Top 5 Elimination Chamber matches in WWE history
Since debuting at Survivor Series in 2002, the Elimination Chamber has become one of the more popular and destructive matches in the company. The Elimination Chamber pay-per-view is making a return after a year hiatus, and this year’s Chamber match will mark the twentieth time Superstars have stepped into the demonic structure.
In the match’s 15 year history, several marquee names have survived the Chamber Match, won or retained the World title, and went on to headline Wrestlemania.
Superstars like Shawn Michaels, Triple H, John Cena, and Edge have added to their already impressive WWE résumés by outlasting five other guys and winning Chamber matches. The man with the most Elimination Chamber wins is Triple H, who has won the match on four different occasions.
John Cena has a chance to tie this record when he guns for his fourth Chamber victory this week at the Smackdown-exclusive Elimination Chamber PPV.
Let’s take a look at the five best Chamber matches in the history of the company:
#5 No Way Out 2008 (Chris Jericho vs. Jeff Hardy vs. JBL vs. Shawn Michaels vs. Umaga vs. Triple H)
One of the few times a World title wasn’t on the line in a Chamber match, the match at No Way Out in 2008 was for a spot in the main event at Wrestlemania. Jericho and HBK started the match and, for the five-minute period before Umaga entered the match, gave us some outstanding technical wrestling, which is something you don’t see very often in Chamber mathces.
When JBL entered the match after Umaga, the technical wrestling turned into a brawl as the four men beat the heck out of each other. The fifth man in the match was Triple H, who only added to the chaos. Before the sixth and final entrant, Jeff Hardy, could make his way into the match, Y2J hit a Codebreaker on JBL to eliminate “The Wrestling God”.
JBL refused to leave quietly as he grabeed a steel chair and laid out Jericho, Michaels, and Umaga with brutal chair shots to the head. Hardy joined the match and made his impact felt from the beginning, hitting several high impact moves.
Umaga quickly became the target for the other four men left in the match and after a Codebreaker, Sweet Chin Music, a Pedigree, and a Swanton Bomb from the top of a Chamber pod, Jericho pinned Umaga to eliminate “The Samoan Bulldozer”. Jericho was the next to be eliminated after Michaels hit him with Sweet Chin Music and Hardy made the pin.
After several minutes of back and forth action, Michaels was hit with a Twist of Fate by Hardy and with a Pedigree from “The Game” and was eliminated from the match. That left Jeff Hardy and Triple H to battle it out for a spot in the main event at Wrestlemania.
After battling for a little over five minutes, Triple H hit Jeff Hardy with a Pedigree, but “The Charismatic Enigma” kicked out at two. After hitting Jeff with every move in his arsenal, Triple H grabbed a chair to finish the job on Hardy.
However, Hardy countered and attempted to hit Triple H with a Twist of Fate on the chair. When Hardy attempted the move, “The Game” countered into a Pedigree onto the steel chair and covered Hardy for the 1, 2, 3 and a spot in the main event at Wrestlemania XXIV.