8 Match Star Ratings For WWE Elimination Chamber 2020

God bless Daniel Bryan.

Asuka Shayna Baszler
WWE

A lazy inconvenience of a pay-per-view WWE were under no obligation to promote, they simply, barely bothered!

Job done.

The last stop on the Road to WrestleMania...on Sundays, the build was weird, half-arsed, retconned: in many ways, the very existence of Elimination Chamber 2020 made WrestleMania 36 less special. The Street Profits and Seth Rollins and Murphy were scheduled to wrestle for the third time in 11 days, and yes the Street Profits are fun, Murphy deserves profile, and Seth Rollins is significantly better as a heel, but it's impossible to care because this numbing repetition is hardwired into the product for no reason beyond creative bankruptcy and the churn fulfilment requirement. Andrade Vs. Humberto Carrillo is always quite good, but it's impossible to care because this numbing repetition is hardwired into the product for no reason beyond creative bankruptcy and the churn fulfilment requirement.

WWE Creative Writers are paid $96,000. I should be able to repeat myself too.

Shayna Baszler announced herself as Becky Lynch's WrestleMania opponent via vampire bite, and then they put her in a match to formalise it. It's churlish to state that WWE is outright sh*t as a blanket statement, but this was literally awful storytelling because there was no drama to it whatsoever.

A three-on-one Handicap match? What?

8. KICKOFF: The Viking Raiders Vs. Curt Hawkins & Zack Ryder

Asuka Shayna Baszler
WWE.com

A functional match - it very gently reheated the Viking Raiders ,as if they were a pair of poached eggs - there wasn't much to it because it was a five minute squash match on a Kickoff show.

Did it even need to go five minutes? Given that it repeated the bare minimum of story beats, no, it did not.

Curt Hawkins tried to whip Erik into the ropes and was met with a shoulder barge time and time again. It wasn't even effective; Hawkins rallied back to cut him off before launching into tandem offence, which wasn't ideal for Erik's aura. Hawkins and Ryder aren't even geeks. They are non-factors. They have done nothing on RAW of late beyond lose in two minutes to Drew McIntyre. They are walking corpses that exist to be further ground into dust by the stars, and yet they grabbed holds on Erik under the instruction of a goldfish masquerading as a road agent.

Ivar's hot tag looked as awesome as it always does, but Jesus Christ, he might as hell have obliterated Nicholas for how lowly Hawkins and Ryder are in 2020.

Bad news: this made the Viking Raiders look weak.

Good news: nobody gives a toss, and nobody will remember.

Star Rating: ★¾

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and surefire Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!