What we learned, what we took away and what the future holds for the superstars of Monday Night RAW following Sunday night’s WWE Elimination Chamber pay-per-view.
The superstars of Monday Night RAW took a pit stop on the road to WrestleMania in Las Vegas on Sunday night for the yearly installment of WWE Elimination Chamber.
Although things are still up in the air for a few of these superstars, others have a clear path to New Orleans and as expected, the main event that’s been seemingly set in stone for nearly a year is now set as WWE Universal Champion Brock Lesnar now has his challenger for the biggest show of the year after seven men battled for that chance.
However, before we get to all of that, we’ve got the rest of the night to get to first, including the first-ever Women’s Elimination Chamber Match in which Alexa Bliss defended her RAW Women’s Championship against five contenders in a very good opening contest. The women’s division had a lot of highlights tonight as Asuka, who has already punched her ticket to WrestleMania after winning the Royal Rumble last month, took on Nia Jax with Nia having a chance to earn her spot on the grandest stage of them all with a victory. And let’s not forget that Ronda Rousey was on hand to officially sign her Monday Night RAW contract and as expected, we got a few fireworks from that segment.
Also on the docket for the night was The Bar taking on Titus Worldwide for the RAW Tag Team Championship and another match between “Woken” Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt as their feud continued. Let’s take a look at everything, starting with the first-ever Women’s Elimination Chamber Match.
Elimination Chamber Match for the RAW Women’s Championship
Alexa Bliss (c) vs. Bayley vs. Sasha Banks vs. Sonya Deville vs. Mandy Rose vs. Mickie James
What we learned: We learned here that Alexa Bliss is on her way to WrestleMania 34 in New Orleans as the RAW Women’s Champion and that’s exactly the way it should be.
The energy was extremely high inside the T-Mobile Arena as the six women involved in this first-ever Women’s Elimination Chamber Match entered the structure and it remained the way pretty much throughout. Bayley and Absolution’s Sonya Deville took the honor of being the first two participants in the match and they set a decent pace at the start. It wasn’t anything spectacular and it still sometimes look like everything Bayley does is in slow motion but it got the job done.
With the story that’s been built around the alliances heading into this match, it wasn’t surprising that Mandy Rose was in third and although Bayley was able to fight she and Deville off for a minute, Absolution got the upper hand and took it to her until Sasha Banks got into the mix in the fourth spot to even the score. Again, that wasn’t a shock but the storytelling was done well.
Rose was out first as she tapped to Sasha as Bayley kept Deville from making the save. That was a nice spot and occurred just before Mickie James entered the match in the fifth slot and she brought some great energy to the bout, including the first really big spot of the match as she jumped off of a pod with somewhat of a Thesz press to eliminate Sonya Deville. The members of Absolution have a very bright future but they were just bodies here.
Mickie’s celebration didn’t last long as she was quickly eliminated by Bayley, leaving Bayley and Banks to wait for Alexa Bliss to come out of her pod. This was done beautifully. These were the three biggest stars in the match and they should have been the final three in there. Alexa was a great heel champ at the start as she attempted to flee her two challengers by climbing the Elimination Chamber and getting to the top of a pod. And then came the moment we knew would happen as Sasha kicked Bayley down and it now was truly every women for herself, especially when Bayley fired back at her.
The three battled for a while and threw some nice spots in there. I dug the superplex from Alexa to Bayley with Sasha just hanging on the turnbuckle but especially liked when Banks climbed to the top and chose to jump over Alexa to hit Bayley with the splash. Some may have missed that but that really said something to me. Bayley would recover and later hit the Bayley-to-Belly on Sasha from the top rope but Alexa was able to come in and capitalize by eliminating Bayley.
That left Sasha and Alexa in the match and I really thought Bayley was going to stick around for a minute to perhaps do something to Sasha. The camera stayed on her a lot longer than most eliminations and we even got a split-screen deal as she walked up the ramp. But it never came and Bliss and Banks battled some more with a really fun finish. In the end, Alexa Bliss reigned supreme and cut an amazing promo afterwards to cap off a very good match. I had a lot of fun with this one. Great start to the night.
What’s next: Well, we know that Alexa Bliss is headed to WrestleMania as the RAW Women’s Champion and I still think that she’s going to end up facing Nia Jax and I’ll get into that a little more later on in the article when discussing Nia’s match with Asuka. This was the biggest win in Alexa Bliss’ career and she deserved this spot. She’s an amazing heel champion and this couldn’t have gone any better for her. She’s come such a long way and is so very good at what she does. Watching her manipulate that crowd was beautiful and her in-ring work has vastly improved.
I think Absolution and Mickie James end up in some multi-woman match on the kickoff show, a match that I do not believe should involve Bayley and Sasha Banks. Even with no title on the line, these two are on a collision course for WrestleMania, which should play out over the next few weeks and have earned the right to have a one-on-one grudge match there. We know they can deliver and it deserves a spot on the main card in New Orleans.