5 Ups & 7 Downs From WWE Elimination Chamber 2021

The Miz cashes in, Asuka match scrubbed, Roman Reigns is a delightful jerk, Edge decides.

The Miz
WWE

Uh-oh, Drew McIntyre’s Road to WrestleMania has hit a detour! Or is it a speedbump? Or did he come to a fork in the road?

Whatever silly metaphor or cliché you want to use, McIntyre’s path to a Mania world title defense became much more complicated when (spoiler alert) Miz cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase and won the WWE Championship.

We’ve been saying for a while now that Miz has been torpedoed as a character due to poor writing, being treated like a glorified jobber for months, so of course, his first singles win since capturing the MITB briefcase in October came when he won the title at the end of Elimination Chamber from a battered and beaten McIntyre.

But Miz wasn’t the only poorly booked wrestler to capture gold on Sunday. Riddle also won his first WWE title, the United States Championship, by pinning John Morrison, who himself was inserted into the match because Keith Lee was “injured.” This came after Riddle spent weeks getting jumped and laid out by Bobby Lashley, losing title matches against Lashley, and sucker-punching MVP and running away, because that’s what babyfaces do.

On the positive side, the SmackDown chamber match was a really enjoyable battle, and Roman Reigns showed exactly what kind of dastardly champion he really is. And then he got Edge’s answer about who the Rated-R Superstar will face at WrestleMania 37. Good stuff all-around.

Let’s get to it…

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fortunately became a fan in time for WrestleMania III and came back as a fan after a long high school hiatus before WM XIV. Monday nights in the Carlson household are reserved for viewing Raw -- for better or worse.