WWE Elimination Chamber 2022 - Best and Worst - Major botch in Roman Reigns vs. Goldberg, Problem with Brock Lesnar's win

Title-for-title has been booked for WrestleMania.
Title-for-title has been booked for WrestleMania.

WWE's final premium live event before WrestleMania is in the books, with Elimination Chamber being quite the mixed bag. There were some decent highs, but the lows were truly disappointing.

After an excellent effort with Crown Jewel, it seemed like Vince McMahon would pull out all the stops to make Elimination Chamber as great a show as possible. It certainly felt huge, with some massive stakes involved. Unfortunately, its execution was all over the place.

WrestleMania doesn't feel more must-see than it did before the event, indicating that Elimination Chamber did not fulfill its biggest purpose. WWE will need some strong stories on RAW and SmackDown to light up the road to The Show of Shows.

With that being said, let’s get into the main positives and negatives of Elimination Chamber 2022. Did you enjoy the show? Leave your thoughts on it down in the comments section.


#3 Best/Worst: Roman Reigns defeats Goldberg in the opener...following a major botch

The show opened with Roman Reigns, which was the right decision as he is the biggest star in WWE. Since the Elimination Chamber match closed the show, it was really the only option. Reigns took on Goldberg in a good six-minute match.

While it wasn't as explosive as one might expect, the action was quite solid. The finish came suddenly as The Tribal Chief made the WWE Hall of Famer pass out.

Overall, it's a great win for Reigns and adds Goldberg to his ever-growing collection of victims. Roman even broke an incredibly rare WWE record in the process.

The problem? Well, Goldberg had his hand on the rope while being put in the Guillotine choke. The hold was not broken and it eventually led to The Icon losing the bout.

This botch tainted the finish to the match, which might annoy Roman Reigns a bit, considering how focused he is on quality in his current run as champion. However, this was far from the worst thing to happen in a world title match at Elimination Chamber. More on that ahead.

#2 Best: The right woman won inside the Elimination Chamber

Aside from the fact that Alexa Bliss lost her in-ring return, WWE got the Women's Elimination Chamber Match spot on. Several women got to shine, including Liv Morgan and Rhea Ripley. But Bianca Belair was the star of the match, as she should have been.

The EST of WWE defeated Bliss after a great sequence to secure her spot at WrestleMania, where she will face Becky Lynch for the RAW Women's Championship. Belair can now right the wrong she suffered at last year's SummerSlam, which saw Big Time Becks defeat her in 26 seconds.

Speaking of Lynch, she retained her title in a fun match against Lita at Elimination Chamber, but it should be her final successful defense of this reign.


#2 Worst: What was the point of The Viking Raiders flying all the way to Jeddah?

The Usos were scheduled to defend their SmackDown Tag Team Championship against The Viking Raiders at Elimination Chamber. It looked to be a standard tag affair between two solid teams, but WWE canceled the match at the last moment.

Instead, we got a pre-match assault from Jimmy and Jey, who laid out Erik and Ivar. This begs the question: why have them fly to Saudi Arabia just to get attacked like this?

It won't add more fire to the feud, as the outcome is predictable. This should have happened on SmackDown instead of Elimination Chamber, if at all.

#1 Best: Madcap Moss is a warrior

Madcap Moss suffered a scary bump during his Falls Count Anywhere match against Drew McIntyre, landing on his head after an Alabama Slam. Despite the botch, he finished the match before going to the back to get checked.

This is seriously commendable work from Moss, who proved how tough he is at Elimination Chamber. Hopefully WWE can come up with a better gimmick for him. Truth be told, anything would be better than being Happy Corbin's personal jester.

McIntyre may be The Scottish Warrior, but Madcap Moss truly felt like one tonight.


#1 Worst: Brock Lesnar's WWE Title win was counterproductive

The booking of the WWE Championship in 2022 has been ridiculous. Big E's push ended, then Brock Lesnar won it, lost it, and now won it back. Bobby Lashley did not even have a say in the match where he lost his title.

Lesnar dominating an entire Elimination Chamber Match sounds like a fun idea, but we just saw him win the Royal Rumble. Now he's taken the WWE Championship to set up a title-for-title match with Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 38.

It is counterproductive booking that could derail the build to his and The Tribal Chief's main event match. RAW now doesn't have a men's world title bout at The Show of Shows, which is a big blow after the steps WWE took to improve the red brand.

As a result, so many great talents have been shafted, furthering the gap between them and the big two of Lesnar and Reigns.

The bump Austin Theory took does deserve a mention, though. That was brutal.

Teddy Long snaps when Swerve Strickland's race is brought up HERE

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