Elimination Chamber '25 - Women's Elimination Chamber Match
As we take another step closer to Wrestlemania 41, the WWE rolls into Toronto and Elimination Chamber is ready to kick off. We have two Wrestlemania main events to finalise, a decades-old friendship to ruin, a soul to sell (or not!) and not a second to waste!
LFG.
Starting the broadcast by mentioning Hulk Hogan twice inside the opening 30 seconds is…a choice.
For those of us who survive that jump scare, we get the traditional Montage Of The Athletes Getting To The ArenaTM, including Seth Rollins who, from the looks of this backdrop, seems like he’s arriving for a shift at Lumon Industries?
Your outie is a visionary. Your outie is a revolutionary.
Before we get into the first match of the night which will be the Women’s chamber match, Cole, Pat and Wade are doing their final intros to camera. Pat decides this would be a good time to scold the Canadian crowd for booing the US national anthem. Go off, I guess?
Sir, this is a Wendy’s. We don’t sell boot leather here.
It’s time to get this show on the road! Taking the four spots in the pods are Alexa Bliss, Roxanne Perez, Bayley and Bianca Belair, leaving Liv Morgan and Naomi to face off as our opening pair. After they both enter and the cage is closed, Liv and Naomi square up but before we can get any action, Jade Cargill’s music hits! The beginning of a pretty significant PLE match is as good a time as any to solve the case of who put her on the shelf I guess. I hope Jade is going to monologue like an Agatha Christie character wrapping up the loose ends for us.
As Morgan McMichaels once said, ‘I look pretty good for a dead bitch’.
Liv Morgan starts freaking out but continually protesting her innocence as Cargill makes her way towards the ring. Cargill climbs through the ropes and looks like she’s heading towards Liv, but then swerves and starts beating on Naomi, while Bianca looks on helplessly from inside her pod!
Real image from the inside of my head.
Naomi is eliminated because she can’t continue after the beatdown Jade gives her. We count down to the first pod opening, and it’s Bianca’s. Initially she ignores Liv and runs to the cage door, where she can still talk to Naomi on the outside. There aren’t any answers forthcoming though, and Liv takes the opportunity to start getting her shots in. After looking understandably lost and distracted initially, Bianca manages to steady herself and survive through to the countdown to the second pod opening, which brings Roxanne Perez into the match.
Perez is looking to back up her strong performance at the Royal Rumble and gets off to a great start, taking the fight to both Liv and Bianca, eventually getting Bianca into a side Russian leg sweep outside the ring and sending them both crashing into the cage. Perez tries to take advantage of Bianca being down, but Liv delivers a missile drop kick to put an end to that.
Gotta keep that head on a swivel, or someone will…swivel it…for you. Yeah. Is that anything?
After a little more back and forth between Liv and Roxanne, Bayley’s pod opens. She’s been developing a bit of a rivalry with Roxanne, who wastes no time in trying to get her hands on Bayley. They end up in Bayley’s pod, which is the scene of tonight’s I’m Not Trapped In Here With You, You’re Trapped In Here With MeTM spot. Bayley slams Roxanne off the plexiglass a handful of times, reminding her what experience counts for.
The most iconic close-quarters fight since that time Solange punched Jay-Z in that elevator.
Having dealt with Roxanne for now, Bayley turns her attention to Liv Morgan, who she slams into the cage. Bayley and Bianca then find themselves standing off in the center of the ring, and they go at it. Bayley gets Bianca down and makes her way to the top rope looking for an elbow drop, but Roxanne pulls herself up and gets Bayley on her shoulders and hits her with a powerbomb. With all entrants looking a bit worse for wear, the countdown begins and our final woman, Alexa Bliss, joins the fray.
Alexa cleans house, but after she delivers a dropkick to Liv, Bayley scrambles to her feet and rolls her up for an attempted pin. Alexa kicks out and hits Bayley square on the chin so cleanly you would never guess she’d been out of action for a significant time.
