WWE Elimination Chamber 2023 review: Roman still Reigns

It wasn’t the finish most wanted, but it is the finish we got.

Sami Zayn failed to defeat Roman Reigns in his hometown of Montreal on Saturday, with Reigns scoring the win after Zayn inadvertently laid out Jey Uso with a steel chair, giving Reigns a window to strike with a spear. Jimmy Uso and Reigns continued their assault after the match until Kevin Owens finally came out to make the save. He and Zayn hardly acted as if they were friends, so that will be the story heading to WrestleMania, where it’s a good chance they will face The Usos.

The main event of Elimination Chamber was fantastic, easily among the best WWE matches of the year. Given that it’s February, the list of contenders isn’t that big. But the match had everything I could want in a top-tier WWE style match: an electric crowd, great wrestling, drama, and storytelling. Sami Zayn’s wife at ringside was awesome, with one of the key standout moments of the match was her yelling at Reigns “he loved you!” as Reigns assaulted Zayn in front of her. It’s those kinds of moments that WWE can be really good at.

So the million-dollar question now is, was it the right finish? To a lot of people, probably not. Zayn had been building some amazing momentum in the weeks leading to Montreal. But the situation WWE was put in was tough. This wasn’t a Bryan Danielson situation like in 2014, where Batista felt completely out of place challenging Randy Orton when it was clear Danielson had the momentum. Cody Rhodes’ comeback story is great, and it makes all the sense in the world for him to headline in April. It’s an envious position to have two hot babyfaces emerge in such a short period of time, but it happened, and WWE had to make a choice. And I can’t argue they made the wrong one.

It will be very easy to look back a few months from now and say you know what, sure, the time to pull the trigger was now. At the same time, Sami Zayn has shown he could be an incredible babyface when the time is right. His NXT run established that, and he can do it again. But I wonder if it will ever be the same as it could have been if they went for the win on Saturday.

Asuka is going to Los Angeles following her win in the Women’s Elimination Chamber match. I felt like this was the only way to go, as anyone else would be a disappointment. Asuka returned with a new look and new music, it makes all the sense in the world to go with her. The match itself was perfectly fine, and actually picked up significantly once Asuka came in. She’s just at a different level than everyone else here. Belair/Asuka was the best possible outcome, so I consider the match a success.

The men’s Elimination Chamber match had some big spots, most notably a big splash from off the top of the cage by Monetz Ford. Bronson Reed also stood out; I think out of most of the recent returns in the company I think he’s doing the best job of making himself feel like a big deal on the main roster. Logan Paul interfered in the finish, attacking Rollins and allowing Theory to get the win to retain his title. So that solidifies another match for WrestleMania, and leaves Theory open to..who knows. I think if Cena was going to do a match, we’d know about it by now, right?

Edge and Beth Phoenix defeated Rhea Ripley and Finn Balor in a fun match. It’s interesting as Ripley has the confirmed match for Mania, and while she didn’t take the pinfall, she still lost. I don’t know if that is the right finish. I still get the feeling we could get an Edge/Finn Balor match at WrestleMania, but considering Balor took the pinfall…this still was a weird finish.

Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashley had a four minute sprint with a horrible finish, having Lesnar low blow Lashley for the DQ. Lesnar then utterly destroyed Lashley, sending him through a table. What point does this serve? Bray Wyatt issued a challenge to the winner of this match on Friday’s SmackDown. Do I really want to see Bray Wyatt vs. Bobby Lashley after this? I don’t know. This is already weird.

So that leaves us with WrestleMania, which again will be two nights on April 1 and 2.

As mentioned earlier, the main event of the weekend will be Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns. I think Reigns’…reign ends that weekend, but you never know for sure. I’ll see you then for what will likely be one of the biggest WrestleMania weekends in years.