WWE Elimination Chamber review: What we learned, takeaways, future projections
By Luke Norris
2-on-1 Handicap Match
Apollo Crews & Kalisto vs. Dolph Ziggler
What we learned: I think we learned a couple of things here. Creative still has nothing better for Dolph Ziggler to do and the crowd really doesn’t care about Apollo Crews.
Look, I know exactly what they’re trying to do here with Ziggler but perhaps they might want to have him do it against people that the WWE Universe actually give a rip about. And I’m really not trying to insult Crews or Kalisto here because I really do think that they’re both great athletes that are being misused. I still think that Apollo was brought up to the main roster too soon and that he would be thriving in NXT if he were still there, probably in the title picture. And I’ve said it before and will continue to say it until I see it happen: Kalisto needs to get away from SmackDown Live and get himself over to RAW and the cruiserweight division. Period.
As for the match itself, it was actually a one-on-one match for a bit as Ziggler took out Kalisto before it even got started, and his time in the ring with Crews wasn’t completely horrible but it wasn’t really good either. Kalisto expectedly made his way down to the ring but did so with a horrendous limping job that magically went away once he got the hot tag. Thank goodness this whole thing didn’t go on that long. The only real standout from this match was Crews’ enziguri. But the crowd really showed how they felt about Apollo following the match as Ziggler once again attacked his former pals with a chair. We haven’t seen the ankle broken with the chair thing in a while, so that was nice but the chants of “ONE MORE TIME” and “THANK YOU, ZIGGLER” only proved that what they were doing with Crews wasn’t working.
What’s next: Kalisto might go looking for revenge, so we might get yet another one of those matches on Tuesday night. Joy. And maybe this is the perfect time to do something else with Crews. If they go with a kayfabe injury that could keep him out of action for a while, this could be a chance for him to reinvent himself. We’ll see if they actually go that route. As for Ziggler, it’s hard to say where he goes from here. Surely they wouldn’t drag out a feud with Kalisto all the way until WrestleMania and then have those two go at it on the kickoff show, would they? WOULD THEY? I really hope not because what happened here did nothing for anybody and they all just need to get away from one another and start fresh.