WWE Fast Lane PPV In February; Elimination Chamber Moved

The WWE Elimination Chamber PPV is no longer going to be the annual February PPV event. In its place will be WWE Fast Lane taking place on Februrary 22, 2015 in Memphis, Tennessee. That's the date listed on WWE's internal calendar according to PWInsider and is consistent to when WWE usually holds their annual February PPV. Why the name Fast Lane? No idea. It's a racing reference. The old Over The Limit PPV had a racing theme to it too. New WWE announcer Arda Ocal has the name Kyle Edwards, which comes from NASCAR drivers Kyle Petty and Carl Edwards. Somebody in WWE is a big time racing fan, that's for sure. They also used the "Fast Lane" name for an app game involving John Cena, so it's already trademarked. News of the changae originally came from the MetsFan4Ever Reddit user that has ties to WWE and has reported some news items in the past few months. It was also confirmed by Dave Meltzer of F4Wonline.com. No official announcement has been made by WWE although we assume that will be coming soon. In his initial post about the change, here's how the MetsFan4Ever Reddit user phrased it: "The reason is because there is only one WWE / World Champion right now. So they want to stay with the Rumble winner receiving the shot and have no Chamber even with the title holder in the match." It's a very valid point. When there were two World Champions on the show you could have one of the matches as a number one contender's match and the other one was a title shot. Now that there's only one WWE Title it makes sense to get rid of hte Elimination Chamber match in February. Earlier this year they had Rumble winner Batista wrestling Alberto Del Rio in a match while five others challenged WWE Champion Randy Orton. They don't need the Elimination Chamber in tat spot anymore. According to reports, the Elimination Chamber match could take place later in 2015. It might be its own PPV again possibly in June or July to set up a big match at SummerSlam. It would be a good idea to have the winner of the July Elimination Chamber match become the number one contender for the WWE Title at SummerSlam. That means Money in the Bank has to move to June, which would work. The July PPV this year was Battleground, which felt like a lesser show compared to Money in the Bank. Putting Money in the Bank next to Elimination Chamber may be a bad idea to have two stipulation PPVs side by side, but it would also make the post WrestleMania period seem important too. The Elimination Chamber PPV has been historically very good because the EC matches are usually awesome. Now that it's going to be replaced by Fast Lane, the month of February will be just another average month in between the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania. We'll have more on WWE Fast Lane when WWE makes the official announcement soon.