A – Excellent
B – Good
C – Mediocre
D – Avoid
Release Date: 6th May 2012
Available From: www.wwedvd.co.uk
Price:
DVD £ 12.99
Blu-ray £ 13.99
Format Reviewed: DVD
(Also Available on Blu-ray)
What It’s About:
WWE’s 2013 Elimination Chamber event from the New Orleans Arena in New Orleans, Louisiana on February 17th 2013. Featuring the Elimination Chamber match to determine the number one contender for the World Heavyweight Championship at Wrestlemania 29 and the hotly anticipated rematch between the Rock and C.M Punk for the WWE Championship on the final stop on the Road to Wrestlemania.
Strengths:
As always with the pay-per view DVD and Blu-Ray reviews we start with the best match on the card. Dolph Ziggler vs Kofi Kingston is a short but very sweet thrill ride which should have been booked in advance and promoted like it was the making of Dolph Ziggler instead of being shoddily thrown onto the card. Boasting non-stop action and very strong finish, the pair have ‘main event’ written all over them here and Jerry Lawler gives up glimpses of the old ‘King’ on commentary. Big E. Langston’s beat down of Kingston after the match has ended is well received by the audience who chat ‘One More Time!’ It seems Kingston’s coming heel turn is one that will be given the thumbs up by the WWE Universe.
The WWE Championship Match between the Rock and C.M Punk is superior to their Royal Rumble clash in every way. Granted, it does have its fair share of rest holds to allow the Rock to re-gain his breath in order to execute the remainder of the match but the action is livelier and makes more sense than it did in their premier encounter. The cheap shots at Paul Heyman on commentary are unnecessary and the second referee seems more bothered about his fallen comrade than tending to the action which suggests that Punk would have been champion again had the referee been conscious, but the match is very fine indeed with several tense near falls. JBL rightly states that the Rock came back because he loves the business and not because he needs the money, which he doesn’t. The only gripe with the match is that WWE make Punk look like a coward which they should have refrained from doing. Going into a WrestleMania 29 match with Undertaker, Punk should have looked as strong as he could have in the ring. Interestingly enough, in the pre-match video package it highlights Punk stealing the WWE Championship from the Rock proclaiming that he never lost it and is still the champion. Yet when Punk brings the Championship out it still has the Rock’s name plate on it. If Punk truly believed he never lost the gold and it was still his, surely it would have made more sense for WWE to have changed the name plate back to Punk to make his convictions more real. After all, the Rock would change the WWE Championship 24 hours later anyway.
Antonio Cesaro vs The Miz for the WWE United States Championship has to be Cesaro’s best defence of the fallen Championship since he captured the Championship on August. It’s now a fact that WWE should allow Cesaro to eliminate the tedious rest holds from his repertoire as its killing his character, except from that and the dumb disqualification ending which should have been executed on the pre-show of the Royal Rumble and replaced with the pinfall finish that the pre-show match was granted, the match was respectable in every other area including an electric beginning. As it wore on, the pair traded some classy counters and Miz sold the shoulder injury well for most of the match. The ending of the match does no favours for the Cesaro character and their last match on pay-per view should have had a definitive ending, apart from that both men deserve plaudits for this effort.
The six man tag team match pitting the Shield against John Cena, Sheamus and Ryback is surprisingly capable considering that Cena and Ryback make up two thirds of the Shield’s opposition. Even Cena and Ryback’s best efforts to ruin the Shield’s image with their no selling the effects of the Shield’s moves cannot ruin the match. There’s a good looking triple suplex at the beginning of the match performed by Cena, Sheamus and Ryback, Roman Reigns looks like a true star and his spear on Sheamus through the barricade is very good indeed. Just a point here though; WWE are stripping all the realism of what the Shield are meant to be away from the trio by giving them entrance music which a renegade faction invading the company wouldn’t have and the camera trained on the trio, knowing exactly where they are going to enter from in the crowd should have been shaky and not kicked in until two thirds of the way through the Shield’s entrance to make it look like the cameraman didn’t know where they were coming from. All in all though it’s a good effort by the Shield and surely they’re bound for WWE’s main event scene. Looking back at the match now though, it’s clear the seeds for Ryback’s heel turn were sewn here; amusingly WWE shoot themselves in the foot with the pre-match video package. Showing the Shield run down John Cena saying, “John Cena, in your world there are no consequences! You can do or say what you want!” The comment is both spot on and shows how easy Cena has it in WWE.
