6 Ups And 8 Downs From WWE Elimination Chamber 2017

Bray Wyatt's coronation tops an otherwise pedestrian night for the blue brand.

bray wyatt wwe champ
WWE.com

After watching a big-deal PPV like the Royal Rumble, almost anything is going to pale in comparison. Throw in that just two weeks later is a brand-specific PPV and odds are you’re going to be underwhelmed.

That more or less describes Sunday’s Elimination Chamber PPV, a SmackDown-only event sold on a stacked chamber match with six of the brand’s biggest stars… and then a bunch of other matches. When half of the card is filled with women’s matches from a ridiculously limited roster, you know you’re scraping bottom.

Despite that, Sunday’s event was fine for what it was. But one thing it wasn’t was a major table-setter for WrestleMania XXXIII. Sure, we saw two title changes, but aside from a couple matches, SmackDown’s contributions to Mania remain largely a mystery (within storylines). That means that it’ll be up to regular episodes of SmackDown to lay out the blue brand’s matches for Orlando.

With a new world champion in Bray Wyatt, it will be interesting to see the dynamic between he and Royal Rumble winner Randy Orton, as the two Wyatt Family members appear to be on a collision course in seven weeks.

With that said, let’s find what survived the chamber and what was beaten and battered. 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 fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.