The build toward Sunday's Elimination Chamber happened in earnest weeks before the Royal Rumble and the last two weeks of SmackDown Live have hammered home how well most of these matches have been built up. Sure, a rivalry like Dolph Ziggler-Apollo Crews-Kalisto might have benefited from a little more polish, but in all six other matches on Sunday's card, SmackDown bore the fruits of months of great work in setting up a show that seems poised for a few shocking surprises.
Once the Elimination Chamber is all said and done, there will be plenty of time for nuance and tension in aligning SmackDown's portion of the WrestleMania 33 card -- seven weeks of shows, in fact. But for now, let's enjoy the chaos.
Daniel Bryan kicks off hometown show in style, Baron Corbin shines
Just one day shy of the one-year anniversary of his retirement in the very same venue, Daniel Bryan got one of the biggest reactions of any superstar in recent memory when he kicked off the go-home episode of SmackDown Live from Seattle's Key Arena.
The crowd was all but eating out of his hand with every kind of "Daniel Bryan" chant in the book, as SmackDown's GM reminisced about the past year and rejoiced in the fact that he had, ahem, followed through on one of the promises he made that night as a soon-to-be-father. Just as it seemed the cheers were starting to subside a little bit, Bryan's perfect foil, The Miz, came out to the loudest boos he's gotten in a long time -- a true accomplishment for the Seattle crowd, given his penchant for getting big negative reactions almost everywhere he goes.
As he tends to do, Miz basked in the serious heat of the moment, making fun of Bryan for having to retire and whipping the crowd into an absolute frenzy. "Why don't you do something that your talents are more suited for -- become a stay-at-home dad?" quipped The Miz, who then asked, "Why are you here? You can't wrestle anymore."
While Bryan has shrunk in some of these confrontations, as his feelings about being unable to wrestle anymore are still deep-seated, the atmosphere inspired the perfect response. "To be fair, not being able to wrestle never stopped you from getting in the ring," he replied.
The crowd ate it up, as the noise level rose to such a deafening extent that even The Miz struggled briefly to rein them back in or dampen their mood.
That was Baron Corbin's cue to come out, and essentially play the reluctant babyface by playing up his own conflict with The Miz. Even as Miz tried to weasel his way into an arrangement with Corbin, where they'd fight together to the last two men inside the Elimination Chamber, Corbin shut him down immediately. Corbin shined as a man of few words, a far cry from last week's struggles on commentary.
Dean Ambrose was next and AJ Styles soon followed. As the conflict in the ring grew more and more chaotic, Bryan finally regained control and appeared poised to make a match between four of the six men involved in the Elimination Chamber match. Thought he appeared poised to channel his inner Teddy Long with a straight up tag team match, we instead got a Fatal 4-way to kick off the show.
The fun 12-minute match allowed all four men to shine, especially Corbin. Styles took some major bumps all over the ring and while it's amazing to see him never go at half-speed, he certainly inspired some breath-holding each time a move appears to absolutely devastate him.
There was everything you might expect in the match: Miz aping Bryan's offensive styling to massive boos, Ambrose running around like a house on fire and Corbin getting in all of the right power moves (including a "Tower of Doom," when Styles and Miz went for a double-team top-rope suplex on Ambrose, and Corbin rolled into the ring to powerbomb them all).
Styles looked ready to continue his post-Rumble roll after hitting the phenomenal forearm on Miz, but Maryse pulled her husband out of the ring. Corbin crept up from behind to hit the end of days on Styles to pick up a huge pinfall victory, not just over AJ, the most recent WWE champion, but also against two other opponents who are also former WWE champions. What a fun way to start the show.
Wyatt Family breakthrough
There are some serious loose ends to tie up in the ongoing saga of Bray Wyatt, Randy Orton and Luke Harper between Elimination Chamber and WrestleMania, but Tuesday took a big step towards defining the triumvirate that used to stand as one as The Wyatt Family.
Harper cut the best promo of his WWE career in a spooky, dimly lit backstage moment.
"Randy Orton, you've stolen my family," Harper declared. "You are a liar. I've seen a snake in the grass. I know how to fix it, but cutting the head off the viper is too easy. I want to hurt you. I want you to feel pain. At Elimination Chamber, you will be eliminated."
That was all we got of what's shaping up to be SmackDown's biggest rivalry headed into WrestleMania until the final 20 minutes of the show.
The first Randy Orton versus John Cena match in nearly two years, and their very first one-on-one match on SmackDown, seemed almost too big to squeeze into that small of a window, and even more so when the start of the match started with a pay-per-view-esque slow build.
The action really picked up in the last six minutes of the show. Without the luxury of a potential overrun that Monday Night Raw occasionally enjoys, the tension built in much the same way that viewers of a certain age can recall: glancing back and forth between the clock and the action on the screen.
Cena lit the fuse when he hit Orton with an attitude adjustment with ease, only for it to lead to just a two-count. Orton hit the top rope corner version of his hangman's DDT, and then an RKO, but that too drew a two-count to the shock of the assembled crowd.
A knockdown of the referee during another AA attempt led to Cena slapping on an STF and Orton tapping, but with the incapacitated ref on the outside, a patient Wyatt finally slid into the ring to start a 2-on-1 beat-down.
Harper got his big moment as he ran down the ramp to confront Wyatt, his mentor. After struggling to strike Wyatt during their tag team match last week, the Seattle crowd egged him on with "Yes!" chants. After appearing to back down and walk away, he spun and hit a vicious discus clothesline on Wyatt to seemingly release his demons.
Harper then slipped out of an RKO attempt and Cena caught Orton for an AA. The ref rolled in with perfect timing to make the three count and give the WWE champion the pinfall victory going into Sunday. This match, this show, and these two weeks packed a lot into a short window, and the anticipation for a lot of what's yet to come at the Elimination Chamber couldn't be much higher.
Hits and misses
• In a preview of Sunday's tag team turmoil match for the SmackDown tag team titles, The Ascension, of all teams, picked up the pinfall victory for themselves, The Usos and The Vaudevillains. All 12 men involved put on quite a show in their 10-minute window.
• As the Elimination Chamber card currently stands, there are three women's matches scheduled to take place. That was also the case at the co-branded Royal Rumble pay-per-view, which five hours of programming that had two of those matches on the kick-off show. To have three ongoing rivalries worthy of the pay-per-view spotlight is another big milestone for the women's division.
The one question mark comes in the form of the Nikki Bella versus Natalya match, which was potentially put into jeopardy when Natalya put a vicious attack on Bella during the opening moments of "Talking Smack." But between their split screen interview early in the show, and the dual contract signing featuring Becky Lynch, Naomi, Mickie James and Alexa Bliss, the SmackDown women continued to show why they are far more balanced and consistent than their Raw counterparts.
"HERE COMES THE GLOW!!" - @JCLayfield
#SDLive #WWEChamber @NaomiWWE pic.twitter.com/JO1By1gAwQ- WWE Universe (@WWEUniverse) February 8, 2017
• In another quick match, Ziggler got rolled up in a hurry by Crews, but Ziggler once again flipped out post-match with a superkick to the back of the head, multiple chair shots to Crews, and then a chair shot to Kalisto while the latter was stuck straddling the top rope.
After running into Bryan backstage, Ziggler claimed it was simply more fun to beat down both men than to try to win a match he could win whenever he wanted with little effort. That led to the GM making a 2-on-1 handicap match for Sunday, the lone puzzling inclusion on the show. I am in full support of rebuilding Ziggler from the ground up, but stacking the deck against a heel seems counter-productive to trying to get the crowd to hate him.