Commissions return again, this one coming from Stuart. You can be like them and pay me to write about all types of stuff. People tend to choose wrestling matches, but very little is entirely off the table, so long as I haven’t written about it before (and please, come prepared with a date or show name or something if it isn’t obvious). You can commission a piece of writing of your choosing by heading on over to www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon. The current rate is $5/match or $5/started half hour of a thing (example: an 89 minute movie is $15, a 92 minute one is $20), and if you have some aim that cannot be figured out through simple multiplication, feel free to hit the DMs on Twitter or Ko-fi.
This was an Elimination Chamber match for the vacant World Heavyweight Title, with Shawn Michaels as a special guest referee.
I have gone on record, not only when talking about it originally but in year and decade wrap-up lists, saying that the 2014 Elimination Chamber (Cena vs. Bryan vs. Orton vs. Cesaro vs. Sheamus vs. Christian) is the best of its kind, but it is not the only really great one. I’m also a really big fan of the 2003 (the one where Goldberg nukes everyone) and 2009 (the one with the big Edge swerve, but also the insane Rey Mysterio performance) as all-time level Chambers.
Below that level, there’s the level this match is on, along with something like the 2011 (Punk/Cena final, a few months before that would have been huge), 2017 (the Bray Wyatt one), or the 2019 (Bryan/Kofi final) ones. Not the greatest, certainly ones that suffer from less than perfect line-ups despite the talent and strength of the booking, but that I simply cannot deny. Like those matches, while I have some issues with it, it just kind of works for me, one of those classic WWE productions that makes me go, “yes, this is how the system is supposed to work”.
(Less so in that it ought to be Triple H winning, but in terms of all it advances, what it does for Batista, the use it puts a still all-world Benoit to, etc.)
In short, the correct amount of bullshit.
Benoit and Jericho begin the match before Triple H is third (doesn’t fit in anywhere else here, but great political maneuvering to have HHH last longer than actual babyface challenger Orton and survive more, while also having Benoit and Jericho before him to mask it a little bit), and to the credit of both men, they are once again has never been on behavior as good as he is on when Chris Benoit is in a match. As early WAR or WCW Benoit/Jericho stuff showed, that was never exactly a guarantee, but at this point, it at least guarantees a half-decent effort. Like Triple H often did against Benoit, as also seen in this match, or later like Hunter and Orton against Bryan, there is an implicit pressure that comes from being an established Great Wrestler in the WWE, and again, Jericho is on best behavior, being more aggressive and harder hitting than usual.
After that, as everyone pours in, it is the ideal mix of things.
There is only one GREAT wrestler here, but everyone else is on their very best behavior.
Batista is obviously very good as your psuedo-hot tag power babyface, but Randy Orton in this is much better than I remembered as a mechanical babyface. The microphone work still might not be him at his most comfortable, but in terms of throwing hands and showing some energy, he is genuinely really really good in this, already being the second smoothest/most natural feeling wrestler in the match behind Benoit. Edge, Jericho, and Hunter are all limited, but primarily do things they’re best at. For Edge, that means basically nothing until the special referee gets him out first. For Jericho, it mean mostly being beaten into greater effort than usual. For Hunter, it means power moves against great bumpers and benefitting from the bells and whistles of a more violent environment, just like in his prime. Nobody is asked to do more than they can, at least not obviously so, and as a result, the match benefits in the way big gimmick matches with limited wrestlers ought to, both because of the visual bells and whistles, but also because of a larger vision that brings it all together into a larger package.
Really, what stands out the most about this match, so many years later, is how much it benefits from some blood spilled.
Everyone but Edge (coward, not in this too long) and Batista (correct call not to bleed, time isn’t right yet as a character) gets to run the blade at least a little here, and the two real pros at it in Benoit and Hunter get some real beautiful color. The match benefits from this in all of the ways wrestling often does. With blood on on the canvas, and the wounds of war on nearly everyone in the ring for large chunks of this thing, the match gains a certain feeling. We’re not talking Joe and Necro here, it is probably not a top 25 bloodletting of 2005, but on top of the selling and the certain auditory quality of almost everyone banging off the steel floor, the simple visuals make this feel like a genuine ordeal, and so later attempts at exhaustion selling and announce hyperbole from JR (another great performance in this, walking every imaginable tightrope with zero wavering) feel less like bullshit, a little more warranted, and the entire production goes down so much smoother when you have these clear visible signals that this has been a fight with actual consequences.
The other benefit is the layout and the effective narrative work.
Just about everyone reading this knows that this is all build to Hunter vs. Batista at WrestleMania, and it is incredibly effective at that. Benoit, Jericho, and Orton all absolutely die for Big Dave, with him getting rid of those first two on his own, and theoretical babyface Orton also having to cheat to get rid of him. Triple H, despite the maneuvering of suffering more and lasting longer than Orton, comes out feeling more lucky than like any kind of real winner, being beaten up by everyone but Batista, avoiding saving him from elimination, and then taking advantage of all he does.
Something feels a little strange to me about really liking a match that is, essentially, a great larger product ass WWE production than a display of any one great performance or thing to really point to, but when it comes together right, it comes together right. The match is the beneficiary of a few really good smaller performances, and although not as much of a rarity at the time as I think Ruthless Aggression WWE still had something of the magic touch when they really wanted it, also the beneficiary of exactly the right amount of larger picture work and narrative movement.
Great pro wrestling nonsense.
It doesn’t seem all that exceptional, but truly, a stellar of just how easy this all really can be when kept simple, and when given the best crutch a wrestling match can have (two-thirds of the match bleeding a lot).
***1/2
HANDWERK 