Top 5 Elimination Chamber Matches
One of the key things about keeping a themed pay-per-view interesting to the fans is that the matches these wrestlers have need to be exciting enough to keep the fans coming back for more the following year, regardless if the matches become more brutal, shocking and entertaining to the audience.
This is the fundamental reason why many pay-per-views named after a match don’t have much longevity to the WWE Universe. The likes of Fatal 4-Way and Bragging Rights (which was essentially a copy of Survivor Series where Raw and SmackDown would go head to head in a series of matches where the winners would win a trophy and bragging rights), have come and gone since Elimination Chamber became a regular fixture on the pay-per-view, which goes to show that every concept match doesn’t necessarily work as a pay-per-view as well.
The reason why the Elimination Chamber has become a permanent fixture in the last 9 years is that it is simply a destructive and unpredictable match, where wrestlers put their bodies through a match that doesn’t exist anywhere else throughout the year.
This Sunday is no different, as with the exception of another historical night for women’s wrestling, it’ll still be six tag teams fighting each other inside the sadistic structure, in order to becoming WWE’s first ever Women’s Tag Team Champions.
Another reason why this pay-per-view has stood the test of time is due to the quality of the matches it has produced. Whilst it has produced a few unmemorable matches, a small handful of matches have become classics and stand out heads and shoulder from the rest.
#5 Elimination Chamber 2011, World Heavyweight Championship match - Edge, Big Show, Drew McIntyre, Kane, Rey Mysterio, and Wade Barrett
While every wrestler helped contribute to making this a solid match, it must be addressed that Edge and Rey Mysterio made this into an instant classic. The match started with the two, and even though the giants of Big Show, Kane, Drew McIntyre and Wade Barrett all made their impact throughout their match, all of them would be swatted away one by one, until the match was down to the same two wrestlers.
Both wrestlers would end up trading finishers and still finding a way to kick out of them. It would ultimately take a spear from Edge in mid-air to Mysterio to keep the belt around Edge’s waist heading into WrestleMania.
However, the victory proved to be bittersweet for Edge, as a few months later, even though he retained the title successfully against Alberto Del Rio at WrestleMania XXVII, he would be forced to relinquish his title due to a real life injury that would ultimately end his career. If there was such a thing as a ‘swan song’ in wrestling, then it would be hard to dispute that this match was Edge’s.