Elimination Chamber is an unusual show, more for what’s going on in the wider business than for the actual card.  On Monday, the WWE launches its online streaming service, WWE Network, which will offer all the future “pay-per-views” as part of the subscription – a subscription which massively undercuts the cost of actually buying them as PPVs.  Subscribers will also get access to a substantial video-on-demand library, plus some original programming (though the only notable inclusion is the developmental show NXT, which is genuinely quite good these days).  This is all for viewers in the US, by the way; the international launch isn’t for a while yet.

In effect, the WWE is abandoning the PPV platform, and these shows will become monthly specials designed to draw new viewers to the Network.  In practice, anyone who’s remotely interested in the Network is likely to sign up in advance of Wrestlemania next month, and in the short term the company’s main revenue source is likely to be rights fees from TV contracts (which, incidentally, are all coming for renegotiation right now) – so there’s going to be an interesting tension between grabbing the ratings and steering people to the Network.

The PPV companies are not at all pleased about this, and one of them, Dish Network, won’t be carrying this show at all, unless something gets hammered out by tomorrow.  A further complication is that the VOD element of the Network is being billed as including all WWE PPVs.  That may lead some viewers to pass on this show in the belief that they can watch it on the Network the next day.  You can’t – it won’t be going up for another month – but the WWE has been characteristically cagey about making this known.

So the buy rate for this show could be very interesting.

1.  WWE World Heavyweight Title – Elimination Chamber Match: Randy Orton © v John Cena v Daniel Bryan v Christian v Sheamus v Cesaro.

Ideally you’d go straight from the Royal Rumble determining the challenger for the world title, to the match at Wrestlemania.  But there’s a show to kill in the middle, and for whatever reason the WWE has decided that this is the perfect place to stick the annual Elimination Chamber match, with the title being defended in a six-way.  I’m far from convinced this is the best time of year for the match, but so it goes.

The Elimination Chamber is a glorified cage match, the gimmick being that two men start and the other four enter in random order every five minutes.  Elimination occurs by pin or submission (after which the cage is opened so that the eliminated wrestler can leave).  Last person left wins the match.

The tension here is rather less great than it might otherwise be, because the winner has to go on to defend the World Title against Batista at Wrestlemania.  You could switch the title on Raw, of course, but that doesn’t seem smart if you’re trying to use the PPVs to draw people to the Network.  The storyline importance of their main events ought to be protected.

Realistically, Christian, Sheamus and Cesaro are not going to be main eventing Wrestlemania, so they can be ruled out of contention right away.  Christian is a veteran who hovers on the cusp of the main event; he’s here to improve the match, though there have been some rumours that they might pull a last-minute switch with him.  Sheamus is just returned from injury; he’s here to re-establish his credentials as a main event player.  And Cesaro – formerly Antonio Cesaro, but apparently he’s just Cesaro now – is an upper mid card heel who the company seems keen on this week.  He’s excellent and his presence in this match is presumably intended to elevate him by putting him in top-tier company, but there’s no way he’s winning – and he’ll benefit perfectly well without doing so.

Cena could win in theory, but that doesn’t feel like the direction they’re going in.  A win for Daniel Bryan is conceivable, if they’ve suddenly decided to jump on board with the support he has from the hardcore fans, but I’d be very surprised.  Aside from anything else, while Bryan/Batista is a more interesting match for Wrestlemania, nobody really wants to see Bryan lose that match.  So if you’re going to have him come out of Wrestlemania as the champion, you might as well do an angle to add him to the match in a three way and have him win it there, on the more important show.

Given all that, Orton retaining seems the most likely result – though if they go with that, I really hope they do add Bryan to the Wrestlemania match, because Orton/Batista just does not feel like a match people are crying out to see.  Still, this should be a good match in the ring, and building up Orton’s credentials as champions in advance of his defeat at Mania seems like no bad thing.

