Randy Orton Defeats Sami Zayn To Qualify For Men's Elimination Chamber Match In Perth

The men's Elimination Chamber match is quickly beginning to take shape as tonight, we learned that a viper will join a psychopath inside the structure in just two weeks' time. Randy Orton knocked off a worthy adversary in Sami Zayn on "WWE SmackDown," planting an — you guessed it — RKO out of nowhere to secure his shot to earn #1 contender's status for Seth "Freakin'" Rollins' World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania.

Kicking off the show, the triumvirate of authority figures, WWE Chief Content Officer Paul "Triple H" Levesque, "WWE SmackDown" GM Nick Aldis, and "WWE Raw" GM Adam Pearce took the ring to address several business items before Pearce ran down the list of participants in Elimination Chamber qualifying matches: Orton, Zayn, "Big" Bronson Reed, Kevin Owens, United States Champion Logan Paul, AJ Styles, The Miz, Bobby Lashley, Ivar, Drew McIntyre, "Dirty" Dominik Mysterio, and LA Knight.

McIntyre put away Styles in the episode's first match (with Knight playing enough of a factor to make one wonder if Styles may return the favor next week, with a WrestleMania match between those two then possibly in the cards), punching his ticket as the first to qualify with Rollins remaining very clearly in his sights. And despite a passionate promo from Zayn on "Raw" earlier this week, Orton prevailed in tonight's main event, putting Zayn's path not only to Elimination Chamber but also WrestleMania very much up in the air.