Ranking Every WWE Elimination Chamber Match In History
Taking a walk down memory lane ahead of this year's Chamber match milestone...
It’s a landmark year for the Elimination Chamber. At the self-titled pay-per-view on February 12, we’ll be seeing the 20th match in the stipulation's history when John Cena defends his newly-won WWE Championship against Bray Wyatt, AJ Styles, Dean Ambrose, the Miz and Baron Corbin.
As well as being an awesome match to look to forward to, it also means we’ve got ourselves a decent backlog of past instalments to revisit in the meantime.
Survivor Series 2002 was the scene of the first Elimination Chamber match and arguably one of the best. Since then, the stipulation’s been featured on all sorts of shows including SummerSlam, No Way Out and New Year’s Revolution before finally finding its feet in 2010 with a dedicated PPV of its own.
Things haven’t always gone according to plan—six guys entering the match at various stages can create a fair amount of confusion—but when all the pieces fall into place, many of these Chamber matches have been able to tell some of the most gripping stories of recent times.
As such we’ve seen some absolute corkers, as well as the odd swing-and-a-miss. Let's take a stab at ranking them all.
19. Bobby Lashley Vs. Big Show Vs. Test Vs. Rob Van Dam Vs. Hardcore Holly Vs. CM Punk (December To Dismember 2006)
The Extreme Elimination Chamber match from December to Dismember 2006 provided the perfect illustration of everything that was wrong with WWE’s reboot of ECW.
The story goes that Paul Heyman had booked the show with the intention of having CM Punk win the ECW Championship. Since Punk was probably the most over up-and-comer on the roster at the time, Heyman’s plan made perfect sense but there was one slight problem: Vince McMahon wasn’t so keen.
Instead, he wanted to see Bobby Lashley win the belt.
Heyman allegedly sought a compromise by suggesting Punk eliminate the defending champion, Big Show, early doors but Vince wouldn’t even have that. In the end, Punk was eliminated first, the crowd gave up caring and the match fell flat. Much like the entire PPV and the ECW brand itself...
Add in the fact that Sabu was removed from the line-up on the same day of the show, as well as ECW originals like the Sandman and Tommy Dreamer being overlooked for outsiders like Lashley and Hardcore Holly, and not even the added ‘extreme’ gimmickry could save this one from ending up a massive disappointment.