Grading Every Match Result From WWE Elimination Chamber 2024
Welcome back to the grades. In this column, we do one thing, and one thing only: evaluate the booking decisions made at a major WWE or AEW event. Who won each match? How? Did each booking decision open up new interesting paths forward or close them down, and what might have happened if the match went another way?
Last time we did this exercise, it was Royal Rumble season, and we only had four matches to cover. This time we had least have five, though the main show was once again a four-contest affair. Unlike the Rumble, however, Elimination Chamber was perhaps the chalkiest event in wrestling history — it was extremely obvious to the vast majority of viewers who was going to win each match before the show started, and all the favorites ended up earning dubs. Predictability, however, is not what we're judging here — we're talking about whether the various decisions were correct as well as being unsurprising. Winners finishes, outcomes — let's dive in.
The Kabuki Warriors def. Indi Hartwell and Candice LeRae (WWE Women's Tag Team Championship)
This match was a last-minute addition to the kick-off show with no real build or storyline behind it, so even considering the probably cursed WWE women's tag titles that seem to change hands at every opportunity, it would have been surprising to see the challengers pull out the win. It also would have been the wrong move, despite one of those challengers, Indi Hartwell, being a native Australian. While it's always nice to give a victory to the hometown girl, Rhea Ripley had those bases more than covered in the main event, so there was no need to give Hartwell a title here. The tag belts are much better position around the waists of Asuka and Kairi Sane, who, as two-thirds of the current iteration of Damage CTRL, are part of a major angle heading into WrestleMania, and we are still very much in need of more lengthy women's tag title reigns. There's no way the champs should have lost this match, and WWE even had Sane pin Candice LeRae for the win rather than having Hartwell eat the fall in her home country.
Grade: A
Becky Lynch wins the Women's Elimination Chamber
Of all the match results in Perth that went exactly the way they were expected to go, this one was the most infuriating, simply because there was no reason to telegraph the winner as WWE chose to do. Weeks ahead of the show, Becky Lynch and Rhea Ripley faced off at the WrestleMania Kickoff press event, and they proceeded to encounter one another regularly on WWE programming in the aftermath, functionally starting their feud before Lynch had even won the right to challenge Ripley at WrestleMania 40. From that perspective, it really sucks that Lynch won the match as expected, and it sucks even more when you consider the alternatives.
Lynch in no way needed this victory. She's a big enough star that a place would have been made for her on the Mania card regardless; she had a ready-made Mania feud with Nia Jax that never got properly blown off when it first began months ago; she would even have been somewhat protected in defeat by the fact that this was her first-ever Chamber match. There's also no story behind a Lynch/Ripley feud — WWE is just throwing them together because they're the two biggest stars in the women's division.
Now, consider Liv Morgan. Morgan is someone who had a run as "SmackDown" Women's Champion in 2022, but was never allowed to break through in that role. Between injuries and the focus shifting to bigger stars, Morgan has largely been left out in the cold since that 2022 run despite her organic popularity. Unlike Lynch, she was competing in her fifth Elimination Chamber match, and finally getting a win would have been a bigger deal for her than Lynch's was for "The Man." Most importantly, Morgan has history with Ripley and a built-in storyline with the reigning champ. Even if she ends up getting added to the match as some have speculated and making it a triple threat (lot of that going around these days) this was the chance to really take her stardom up a level, and it's disappointing that WWE didn't take it. There were other interesting options — a Bianca Belair win would have allowed WWE to pay off the Belair/Ripley face-off from the "Raw" after WrestleMania 39, a Naomi win would have capitalized on the buzz surrounding her return to the company, and a Tiffany Stratton win would have represented an earth-shattering push, likely to the delight of the unexpectedly pro-Stratton Perth audience — but Morgan was the true missed opportunity.
Add to that the fact that none of the women, aside from Lynch, left the Chamber with a clear Mania feud or storyline, and the women's Elimination Chamber avoids an F only because Raquel Rodriguez didn't win.
Grade: D-
The Judgment Day def. The New Catch Republic (Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship)
Similar to the women's tag title match from the kickoff show, there wasn't much of a storyline behind the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship contest, and nobody expected Tyler Bate and Pete Dunne to get the win. Unlike the women's tag title match, however, there's an argument to made that they should have, which is rooted in the question of what The Judgment Day is doing come WrestleMania, and the question of what the hell WWE is doing with the men's tag belts.
The Judgment Day spent the majority of the period between WrestleMania 39 and Survivor Series: War Games 2023 running roughshod over "WWE Raw." The group appeared to be nothing less than a main event act, with Finn Balor earning multiple World Heavyweight Championship matches and Damian Priest winning the Money in the Bank briefcase. Since Survivor Series and their (admittedly excellent) storyline with R-Truth, however, The Judgment Day hasn't been pushed so much as they've been pushed aside. With the recent returns of Randy Orton, CM Punk, and The Rock, there's suddenly a lot less room at the top of the card, and their most popular member, Rhea Ripley, hasn't even been appearing with them recently. If the Judgment Day is going to retain any kind of momentum at all, they could use more than just another tag title defense at WrestleMania.
