Elimination Chamber 2022: WrestleMania Setup Swallows the Show

Roman Reigns and Goldberg finally get the match that had been scheduled for WrestleMania 36, but the two-year delay leaves WWE with a very narrow path. Goldberg can still project danger through the spear, the entrance and the initial collision, yet the match has to be built almost entirely around bursts. That makes the six-minute length sensible, even if it also keeps the bout from becoming anything more substantial.

The best sequence comes when Goldberg catches Reigns with a second spear as the champion tries one of his own. For a moment, the old Goldberg formula works exactly as intended because the crowd believes the Jackhammer might follow. Reigns escaping into the guillotine is a logical answer and gives him a decisive win without stretching the challenger past his limits.

As a spectacle, it is efficient and professionally executed. As a world-title opener on a major event, it feels more like a box WWE needed to check before moving to WrestleMania. The match does its assigned job, but it never escapes the sense that its most important date had already passed two years earlier.

The women's Chamber is the card's most coherent piece of multi-person wrestling. Liv Morgan and Nikki A.S.H. start with enough history to give the opening minutes shape, while Rhea Ripley adds power and immediacy when she enters. The match keeps moving because the intervals are short and eliminations arrive before the structure can become crowded.

Alexa Bliss provides a useful late change of pace after months away from the ring, and Bianca Belair enters last with the advantage she earned on Raw. Belair's exchanges with Ripley are the strongest glimpse of a bigger match WWE could revisit for years. The Chamber itself matters less as a weapon than as a framework for arranging fresh combinations, which makes the bout less brutal but more readable.

The result is also exactly right. Belair winning points directly toward Becky Lynch at WrestleMania 38 and gives the match a purpose beyond surviving the structure. It never reaches the chaos or drama of the best Chamber matches, but it is efficient, well paced and one of the few matches on the show that improves the WrestleMania picture without flattening anyone else.

The one-arm stipulation for Ronda Rousey is supposed to add a hurdle, but it mostly turns the match into an exercise in waiting for the obvious workaround. Naomi does the bulk of the conventional wrestling while Charlotte Flair and Sonya Deville keep Rousey isolated from using her full offense. The crowd remains engaged because of the names involved, not because the stipulation creates much suspense.

Rousey eventually gets enough room to throw strikes and wrestle around the restriction, which makes the limitation feel cosmetic rather than dangerous. Naomi and Flair have the cleanest exchanges, and their speed briefly gives the match an energy the central gimmick cannot sustain. Deville is positioned as the vulnerable target from the beginning, so the finish is visible from a long distance away.

Rousey submitting Deville protects Flair before WrestleMania and advances the intended rivalry. That is sound television logic, but on a premium event it leaves the match without much independent value. Nothing is badly executed; it is simply an angle-driven tag match whose outcome, victim and purpose are all obvious before the bell.

Drew McIntyre and Madcap Moss work with more physical commitment than their feud suggests. The Falls Count Anywhere stipulation gives them permission to move through ringside and lets Happy Corbin interfere without forcing the match into another disqualification finish. McIntyre's power offense gives the bout a straightforward center even when the story becomes two-on-one.

The match is also remembered for the inverted Alabama Slam that drops Moss frighteningly on the top of his head. Moss continuing is remarkable, but the moment is uncomfortable enough to overwhelm much of what surrounds it. The later brawling and near falls are energetic, yet it is difficult to watch them without thinking about how badly that landing could have ended.

McIntyre eventually clears Corbin away and pins Moss after the Claymore, preserving the hierarchy WWE wanted heading toward WrestleMania. There is respectable effort here and more urgency than the program had shown on television. Still, the feud never feels important enough for the violence being asked of the wrestlers, leaving a decent brawl with one deeply unsettling image.

Becky Lynch and Lita give the show its most satisfying traditional match. Lita has not worked a singles match of this scale in years, so Lynch wisely lets the challenger settle into familiar offense before asking the pace to rise. The crowd treats Lita like a genuine threat rather than a nostalgia guest, which gives every comeback more weight than the predictable result should allow.

The match improves steadily as Lita reaches the Twist of Fate, the moonsault and a near fall that briefly makes the title change feel possible. Lynch does the connective work, sells the veteran's biggest moments and keeps the bout from becoming a sequence of remembered spots. Her missed moonsault adds a little arrogance to the champion's control without turning the match into comedy.

The second Manhandle Slam ends the challenge cleanly and allows Lita to receive a strong ovation afterward. It is not a hidden classic, but it succeeds because the emotional story is simple and the execution respects it. On a card obsessed with moving pieces toward WrestleMania, Lynch and Lita briefly make the match in front of them feel like the only thing that matters.

The men's Chamber begins with the ingredients for something much richer than its finish. Seth Rollins and Austin Theory work a frantic opening, and Rollins powerbombing Theory through Bobby Lashley's pod creates a spectacular accident that also removes the champion from active competition. Riddle and AJ Styles enter into a match that still appears capable of becoming a layered six-man sprint.

Then Brock Lesnar breaks out of his pod and the structure stops functioning as a competitive match. Rollins, Riddle and Styles are eliminated in rapid succession, each treated less like a world-title threat than another body in the way. The dominance is consistent with Lesnar's character, but it also undercuts the purpose of putting several established contenders inside one of WWE's most elaborate match types.

Austin Theory salvages the closing stretch by fleeing, fighting back and ultimately taking the memorable F-5 from the top of a pod. The visual is enormous and Lesnar winning cleanly establishes the champion-versus-champion WrestleMania direction. The problem is the cost: the Chamber becomes a delivery system for a result WWE could have reached in a far less destructive way, leaving the spectacle intact while making most of the field feel incidental.