Elimination Chamber starts tonight
There is a quick turnaround for WWE as Smackdown presents the Elimination Chamber tonight, just two weeks after the Royal Rumble.
John Cena will make his first, and very possibly last, WWE title defense of his 16th reign in the chamber.
Bray Wyatt is the favorite to walk out with the belt, and the other four challengers are The Miz, Baron Corbin, Dean Ambrose and former champion AJ Styles.
All signs point to Wyatt walking out with the title, but even if he doesn鈥檛 win, I don鈥檛 see Cena walking out as champion.
My reasoning?
When he won the title at the Royal Rumble two weeks ago, the WWE had flown Ric Flair in and the original plan was said to be Flair coming to the ring to congratulate Cena.
But the plan was scrapped despite Flair being there, and the only logical reasoning I was given was because Cena蘑菇视频 reign was going to be short so why waste a magical moment.
In other title matches, Alexa Bliss defends the Smackdown women蘑菇视频 title against Naomi, and American Alpha defends the Smackdown tag titles in a turmoil match against five teams.
Other bouts include Dolph Ziggler taking on Apollo Crews and Kalisto in a handicapped match, Becky Lynch faces Mickie James, Nikki Bella faces Natalya and Randy Orton faces Luke Harper.
New Chamber structure?
Word is that the WWE will debut a new version of the actual chamber used for tonight蘑菇视频 title match.
The original weighs over 10 tons and several venues are not able to hang it above the ring.
The hunch here is that if there is a new chamber, it will weigh less than the original.
WWE releases numbers
The WWE held its quarterly earnings conference call Thursday and several facts stood out.
The WWE Network is the fifth-largest streaming service and has 1.5 million paid subscribers with 1.1 million being in the United States. It is the second-best action figure property behind Star Wars, and 40 percent of its new talent hires came from outside the United States.
More next week.
Jericho on top of his game
On Raw Monday, Chris Jericho showed why he is one of the most talented all-around performers of all-time. He tied in Tom Brady and the Super Bowl, and you can see a highlight at http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=18636867.
A look at first five Manias
As we move full speed ahead into WrestleMania season, we will take a look at every Mania.
Mania 33 is eight weeks from today, so we will have to make a quick push to get through them all in time for this year蘑菇视频 show on April 2. The initial Mania was a make-or-break event for the company as the WWE had several mainstream personalities appear.
Today, this is common, but in 1985, the idea was taboo and looked down upon.
The main event saw WWE champion Hulk Hogan team with Mr. T to defeat 鈥淩owdy鈥� Roddy Piper and 鈥淢r. 1nderful,鈥� Paul Orndoff.
Mania 2 was the first, and only of its kind in the sense that it took place at three different venues. WWE says the events took place in New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles, but they actually took place in Long Island, N.Y., Rosemont, IIllionois, and Los Angeles.
Mania III was another huge gamble for WWE as it sold out the Pontiac Silverdome. Reports on the actual attendance vary from 78,000 to 93,173 and Hogan handed Andre the Giant his first WWE loss in 15 years in the main event.
The match of the night, and decade for that matter, has stood the test of time and is still considered by many one of the greatest matches of all time as Ricky 鈥渢he Dragon鈥� Steamboat defeated 鈥淢acho Man鈥� Randy Savage to win the Intercontinental title.
Mania IV and V both took place at Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, N.J., as IV saw Savage win a 12-man tournament to capture the vacant WWE title at IV and then he lost it a year later at V to Hogan.
The biggest aspect of V in my opinion was that it was the Mania debut of Shawn Michaels.
This week蘑菇视频 question
If The Undertaker is unable to compete at this year at Mania, do you think that they will have some kind of celebration for him if he can鈥檛 come back? Dennis, Connellsville.
If Taker were unable to compete, I would think that he would still appear in one way or another. But, he has committed to wrestling on the show, and all signs point to him and Roman Reigns.
Could it be a passing of the torch by having Reigns destroy Taker in his last match?
Possibly.