WWE Elimination Chamber 2019: Preview and predictions

WWE Intercontinental Championship Match (Handicap Match)

Bobby Lashley (c) & Lio Rush vs. Finn Balor

Following one of the biggest matches of his career at the Royal Rumble, and a WWE Universal Championship Match against Brock Lesnar in which it looked like he could actually win at one point before falling just short, Finn Balor finds himself hunting for more gold against another opponent who has quite the size advantage on him, WWE Intercontinental Champion Bobby Lashley. But wait, there’s more.

Not only will Balor be battling Lashley, he’ll also have to contend with hypeman and sometimes-cruiserweight competitor Lio Rush. However, that does give Finn the advantage here as it was revealed that in this handicap match, he doesn’t have to pin the champ to become the new IC titleholder, which naturally infuriated both Lashley and Rush.

This feud got started the night after the Rumble and seems to make sense for all parties involved. With a lot of people doing a lot of other things at the moment, Lashley has been a good (not great) choice to hold the Intercontinental Championship, and with Balor not in line for another shot at Lesnar a belt he’s never held seemed like a nice second option. Plus, WWE gets to use the big man vs. little man formula again and we know they love that.

Prediction: It will be interesting to see how this match goes. I’m not the biggest fan of these types of matches but the Finn vs. Lio match on Raw recently was better than I thought it would be and Balor and Bobby seem to have decent chemistry. I think this could be entertaining. I also think a Balor win seems a bit premature, even with the stipulation, and maybe they wait to do that in a one-on-one match at WrestleMania.