Cena and Kane's final battle and a "bonus" United States Championship defence.

Thanks to the low expectations I held before the event, I thought that the PPV was quite entertaining, despite being a little predictable. Here's the things I loved and hated about this year's event.

Minor Irritations

Sloppy wrestling in the opening few minutes between Punk and Kofi—I count at least three or four botches.

I'd never noticed before just how similar Kofi Kingston and CM Punk's styles were.

The acting standard of the cameraman who Jericho bumped into on his way out of the chamber.

Teddy Long failing to turn the new coalition of Alberto Del Rio, Mark Henry, David Otunga and Christian into a tag team match.

Booker T's concern for David Otunga's caffeine intake.

The non-appearance of Kharma after the Diva's Championship match.

Santino not pouring his raw eggs into a pan to fix himself some scrambled eggs.

Wade Barrett's entrance theme being terrible (still).

The amount Cena versus the Rock got slammed down our throats at every opportunity. They're wrestling at WrestleMania? This is news to me.

Justin Gabriel's hair always looks like he's just woken up.

The ever blossoming romance between Jack Swagger and Vickie Guerrero. I'm going with the couple name "JaGuer"—any better ideas go in the comments.

The fact that I wore my Broski T-shirt, yet Zack Ryder did not even make a cameo.

The amount of times that the announcers use the word vintage.

Kane's suffocate-y claw thing.

Minor Pleasures

How outrageous Dolph Ziggler's entrance attire was.

CM Punk and Kofi Kingston's double cross body.

How the doors of the pods were so brutally used on numerous occasions.

Jericho putting Kofi over in his own special way.

How the Miz's "knockout" expression is similar to Bubba-Ray Dudley's.

Beth Phoenix's homage to "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, and use of the insult "coconut head" to refer to Tamina's father's feud with Piper.

How almost every person watching will have been on the edge of their seat during Santino's entrance to see who would attack him, only to be disappointed and then un-disappointed.

Cody Rhodes' beautiful, I repeat beautiful Moonsault onto Wade Barrett.

Big Show climbing into Daniel Bryan's pod (this is where the SmackDown chamber started to look up).

Santino's sock puppet getting the biggest pop of the night.

Cena specifically taking out the Spanish announce table hit a nostalgic nerve.

Michael Cole referring to the things inside an ambulance as "goodies".

Watching a wheelchair used as a weapon.

Realising that Kane put a whole new meaning on "push Zack Ryder" last week.

Hated: Whoever Booked the Card

Going into this PPV, I was most looking forward to the Raw Chamber and I felt it was silly for the WWE to give this away so early on in the show.

On top of this, John Cena's match got routinely pushed into the main event slot. Does the WWE understand that they're not going to lose any revenue by allowing him on second or third?

On top of this, the United States Championship "bonus match" was higher up the card than both of the main title matches which was a little bit absurd.

I think if the WWE had held a poll prior to the event, then at least twice as many people would have said the Raw chamber was the most anticipated match of the night, rather than the usual Cena drivel.

Here's how I would have booked the night:

1. SmackDown Chamber

2. Bonus match—if you really insist on not announcing a match before a PPV

3. John Cena versus Kane

4. Diva's match

5. Raw Chamber

Hated: Predictability

Usually I write a predictions article prior to every PPV event with my writing team The NWO of B/R, however it seemed very unnecessary to do so for Elimination Chamber.

Why? Because every damn predictions article on B/R will have given you almost exactly the same predictions; Phoenix, Cena, Bryan, Punk/Jericho. Do the readers of B/R want to read the same four or five names over and over again for the same event? No they don't.

So why was this PPV so predictable? One word; Logic.

Thanks to lack of coverage on WWE TV, I only found out yesterday that the Rock will be facing John Cena (please recognise the irony there), therefore Cena's feud with Kane had to end here. The only way for it to end was for good to prevail (I vomited a little in my mouth writing those last few words), meaning Cena would pick up the victory.

Now we move onto the Raw chamber. Punk and Jericho has pretty much been set in stone since the itBegins2012 promos at the back end of 2011, so it was obvious that one of those two was going to emerge victorious at Elimination Chamber.

D-Bry's current gimmick meant that he was always going to pick up a win somehow—the question was how. Props to WWE for how they booked the Big Show's elimination, as that made D-Bry's victory a little more believable.

As for the Diva's match, there was never going to be a title change on a relatively build-up-free feud. The only person who is taking that belt off of Beth is Kharma.

This was the most predictable PPV of the year, and it sort of makes you wonder how the WWE expected people to fork out their hard earned cash to see it. Thankfully, living in England, Sky Sports allowed me to avoid that decision.