Alberto Del Rio vs Big Show for the World Heavyweight Championship, mercifully, is the pair’s final pay-per view outing for the Championship. The reality is, Del Rio and Big Show could never top their Last Man Standing effort on Smackdown where Del Rio dethroned Show, so it made sense to cut this whilst it was just about ahead. In the ring the match is held together by Del Rio and pretty decent moves as Big Show never seems to do anything of note to elevate his opponent. Yes my minions, Big Show has reverted back to his lazy ways in the ring. Close near falls make sure this stays watchable until its conclusion. I do wish though, someone backstage would have a word with Alberto Del Rio. For someone who is meant to be a face, he wrestles purely as a heel with Ricardo interjecting himself in the match at will.
The Elimination Chamber Match to decide who goes to WrestleMania 29 and faces Del Rio for the World Heavyweight Championship has both good and bad moments. The latter can be perused through in the next section. Beginning the match, Chris Jericho and Daniel Bryan exchange stylish looking moves and its clear the pair could have an exciting upper mid card feud to ease Bryan back into the main event scene; Jack Swagger impresses upon his entrance with a dominant display which gets him across as a serious contender. It’s just a shame that WWE don’t book the rest of the match around Jack Swagger; Kane and Daniel Bryan’s face off and offence against each other is surprisingly pleasing. There is real potential for a Daniel Bryan heel turn when Team Hell No finally do split, but then again, who wants to see another Kane vs Daniel Bryan feud?; Randy Orton predictably gets the biggest reaction when his chamber opens bombarded with a mixture of cheers and jeers. It’s clear to anyone with hearing by now that the audience want an Orton heel turn and it’s amusing to hear them try to turn him with their reaction. The danger is, when Orton does turn, he will receive even more cheers than he does now; Mark Henry receives a favourable reaction throughout the match and upon his elimination. The crowd applaud Henry. Maybe the tides are turning for one of the most useless entities in wrestling, though throwing Randy Orton through the chamber glass does give Henry presence in the match and looks very neat; Chris Jericho and Jack Swagger’s double suplex on Henry executed on the chamber floor looks nothing short of excellent and Henry has to be given a huge amount of credit for allowing both men to haul his frame to a solid surface knowing the damage it could do to a big man like him; the final chain of events between Orton and Jericho are nothing short of sublime.
Kaitlyn vs Tamina for the Divas Championship is better than every Divas Championship match of pay-per view in the latter part of 2012. Both women put their all into the match and Kaitlyn is showing real potential even if she does seem to be wrestling in evening attire. The match unfortunately plays out to almost silence but the action makes sense and looks good. Whilst it wasn’t the beginning of a resurgence for the Divas Division it’s something for WWE to work on when they finally get around to it.
As for the DVD extras: Team Rhodes Scholars vs Brodus Clay and Tensai from the Elimination Chamber pre-show is noting to shout home about but has to be included here for one reason. I’ve been complaining since the release of Night of Champions 2012 that WWE should be putting their pre-show matches on the releases and up to this point there’s been no movement from WWE. Now though they have finally relented in what one hopes will be a regular occurrence. For once WWE have given us what we’ve asked for. Cherish it because it’s not every day this happens. On the subject of the match, Clay is as bad as ever and Team Rhodes Scholars should have gone over, that way it would have set up the match that never happened at WrestleMania 29 and held Rhodes and Sandow in a good stead going forward.
Matt Striker interviewing Jack Swagger and Zeb Colter after Swagger’s Elimination Chamber victory is worth its inclusion. Swagger is eerie in his silence and whilst Coulter seems like he’s trying to remember the script given to him by WWE, he pulls most of it off with aplomb. Confidence is the key to success and Colter has it in abundance. His comment of “When you tell the truth, you’re going to create controversy” is refreshingly enlightening for WWE.
Weaknesses:
Unusually there are only a limited number of faults with Elimination Chamber 2013, so please don’t bombard me with the criticism that the detail is sparse because there really isn’t much to complain about.
Kane and Daniel Bryan’s little skit in the back is both unfunny and repetitive. There’s nothing here that we haven’t seen since the formation of the team and it should have been cut altogether. WWE and Kane do Glen Jacobs no favours by reminding us that during his 15 year spell in WWE, ‘The Big Red Machine’ has never headlined WrestleMania bringing to the forefront how little Kane has really done in his years in WWE in the way of contributing anything truly meaningful. The signs are clear that Team Hell No needs to split, the only problem WWE face now is the Championships around their waist. I’m afraid with no suitable teams in a position to carry the division, WWE are going to have to make a choice. Sacrifice Daniel Bryan’s career and allow him to fall into the comedy category that Santino heads up, which Bryan is becoming comfortable in or sacrifice the WWE Tag Team Division. It’s sad that this could all have been avoided.
