Sunday’s WWE Elimination Chamber pay-per-view appears to have been at least a little bit divisive. While it was extremely predictable in terms of winners, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially as the Road to WrestleMania approaches its endpoint and the company needs to shore up plans for the final card.
The show was definitely entertaining, and large stretches of it were very fun. Even the Ronda Rousey contract signing, although it began disastrously, got really good when they got to the “Rousey murders some fools” fireworks factory. And while the company’s biggest champ was elsewhere, promoting a different company, WWE’s hottest act was in the Elimination Chamber, wrecking shop.
Braun Strowman made good on his promise to have his opponents receive those hands, and he made WWE history by becoming the first person to eliminate five opponents in one Elimination Chamber match. Previously, no one else had ever eliminated three in one match before, a distinction that was held by Goldberg, Undertaker, and … Carlito. Of course.
In a normal Elimination Chamber match, of course, that would have meant Strowman ran the board and won the dang thing, but since Seth Rollins was added to make it the first-ever seven-person Chamber. So … womp womp, I guess.
I don’t know about you, but for me, that men’s Elimination Chamber match on Sunday just breezed by. It’s possible I just like watching Braun Strowman ruin people’s lives. Who knows. But this year’s Chamber set another interesting distinction: it was the longest Chamber match in history. Yes, there was another pinfall involved, but considering how close some of those eliminations came to one another, it doesn’t seem like it would have made much of a difference.
But it did! This year’s Chamber match clocked in at 40:15 from bell to bell, which beats by nearly a minute the previous longest EC match, the 39:20 affair that went down at Survivor Series 2002. By comparison, this year’s women’s Elimination Chamber match lasted 29:35. So there’s your mark to beat for next year, everyone!
(I’m telling you, it really didn’t feel that long at all to me.)