Loved: Great Showings from the Miz and Kofi Kingston

For me, Kofi and the Miz were the stand out performers in the Raw Chamber. Kofi dutifully fulfilled his role as "spot monkey", including an early vault over the turnbuckles, a double springboard cross body between him and Punk, and of course his massive cross body off of the top of the pod.

I also thought that his tornado DDT on Dolph Ziggler epitomised the brutality of the Elimination Chamber.

The Miz lasted a lot longer than I thought he was going to. Prior to the show, I assumed that he'd be one of the first in and the first out—not dissimilar to what we actually saw of R-Truth. He technically made it to the final two, and put on a great final five or ten minutes with CM Punk.

After his monumental botch with R-Truth during the six-pack challenge a couple of weeks back, it was good to see the Miz getting back on track.

With both of these stars short of anything to do at the moment, I would more than welcome a feud between them leading into WrestleMania—both are prime candidates to be involved in the return of the Money in the Bank ladder match.

Hated: Dolph Ziggler's Push Dead and Buried?

After a landmark 2011, Dolph Ziggler's 2012 has not really lived up to expectations. Despite having a title match at two PPVs in a row, he has been booked fairly weakly in both and it seems to be counteracting the fantastic work which he did last year.

Admittedly, Ziggler was selling like a king last night—always to the perfect degree, but I couldn't help but notice that every time he made it into the ring, he was thrown out again within seconds. My question is why? Ziggler could have worked his magic in the chamber but instead he was an afterthought.

All credit to Dolph, he took some massive bumps and looked strong when he first entered (although doesn't everyone?), but I was expecting the WWE to do a lot more with him in this particular match.

Hopefully he will be given a good feud leading into 'Mania, that is if he isn't one of the participants in the Money in the Bank match.

Loved: Jericho's "Injury" Prevented Overly Predictable Ending

OK so I know I've said in a previous slide that this PPV as a whole was ridiculously predictable, however the end of the Raw chamber wasn't as predictable as I first thought it would be.

When Jericho went down to that Punk kick, I was convinced that he was playing possum and would run in at the end of the match for a cheap win. But of course that moment never came. Jericho seemed legitimately injured, and Punk retained his title—we didn't get the straight up Punk or Jericho win which we all expected.

These two are almost definitely set to square off at 'Mania, and the fact that Jericho didn't officially lose to Punk will be the fuel to the fire that sets this rivalry going. Jericho will also likely bring up the fact that they scored two falls each in the chamber.

Loved: Stability for the Big Titles

Over the past year, the two big titles in the WWE have been passed around the locker room nearly as much as Melina.

There have been some unbelievably short title reigns including Christian's two-day reign, and the likes of CM Punk, Big Show, Dolph Ziggler and Rey Mysterio not even leaving the arena before they dropped their belts.

With this in mind, the belts have finally found a little stability. Both champions retained in the chamber, meaning that Punk and Bryan have held their titles for three months and two months respectively. There's nothing wrong with lengthy title reigns, and I like the fact that Creative are leaving the belts on their top guys for more than just a month or so.

Many fans need to get over the idea of "a title needs to change hands at every PPV", because this is simply not the case.

Loved: A Respectable Showing from the Women of the WWE

After months of dealing with Kelly Kelly, the Bellas and Eve, we finally got a chance to watch some real women's wrestling. Not Diva's wrestling, women's wrestling.

The mental side of this match was great as well. Beth using the name "coconut head" referring to Roddy Piper smashing a coconut over Jimmy Snuka's head, and then also mocking the Snuka taunt were both big ticks in my book.

Another big plus was Beth's superplex on Tamina—how often do you see those in women's matches? Not very often at all.

A great match between two talented female wrestlers, I think it's a shame that Tamina is likely to get swept back under the carpet when Kharma makes her full return.

Loved: The Formation of Johnny Ace's New Coalition

While some thought that this skit should not have happened at a PPV, I was quite happy with it on the whole.

When the original conspiracy was buzzing about, I was begging for a heel stable to form to take on the WWE, but it never came about. Now we have three of the big heels of the company and David Otunga working together towards the same cause.

Maybe we'll get Team Teddy versus Team Johnny at WrestleMania in a winner takes all elimination match or something similar, or maybe this will fizzle out and die when each of the members gets their own feud. Either way, I am looking forward to seeing these Superstars working together in a good, strong heel stable.

ADR came out without Ricardo Rodriguez—possibly due to his popularity at the Royal Rumble which has arguably turned him face. Del Rio's mic skills seem to have improved a little and it will be interesting to see how he works as a part of this group.

Oddly enough, I think Otunga will be a key member of this group. WWE has been playing on his legal background a lot in the recent past, and we all know how the likes of Mark Henry and Christian like to find loopholes which they can exploit to their advantage.