The Elimination Chamber Match is slightly disappointing. For all it’s good points highlighted above there is an abundance of humdrum filler to pad out what has to be one of the most uneventful Chamber matches in history. Some of the action after Jack Swagger’s entrance and dominance is banal in which nothing happens between Swagger, Jericho and Bryan. So much so that it really does look like the trio are biding their time until the next entrant is released from his chamber; the ‘this is awesome chant’ from the crowd is misplaced and done so in hope that it will inspire the wrestlers to do something ‘awesome’. That never happens; all six men fail to utilise the Chamber as it has been in the past and therefore when the chamber isn’t in use the match degenerates into a mere six man battle royal; first eliminated is Daniel Bryan. This is a huge oversight on WWE’s part. Had Bryan been eliminated towards the end then it may have had a positive effect on his career and image plus would have helped him when he finally took the step back into the headline scene; stunts that made other Elimination Chamber matches so enjoyable are almost nonexistent here. No, the match doesn’t have to be packed full with them, but here, you’ll be hard pushed to point out one decent stunt; Jack Swagger is made to play second fiddle to Randy Orton for almost the entire length of the match. So much so that Swagger’s eventual victory comes across as a fluke and should have been made to seem stronger; I would favour any other Chamber match over this one.
Tensai is made to look totally dumb in his backstage segment with Brodus Clay, when stating that the Japanese writing on his face, which resembles the writing Hakushi used to have all over his face and body, could be a Japanese menu for all he knows. To the watching audience this says that 1) the man has a tattoo on his face, which he doesn’t even know what it says 2) he’s been in Japan for years and still can’t read Japanese – which he can 3) how we can invest in a wrestler who is so dumb he’d willingly have part of his body inscribed with what could be a menu. This is maddening stuff which should have been used to hype Tensai. At this point in his career I bet Matt Bloom wishes he’d have stayed in Japan.
The commentary is patchy in parts as usual and until it gets better I won’t stop picking it to pieces. During the Alberto Del Rio vs Big Show match, WWE manage to insult Bob Backlund – the man who would be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame less than forty days later – by comparing Big Show to a big Bob Backlund. Backlund was twice the wrestler Show will ever be. Halfway through the same match, as Big Show powers out of Del Rio’s Arm Breaker by standing up and dropping the champion to the mat, Michael Cole shouts through his microphone, “Only Big Show could do that!” Totally ignoring the fact that John Cena has done so numerous times in matches with Del Rio, destroying the effect the submission move has on the match; trudging through the Elimination Chamber Match, Michael Cole – who has seemingly lost all interest in everything that’s happening in the ring and on the show – blurts out, “Randy Orton may be unconscious in the pod” (after Mark Henry threw him through the glass). Unfortunately this comment came across the broadcast just as the camera cut to in ring action and in the background Randy Orton could be clearly seen pulling himself out of the chamber and back into the action. Mistimed quotes like this could and should be easily avoided. It makes WWE look like amateurs; the quote of the night and possibly year though belongs of course to Jerry Lawler, who else? Who, through the six man tag team match comically states, “I didn’t know WWE had so many problems and injustices until the Shield showed up!” Really? Then again we shouldn’t be surprised this came from Lawler, the man who collects a six figure salary for turning up and saying what he’s told to on Raw and pay-per view and has blatantly proven beyond doubt he doesn’t watch Smackdown or the rest of WWE’s television output.
DVD and Blu-ray Special Features:
Elimination Chamber – 17th February 2013
Matt Striker interviews Jack Swagger and Zeb Colter
Elimination Chamber – 17th February 2013
Pre-Show Match
Team Rhodes Scholars vs Brodus Clay and Tensai
Blu-ray Exclusive Extras:
Monday Night Raw – February 11th 2013
Paul Heyman quits WWE
John Cena, Ryback and Sheamus vs 3MB
The Shield lashes out
Alberto Del Rio vs Damien Sandow
The Rock speaks his mind
Smackdown – 15th February 2013
C.M Punk confronts The Rock via satellite
Chris Jericho vs Big Show
Conclusion:
Elimination Chamber 2013 is a very good pay-per view which doesn’t have one truly bad match on the card. Whilst the supposed main attraction, the Elimination Chamber Match, isn’t as good as it should have been it still has some great moments and is worth the watch even just to say you’ve seen it.
The in ring output ranges from capable to brilliant which a rare thing on a WWE pay-per view event these days. Granted, there are a few gripes you will have with this release but if you’re buying it for the wrestling alone then you could do a lot worse and seldom better as WWE’s second pay-per view of 2013. Better than its 2012 predecessor, Elimination Chamber 2013 is the final stop on the road to WrestleMania 29 and one which everyone should have in their collection.
Rating: A
Onwards and upwards...
