YES! YES! … wait NO! NO! NO!

Last night saw one of the most mixed reactions I think I’ve ever had to anything. (The lovely Hanzord will, I think, agree with me on this.) See, last night was WWE’s Elimination Chamber pay-per-view, which is meant to set up the storylines heading into uncontested Big Event of the Year Wrestlemania, and a lot of people (myself included) were having our doubts before the show had even started.

The biggest fear most fans had leading up to the Chamber was that Randy Orton would retain his WWE World Heavyweight Championship title, for a couple of reasons:

1. That means it’ll be him vs. Batista in the main event of Wrestlemania.

2. It means Daniel Bryan got overlooked for a title AGAIN despite being easily the single most adored figure currently in WWE.

3. Nobody likes the guy anyway.

Anyway, these fears were proved to be founded when Orton did indeed defeat Daniel Bryan (via cheap interference from both the Wyatt Family and Kane, with the latter being vastly more infuriating) and kept the title, which means it’s going to be Orton vs. Batista in what ought to be the biggest match of the year and is instead likely to be underwhelming, boring and likely punctuated by rousing audience chants of ‘Bootista’, ‘This is awful’, ‘Daniel Bryan’ and so on. Basically, if it does indeed play out as it seems, NOBODY is going to be happy about the main event of Wrestlemania 30. There is the possibility that some sort of twist will change that, and the fact that the cameras took the time to focus on the faces of the distraught fans after the chamber match might suggest that the WWE creative team is in fact finally about to stop ignoring the collective wishes of its entire fanbase. For the time being, though, a really good match in which Bryan looked set to win at times ended pretty crushingly. I almost thought Hanzord was going to cry at Bryan’s defeat, but luckily it was four in the morning when the match ended so sleep overcame that.

In better news, most of the Elimination Chamber PPV was actually pretty darn awesome. The Shield vs. the Wyatt Family was so good that the crowd were actually cheering ‘this is awesome’ before the match had even started, which is saying something given how quick they’ve been to voice their displeasure elsewhere. Plus the actual chamber match was better than expected until the end, and it’s safe to say everyone in that match pulled out a great performance.
Sure, there were matches like Batista vs. Alberto Del Rio, which was both pointless and somewhat dull, or AJ Lee vs. Cameron, which didn’t nearly show off enough of the genuine skills the Diva division has. (Female wrestlers have been criminally underused as of late, to the point that AJ’s record of ‘longest-running Diva’s champion ever’ is largely down to the fact that in the 250 or so days she’s held the title it’s been on the line a total of eight times, which is pretty much nothing compared to how often the other championships face the possibility of trading hands.) But you know what, I don’t care. I was more excited than I’ve been for a long time about pretty much anything, even if the end did bring me down massively.

This is awesome, indeed.

Just… don’t let it go on the way it ended, okay?

Please?