With Raw tonight and a live SmackDown tomorrow, it could be a week of shake-ups in the WWE.

Hated: The First 10-15 Minutes of the SmackDown Chamber

There was nothing appealing about the start of the SmackDown chamber match. The wrestling was fairly bland, there were no wow moments, everything was pretty slow tempo and the crowd were not into it at all.

I was pretty tired when this match started (being around 2:30 AM in my native England), and it took a lot of strength to keep my eyes open through those early minutes (but believe me, I was glad that I did stay awake when the match did get going).

Wade Barrett and the Big Show probably weren't the best pairing to start off with, but looking at the other four it is difficult to pick an alternative pair.

Thankfully, this passed.

Loved: Cody Rhodes and Wade Barrett's Love/Hate Relationship

I loved the interactions between these two during this match. One minute they'd be working together as a cohesive unit and the next they'd be beating the hell out of each other. This is exactly what the Elimination Chamber is all about. While it may be useful to team up on someone else now and again, the reality is that only one person can win.

These guys have had to work together a lot as a tag team over the past couple of weeks, and they do work quite well as a unit, however to watch them stab each other in the back at a moment's notice encapsulated their heel personae.

Their double-suplex on the Big Show looked awesome and was easily one of the spots of the night.

Loved: The Way in Which the Big Men Were Eliminated

One of the key issues going into this match was how the two big men were going to be eliminated. It was pretty obvious that Santino wasn't going to take Khali out with a Cobra, and we've seen in the past that D-Bry can't really pull off the LeBell lock on the Big Show.

Show taking out the Great Khali was a good idea. The way it was implemented wasn't amazing but it got the job done.

I don't think anyone was particularly pleased with the idea of the Great Khali using up one of the spaces in the chamber, so I doubt many tears were shed when Show hit a big spear for the one-two-three.

Big Show's elimination came via the medium of a duo of Beautiful Disasters and a DDT from Cody Rhodes, followed by Barrett's big elbow from the top rope. Having two people working together to eliminate him was a smart way of taking the second big man out of the match—making the Daniel Bryan victory a lot more feasible.

Loved: Santino Marella

There was probably only a fine minority who actually thought that Santino would make it to the Elimination Chamber. Following his win in the Battle Royal on SmackDown, loads of rumours and theories were buzzing around the IWC as to why the WWE may have put Santino in this match, and how they could replace him.

But props to WWE Creative, they stuck to their guns and it was awesome.

I'll admit, I was probably one of the biggest sceptics when Santino last eliminated David Otunga to win a place in SmackDown's chamber match—I even wrote an article proclaiming how terrible the WHC match would be. I'm glad that I was wrong.

Santino was a great addition to the match and there were points when I was genuinely convinced that he was going to win. When he hit D-Bry with the Cobra I was almost on my feet in awe.

The crowd at the event were absolutely electric—like myself and everyone else in front of their TVs, they genuinely believed that Santino could pull off the ultimate upset.

Elimination Chamber 2012 belongs to Santino Marella.

Hated: The Bonus Match

I'm not even going into detail about the match itself.

Seriously WWE, bonus matches need to stop. Swagger vs Gabriel made no logical sense and to be honest, no real effort had gone into booking it.

I'm fed up of the WWE throwing together random matches at the last minute just to fill time. Why didn't we see Hunico versus Ted DiBiase or The Usos versus Primico—you know, matches that have had even the smallest iota of build up.

Last year's Elimination chamber bonus match included the Royal Rumble winner Alberto Del Rio against Kofi Kingston—why didn't they do this again and put Sheamus in a match against someone?

With buyrates constantly declining, WWE needs to take a good hard look at how they do things for PPVs and need to understand that if they don't advertise all of the matches on the card, then people just aren't going to bother.

Sort it out WWE.

Hated: The Ending to the Kane/Cena Feud

There were so many ways which they could have gone with this match, but instead they went for the plain old boring John Cena win and good prevailed over evil.

I understand that this feud needed to finish so that Cena could focus on the Rock and his WrestleMania showdown, which leads me to believe that this feud should have started much sooner—although I can't say that I've enjoyed it on the whole. There's been too many cringeworthy horror movie style moments and it all wore a little thin on me to be honest.

After last Monday they could have brought Zack Ryder or Eve into this match in some capacity to open up some new doors, but they didn't. We got the vanilla ending.

Admittedly there were some brutal moments in the match itself, but I wasn't really satisfied. The final spot was so clearly done onto padding that I couldn't take the ending seriously.

Cena will move onto the Rock, and Kane will probably engage in some sort of feud with the ailing couple that is Zack Ryder and Eve Torres.

Why was this match even the main event? Oh right, John Cena was in it. Of course.