2.  The Shield (Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins) v The Wyatt Family (Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper & Erick Rowan).  This is unusual – a heel/heel match which people are actually interested in.  The Shield are the paramilitary guns for hire who’ve run roughshod over the company for a year or so; the Wyatts are the wonky Southern gothic cult who seem to be usurping their spot.  Even though both teams are heels, they’re strong enough (and entertaining enough) for fans to care who wins.

It’s almost certain to be the Wyatt Family, because the Shield are plainly on their way to a break-up; thus, a Wyatt win serves both teams’ storylines.  Roman Reigns had the stand-out role in the Royal Rumble match, and the general idea is that Ambrose is jealous of him and trying to reassert his status as the team’s unspoken leader.  The Shield’s third member, Seth Rollins, largely plays peacemaker between the two, though he also seems sincerely delighted about Reigns’ achievements – slightly odd, since the plan appears to be to sent Reigns off on his own.

I expect this to be a great match; the Shield almost always deliver and while the Wyatt Family’s strike rate is a little less pristine, they’re still pretty good.

3.  Batista v Alberto Del Rio.  With those two matches out of the way, we descend into the murk of the undercard.  This is basically an exercise in finding Batista something to do before he challenges for the world title next month.  He’s obviously going to win, and the storyline is fairly rudimentary.  I imagine this being fairly routine.

4.  WWE Intercontinental Title: Big E © v Jack Swagger.  Big E used to be Big E Langston, but apparently he’s now just “Big E”.  Quite why that’s supposed to be an improvement, I don’t honestly know.  Swagger is the tag partner of Cesaro, who’s otherwise occupied in the main event.  Given that he’s mainly used in the tag division, it would be a surprise if he won, but that team does seem to be heading for a break-up, so it wouldn’t be a complete surprise.  More likely, though, this is just feeding Big E a spare heel as an opponent for the month.

5.  WWE Tag Team Titles: The New Age Outlaws (Billy Gunn & Road Dogg) © v The Usos (Jey Uso & Jimmy Uso).  The New Age Outlaws returned to the WWE as a nostalgia act at the start of the year and unexpectedly ended up winning the tag titles from the Rhodes Brothers at the last show.  The Rhodes already got their rematch on Raw (and lost), so here are the next babyface challengers to try their luck.

The Outlaws shouldn’t be long-term champions; their peak was almost twenty years ago, and while they can wrestle very acceptably, their role really ought to be to help new talent.  That said, if they’re sticking around a bit longer, they might as well lose the title at Wrestlemania and help add a bit of star power to the tag match there.  Neither result would really surprise me here.  The match should be okay, but we’re getting far enough down the card by this point that I don’t expect it to get a ton of time.

6.  Darren Young v Titus O’Neil.  A surprise PPV outing for this match, which is the obligatory blow-off after the break-up of the Prime Time Players tag team.  O’Neil is the heel, but he’s also the one who’s clearly being groomed for a singles run, so chances are that he’s winning here, and decisively.  This is an unusually lengthy card to start with, and I suspect this won’t be running very long.  I expect a high-profile squash match, in which case the decision to put it on PPV might make some sense in terms of sending a message to fans that the company cares about the feud.

7.  Pre-who match: The Rhodes Brothers (Cody Rhodes & Goldust) v Ryback & Curtis Axel.  An essentially random pairing of high profile tag teams who don’t have anything better to do.  Even the WWE website’s own preview for this match, after explaining who the teams are, resorts to conceding that “The history between the two teams is minimal.”  That’s fine, though; it’s A Match designed to warm the crowd up on the pre-show.  It doesn’t matter in the slightest who wins, and it should be fine for what it is.

Worth getting?  Well, any US viewer may well wonder about the wisdom of paying for a show that they can watch for a fraction of the price in a month’s time.  For the rest of us, it’s a middling undercard with two strong main events – slightly to my surprise, I’m leaning towards getting this one.