WWE Elimination Chamber 2019: Preview and predictions

Elimination Chamber Match for the Women’s Tag Team Championship

Nia Jax & Tamina vs. The Riott Squad vs. Mandy Rose & Sonya DeVille vs. The IIconics vs. Sasha Banks & Bayley vs. Naomi & Carmella

Remember in the intro when I told you I’d get to the “first-ever” Women’s Tag Team Champions being crowned at Elimination Chamber? Well, here we are and that’s just not factual. Sure, there have never been WWE (yes, that’s bold for a reason) Women’s Tag Team Champions but from 1983-1989, there were WWF Women’s Tag Team Champions. The titles were just very rarely seen. A quick history lesson:

Velvet McIntyre and Princess Victoria came to the then-WWF in 1983 and were recognized as the NWA Women’s World Tag Team Champions, titles which had actually been around since the 1950s. However, the rights to those titles were sold to the World Wrestling Federation, who had left the NWA, by The Fabulous Moolah in 1984.

Therefore, Velvet and Victoria were named the first-ever WWF Women’s Tag Team Champions since they were already in possession of the titles, and first defending them in April of 1984. The most notable appearance of the championships came at the inaugural Royal Rumble in 1988 when The Jumping Bomb Angels defeated The Glamour Girls in a two-out-of-three-falls match. The titles were deactivated the following year and essentially never spoken of again, which is why the lineage and all things related to those titles aren’t being mentioned now. Yes, this Elimination Chamber Match is important in relation to this current Women’s Evolution but forgetting about all the women from all those years that battled it out at house shows all over the country is frankly just a little rude. But I digress.

As for this match, qualifying matches were held for some teams but not others, which got a little confusing at times as a few of the teams were just given spots while a team like Alexa Bliss and Mickie James gets left out. We know that Sasha Banks, who has been cleared to go on Sunday after a legitimate injury, and Bayley will start things off against Mandy Rose and Sonya DeVille after both of those teams lost triple threat matches this past week on their respective brands. For those unaware, the other four teams will be placed in a pod in each corner and a new team will enter the match every five minutes until one team comes out on top.

Prediction: There are really only two teams that can win this, I would think. Naomi and Carmella were just thrown together and while the dancing connection actually does work, they’re not going to be the new champions. Most likely, Naomi is in there to further her weird feud with Rose so go ahead and eliminate the former Absolution as well. Liv Morgan and Sarah Logan just lose too much as is and The IIconics are in that same boat.

That leaves the two favorites: Nia Jax and Tamina or Banks and Bayley. My guess is those are the last two teams in and with Banks just returning from injury, I’m going to go with Jax and Tamina as the new champions. Banks and Bayley makes more sense given their history and it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the actual call here but it would be unfortunate to see them win the titles and then have to give them up if Banks goes down again. If she can stay healthy, save that big moment for her and Bayley at WrestleMania, which might be the right move anyway on that stage. So Jax and Tamina win and then Banks and Bayley get their shot at ‘Mania. Book it.