WWE Rumors: No More Elimination Chamber PPV?

By Nicholas A. Marsico @nickmarsico on October 26, 2014

A rumor has started making the rounds regarding WWE’s annual pre-WrestleMania gimmick PPV, Elimination Chamber. The purported insider on the pro wrestling section on Reddit, who has been proven correct on many of his reports, posted that it is likely that Elimination Chamber will be no more, and will be replaced by a generic-named show without a theme, with a name like Fast Track or Fast Lane. I thought a name of that manner was silly, but with the February PPV being the final major show on the Road To WrestleMania, the name Fast Lane makes perfect sense.

A fellow writer on Rant Sports recently published an article about the gimmick pay-per-view events becoming overkill and causing the specialty match types on the shows to become watered down and less important. Of course that is certainly true, especially when it comes to Hell in a Cell, a match type that should be used to end a heated rivalry (such as Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins). I will admit that out of all of the gimmick or theme PPVs WWE produces, Elimination Chamber may be the least intrusive, least bothersome one of the year (not counting Royal Rumble or Survivor Series, which are classic events).

An Elimination Chamber match being the World Champion’s final challenge before heading into WrestleMania was a great concept to use as a precursor to the Granddaddy Of The All. The final pairing in the World Heavyweight Championship match inside the Chamber featuring Daniel Bryan fighting to keep his title against a very game Santino Marella was insanely dramatic. That is almost an asinine statement to make, but somehow they made the audience question whether or not Bryan was going to make it to WrestleMania with his title.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that there will no longer be an Elimination Chamber match on the show; it could be just a name change to give them the ability to opt out of doing such a match year-to-year. We’ll have to take a wait-and-see approach to that one.

With Elimination Chamber gone, the WWE pay-per-view schedule will see Royal Rumble, Fast Lane, WrestleMania, Extreme Rules, Payback, Money In The Bank, Battleground, SummerSlam, Night of Champions, Hell In A Cell, Survivor Series and TLC. Personally, I’d put Payback in the end-of-April/early May spot right after ‘Mania, make Extreme Rules an early summer spectacle, drop Money In The Bank, and put that match back on the WrestleMania card (or drop the idea for a few years to freshen it up). Use Battleground as a launching pad to move toward making Night of Champions important by beginning a tournament or qualifying matches for different gimmicks (such as a battle royal, ladder match or an elimination-style match), with those gimmick matches taking place at SummerSlam, effectively filling up the Night of Champions card immediately. That would also serve to make Battleground, SummerSlam and Night of Champions more important shows that offer a real reason to watch.

All I’m saying is that we finally got our wish to have the WWE and World Heavyweight Titles merged back into one, so maybe if we write about it enough and complain about it while watching the shows on the WWE Network they will make changes and leave the era of forced gimmick PPV events. Elimination Chamber being dropped definitely appears to be a possible start toward that goal.

Nicholas A. Marsico is a pro wrestling writer for Rant Sports. Follow him on Twitter and Like him on Facebook!