Meanwhile, here's a list of everyone who has held men's tag title gold in the last two years: Priest, Balor, Cody Rhodes, Jey Uso, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Jimmy Uso, Randy Orton, and Matt Riddle. Aside from the current champions (who, as mentioned, were pursuing singles gold before teaming up for tag title matches) none of those men is part of an active WWE tag team, with most of them operating as extremely popular singles stars who stand above the tag team division. The tag titles, as a result, are in a strange limbo where they've been held primarily by wrestlers who are bigger than the tag belts — a limbo that's evident by the fact that they are still technically unified, but are the only championships not to be rebranded away from the red/blue "Raw"/"SmackDown" branding.
It's past time to either separate the two sets of tag titles or properly unify them, and it's way past time they were held by an actual tag team and competed for in the actual tag team division. Bate and Dunne were far from the perfect team to end The Judgment Day's reign, but they're the exact kind of team who needs to, and soon.
Grade: B-
Drew McIntyre wins the Men's Elimination Chamber
Drew McIntyre was the second Elimination Chamber winner of the night who everyone basically knew was going the distance, but unlike Becky Lynch, McIntyre was the only one of the six choices WWE presented that made any sense. For one thing, in a truly bizarre move, McIntyre was the only participant who spends the majority of his time on "WWE Raw," which also happens to be show frequented by World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins — aka the prize waiting for the winner of the men's Chamber at WrestleMania. McIntyre has recent history with Rollins and they have an automatic storyline headed into WrestleMania; the other five all wrestle primarily on "SmackDown" and have been feuding either with each other or with other "SmackDown" stars. We can quibble with who was and wasn't in the Chamber match, but of the six wrestlers we had, McIntyre was the only logical choice.
Beyond that, however, McIntyre's victory was very intelligently booked, perhaps in a way that will inform the final structure of the world title match at WrestleMania. McIntyre scored three of the five eliminations, but each of them smacked of illegitimacy. He sneakily hit Bobby Lashley with a Claymore and pinned him after Lashley's injured arm prevented him from being able to lock in the Hurt Lock on LA Knight. Later, he took a Blunt Force Trauma from Knight, but Knight was jumped by AJ Styles before he could capitalize; McIntyre would pin Knight following Styles' brutal attack. Finally, when it was down to the final two, McIntyre ate an RKO from Randy Orton — only for Orton to get smashed in the face by a set of brass knuckles, courtesy of the previously-eliminated Logan Paul. McIntyre didn't even take advantage to hit another move, he just rolled over and laid his arm across Orton's body, pinning him directly off the brass knucks shot.
What this might allow WWE to do — if they want to — is use the perceived illegitimacy of McIntyre's victory to justify changing the match somehow, most likely by adding someone to it, with the obvious candidate (given recent storylines) being Sami Zayn. This would make a ton of sense considering McIntyre has lost twice to Rollins, recently, in singles title matches — once at Crown Jewel in November and again on "WWE Raw: Day 1." A third singles match between them would be somewhat underwhelming as a creative idea, and booking the match the way they did leaves the door open for WWE to make changes.
We also have to give credit for the way the men's Chamber, in stark contrast to the women's, set up almost everyone involved for their next storyline heading into Mania. Kevin Owens and Logan Paul have already been feuding, with Paul picking up a DQ victory over Owens at the Royal Rumble; now, Paul has cost Orton the Chamber match after Orton eliminated both Paul and, immediately before him, Owens. All three men — or at the very least Paul and Orton — seem to have a program going forward, as do Knight and Styles. Considering that the men's Chamber had to be re-booked on the fly after the injury to its planned winner, CM Punk, WWE packing it with as much positive story advancement as they did is impressive.
Grade: A+
Rhea Ripley def. Nia Jax (Women's World Championship)
The only reason to nitpick this match result is because it happened after the women's Chamber match, meaning Jax in theory could have won to set up Lynch vs. Jax at WrestleMania instead of Lynch vs. Ripley. Maybe Liv Morgan, who has been on an open quest for revenge against Ripley, could have cost her the match and the title, thus setting up both Lynch/Jax and Ripley/Morgan. Ripley retaining here and Morgan winning the Chamber was a better option, but if you're married to those two Mania matches, a Jax victory was the other way to get there.
That having been said ... there's really no universe in which Ripley shouldn't have won, particularly after the match was placed in the main event. As the biggest Australian star WWE has ever had, Ripley was unquestionably a babyface to a Perth crowd that had already seen Indi Hartwell lose on the kickoff show and hadn't gotten to see Bronson Reed at all (that's without even mentioning that WWE's top male stars were either not present or not wrestling). There's no way that show should have ended with Ripley dropping the belt to Nia Jax, of all people.
It was incredibly important for Ripley to win this match — and not just to send the audience home happy. Ripley also desperately needed a win like this to bolster a title reign that is coming up on a year in length, but has lacked major victories against credible opponents. Whoever takes the belt off Ripley will surely benefit from the rub, but not as much as they probably should, considering Ripley had only defended it against the likes of Zelina Vega, Natalya, Zoey Stark, and Ivy Nile — not exactly a murderer's row. Jax isn't a huge step up from that company, but its enough of one that it matters, and it felt like a bigger win that it might have otherwise thanks to its placement as the final match of the show. The match structure helped with this as well, having been designed to make Jax look like an impossible obstacle to overcome, only for Ripley to overcome it. It's a big deal, and very necessary prior to a Mania match with Lynch — the first truly top-level star Ripley has faced since beating Charlotte Flair for the title at WrestleMania last year.
Grade: A