Examining Best Booking Options for Tag Team Elimination Chamber Match

When WWE plans out its route toward the Tag Team Championship inside the Elimination Chamber, it has to remember the importance of simplicity in good booking.

With the Elimination Chamber's first foray into tag team wrestling, things can get crowded and jumbled in a hurry. A multitude of moving parts makes for a challenge. Done well, though, this history-making matchup can be a thriller.

The ideal strategy for this clash inside the steel is to keep the field a manageable number, work to make inclusion in the bout an achievement in itself and focus on making the victors look like survivors. 

WWE will have just a few weeks to accomplish that. As the company noted on its official website, the Elimination Chamber is coming back on May 31. The lineup isn't set, but the announcement on WWE.com tells us that both the "WWE Tag Team Championships and the newly vacant Intercontinental Championship will be defended inside the infamous structure."

How exactly will that work? Those matches have historically featured six singles competitors. Adjustments will have to be made to accommodate the tag team division.

Word is, WWE isn't yet sure how it wants to handle this. According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (h/t Wrestling Inc), WWE is considering putting six teams into the match with both members of each squad being put in the same pod. The report also states that officials are discussing how many wrestlers to cram into this thing.

That's where we start.

How Many Teams?

A six-team field would be too crowded and too messy. The action inside the Elimination Chamber will be hard to follow with 12 men involved.

To cut down on the chaos and to allow each wrestler more space to work with, the ideal number is three teams. 

Each member would be separated. One partner may be battling in the ring while the other is still waiting to be released from the pod. That allows for easier pacing and more manageable spots. Producing a six-team war is a headache waiting to happen.

Besides, the division doesn't have the depth to justify six squads. Do fans really want to see Los Matadores or Curtis Axel and Damien Sandow get involved here?

Who to Include

The New Day is the no-brainer inclusion. They will either still be champions after Payback or contenders in line for a rematch. Presumably, their feud with Cesaro and Tyson Kidd will still be going on as well.

Continuing that rivalry and escalating it inside the Elimination Chamber would follow a natural narrative progression. 

Things between them should get more intense in the next few weeks. It would then make more sense for the rivals to battle in such a dangerous environment.

The third duo should be Luke Harper and Erick Rowan. 

They represent the biggest threat to whoever is champion. WWE would have to get them some big wins in a hurry, but their imposing auras and nasty in-ring style make it easy to believe they could win here.

That style is also a good fit for the Elimination Chamber. 

The Prime Time Players or The Lucha Dragons are alternative options. Titus O'Neil and Darren Young have been booked so poorly, though, that it will be hard to see them as contenders right now. Sin Cara and Kalisto have a better record but aren't as made for the brutality of the steel structure as Rowan and Harper are.

Make Them Earn Their Spot

To better the division as a whole, WWE should make the challengers win their way into the Elimination Chamber. Just announcing the teams who will battle there is missing out on potential drama.

Book qualifying matches in the weeks leading up to the Elimination Chamber event.

Should Cesaro and Kidd lose at Payback, make them prove that they deserve another shot. Have them knock off The Prime Time Players on Raw.

Rowan and Harper haven't been partners for some time. Fans need a reminder of the destruction they can cause together. Let them take on The Lucha Dragons and leave one-half of the team in need of medical attention.

Credit: WWE.com

Alternatively, WWE could hold a mini-tournament to decide who gets into the chamber. That allows more teams a taste of the spotlight and adds to how prestigious getting this opportunity is.

The Numbers Game

A key advantage of having three teams compete in the chamber is that there will inevitably be situations where wrestlers are outnumbered.

Credit: WWE.com

If Cesaro and Harper begin the match, for example, and Rowan is the first man out of the pod, things get interesting in a hurry. Cesaro has to survive against the two big bruisers until Kidd enters, which may not happen right away. 

Or else Big E and Kingston could eliminate Rowan. Then Kidd is next out of the pod, only to find himself in a precarious situation right away.

The rules should be that both members of each team have to be eliminated. That allows someone to lose their partner and make a valiant run in spite of that a la Kane in the TLC match from Raw in 2002. 

Who Should Win?

This is WWE's chance to truly establish The New Day as a formidable team. Maybe they cheat along the way, but making it through the gauntlet that is this match would be an impressive feat. 

Kingston and Big E can double-team their way to a win, manage to thwart a potential comeback from Cesaro and outsmart Rowan and Harper. 

A victory here is no ordinary victory. Being the first of its kind will make it stand out. And if defeating Randy Orton and Roman Reigns in a Handicap match in early May had Kingston and company celebrating for hours, it's hard to imagine what kind of gloating these men would do if they make it through this bout with the gold in hand.

Their win forces Cesaro and Kidd to regroup and climb back up the tag team division, which is an interesting story in itself. Rowan and Harper would have reason to be enraged, taking it out on The Lucha Dragons or some other babyface team.

The members of The New Day, meanwhile, get to sit atop the throne, looking far more mighty than when they entered the steel structure.