8 Things You Learn Re-Watching The First WWE Elimination Chamber Match

Does the 2002 Survivor Series main event stand up 16 years later?

by John Bills
Survivor Series 2002 Elimination Chamber
WWE.com

It’s that time of year again. You know the one, the Road to WrestleMania, and we’ve reached the stop where a collection of individuals enter a fancy cage with trepidation on their faces. The Elimination Chamber is here - Satan’s Prison they call it - although the eighth event under the banner ironically takes place in a city called Paradise.

16 years have come and gone (well, 15 years and four months really) since the Elimination Chamber concept was introduced. It was unique from the get-go, although this uniqueness stemmed from it being a mash-up of all the great gimmick matches of wrestling history. This was WarGames, Hell in a Cell, Royal Rumble and Survivor Series, all in one.

So much has changed in the near 16 years since Shawn Michaels won that first match. HBK, Triple H, Kane, Booker T, Chris Jericho and Rob Van Dam entered the structure that night in November 2002, truly stepping into the unknown. What have we learned in the 16 years since? Re-watching that first Chamber match throws up all sorts of interesting points.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.