I forgot how hard Alexa hits. Genuinely gasped like an old Victorian woman who saw someone with exposed ankles in public when this connected.
We have a good stretch of action, during which Bayley hits a faceplant on Liv outside the ropes and as she rolls back into the ring for the pin, Roxanne rolls her up. Bayley kicks out and then Roxanne gets her into a crossface, which Bayley also manages to fight her way out of. Roxanne looks for a Moonsault but Bayley gets her knees up. She manages to hit a back body drop over the ropes to get Roxanne out of the ring, but as Bayley is tying to catch her breath Liv hits Oblivion! Bayley is pinned and eliminated.
As she celebrates the pin, Liv notices that Bianca is back on her feet and headed her way, so she scrambles up the cage to the top of one of the pods. Bianca follows her up and they exchange blows, and Liv tries to get away by using Bianca’s braid. Bianca snatches the braid back and whips Liv with it. The crack it makes as it connects made me wince.
Spoilers: It sure did.
Liv falls off the top of the pod where Alexa and Roxanne are waiting, but they don’t get a chance to throw hands because Bianca’s ready to execute our Fly Off The Top Of The Pod And Wreck EveryoneTM spot!
In the aftermath, Bianca pulls Roxanne and Liv into the ring to try and pin them, but both attempts are unsuccessful. Bianca then gets Alexa on the top turnbuckle and looks to hit a suplex, but Roxanne and Liv intervene, ending in them throwing Bianca off the second rope as Alexa is thrown by Bianca.
The four women struggle back to their feet, and we get a great sequence where Liv attempts Oblivion on Bianca who is against the ropes, but she is kicked by Roxanne and stopped in her tracks. Roxanne then attempts a pop rocks on Bianca, but Bianca throws her off and Liv hits a codebreaker on Roxanne. From the top rope, Alexa then hits a beautiful twisted bliss on Roxanne, and pins her. We’re down to three.
It’s hard to stay mad when there’s so much beauty in the world.
Our final three face off and eventually Bianca tries to roll up Liv. As Liv kicks out she sends Bianca straight into the waiting arms of Alexa, who gets off a Sister Abigail (RIP Bray, we miss you). As Alexa hits the move, Liv gets her into a jackknife cover and eliminates her.
When I waved goodbye to my family at the end of the holidays I probably had this same combination of exhaustion and joy at not having to see them again for a while on my face too.
Here we are then: perennial final girl Liv Morgan and Bianca Belair are all that’s left. Liv gets Bianca outside the ring, and grabs her braid and starts treating her like a yo-yo, slamming her into the cage and pulling her back a half dozen times.
If you watched this match and still don’t think the women of WWE go as hard as the men, you are a big dumb idiot piss baby beyond salvation.
Liv hits a Codebreaker off the second rope, Bianca hits a spear. She covers Liv but Liv kicks out. Bianca gets her out of the ring and looks for a powerbomb and for a second it looks like Liv might fight out, but then she attempts a Hurricanrana and Bianca catches her. With Liv hanging off her shoulders, Bianca starts slamming her back and forth between the cage and the side of one of the pods.
The power that that has, the intelligence that that has, the clearance that that has, the access that that has, the influence that that has, the profile that that has, the international implications that that has.
Bianca powerbombs Liv back into the ring and climbs to the top turnbuckle. She launches into a 450 splash but Liv gets her knees up. As they struggle to their feet Bianca picks Liv up for a KOD, but Liv gets off her shoulders and hits a Codebreaker to send Bianca stumbling into the ropes. As Liv launches herself into Oblivion, Bianca catches her, gets her on her shoulders again, this time hitting the KOD clean. Bianca gets the pin and victory! Exciting to see her back in a Wrestlemania main event. I’m sad that we aren’t going to get Rhea and Charlotte running back their Mania 39 banger, but Rhea or Iyo and Bianca will put on a hell of a show.
Can’t spell Wrestlemania without EST.
