WWE Elimination Chamber 2017: Feuds with Biggest WrestleMania 33 Implications

WWE Elimination Chamber 2017 will surely deliver great action and plenty of drama on Sunday night.

It's also guaranteed to push the development of plenty of WrestleMania 33 storylines for the SmackDown brand. 

Since the brand split, SmackDown has trumped its counterpart Raw on Monday nights in terms of storytelling and delivery. While Raw may boast a more talented lineup and bigger names, SmackDown has used its deep roster to its fullest. That will be on display Sunday night, with a match card featuring three women's matches, a tag team turmoil matchup featuring six teams and the Elimination Chamber match for the WWE World Championship. 

This is the Elimination Chamber card as of Friday morning:

• Mojo Rawley vs. Curt Hawkins (Kickoff Match)
• Dolph Ziggler vs. Apollo Crews and Kalisto 
• Nikki Bella vs. Natalya
• Tag Team Turmoil for the SmackDown Tag Team Championships, featuring American Alpha, The Usos, The Ascension, The Vaudevillains, Heath Slater and Rhyno, and Breezango 
• Randy Orton vs. Luke Harper
• Becky Lynch vs. Mickie James
• Alexa Bliss vs. Naomi for the SmackDown Women's Championship
• Elimination Chamber match: John Cena vs. AJ Styles vs. Bray Wyatt vs. Dean Ambrose vs. The Miz vs. Baron Corbin for the WWE Championship

Which matchups will have the biggest impact on The Showcase of the Immortals? Here's a look at three contenders. 

Becky Lynch vs. Mickie James

Here is SmackDown's women's division's biggest question: Who will be Alexa Bliss' next true challenger?

Naomi is a good performer, but she's not a true contender for the SmackDown Women's Championship. The winner of the Becky Lynch vs. Mickie James matchup at Elimination Chamber is likely next in line to challenge Bliss at the Show of Shows. 

While Lynch has been a mainstay in the blue brand's championship scene, James is the true wild card here. A five-time champion, James' decision to come back to WWE wouldn't have happened without a chance to headline the division she once ruled. 

There's little chance that Nikki Bella challenges for the championship, following a report that the Total Divas star will take time off after WrestleMania 33, per Ryan Satin of Pro Wrestling Sheet.

Lynch may be the next biggest name in the division, but the Lynch-Bliss matchup seems dull after being seen so many times. 

A returning James turning on the woman she supposedly backs would be a fresh matchup. It would also allow Bliss to gain valuable experience against a ring veteran like James. 

Elimination Chamber Match: John Cena vs. the Miz

The Elimination Chamber match will determine a lot of SmackDown feuds heading into WrestleMania season. First, we'll find out the future direction of current champion John Cena. 

It's widely suspected that Cena will drop his title at Sunday's pay-per-view, but where he goes from there is up in the air. 

The smart money, according to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (h/t 24Wrestling.com), is on WWE pitting Cena versus The Miz at WrestleMania 33 alongside their significant others, Nikki Bella and Maryse. The rumor has been out for a while now, and WWE has even starting setting the table for this matchup, showcasing the Cena-Miz rivalry in a new video featuring Corey Graves. 

While hitting the reset button on this feud would surely give many WWE fans a heartburn, Bleacher Report's own Alfred Konuwa, writing for Forbes.com, gives a compelling reason why WWE would want to travel down this path again: ratings. 

"As TV revenues continue to pull their weight for WWE, a WrestleMania spotlight for its reality TV sub-genre makes more business sense than meets the eye," Konuwa writes. 

All four are part of WWE's reality TV juggernaut on E!, which the company surely hopes will bring in new viewers by putting all four in the match together. It helps that Cena and The Miz are adept at selling themselves (and the company) on mainstream TV. Cena has done just that on NBC's The Today Show, and The Miz has done the same most recently on ESPN's SportNation. 

Elimination Chamber Match: Dean Ambrose vs. Baron Corbin

Say what you will about The Miz, but the A-Lister elevated the Intercontinental Championship to the point where the title was a coveted prize. 

Since The Miz dropped the title to Dean Ambrose on the Jan. 3 episode of SmackDown, the title hasn't mattered much in the eyes of WWE. 

Ambrose has defended the title once in that time, a timeframe that included one of WWE's preeminent pay-per-views, the Royal Rumble. Ambrose, one of the competitors in Sunday's Elimination Chamber match for the WWE World Championship, won't defend his title for a second straight pay-per-view. 

It's likely the Lunatic Fringe won't defend his title until WrestleMania 33, and a perfect opponent would be his Elimination Chamber counterpart, Baron Corbin. 

WWE has given a huge push to Corbin of late. He's steadily becoming the best heel on the SmackDown roster and has stood tall against most of the foes he's faced in the ring. Feuding against one of the company's top draws in Ambrose is the next logical step to moving Corbin into the main event. 

As B/R's Kevin Berge recently wrote, "Ambrose and Corbin make for solid adversaries, with both driven to steal the show on a night that will be littered with part-time talent in top matches."