WWE Elimination Chamber 2025: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s annual review of WWE Elimination Chamber, the show with two huge matches that have the same name as the event, but that both take a backseat when it's time for John Cena to turn heel! Yeah ... in case you missed it, we have some stuff to talk about, and we're going to talk about absolutely everything that went down at Elimination Chamber 2025.

You can still check out our Elimination Chamber results page if you just want the details of what actually happened, but if you want to know our thoughts and opinions, stay right here and scroll down. From the returns of Jade Cargill and Randy Orton to big wins for Bianca Belair, John Cena Before We Knew He Was Evil, and the phrase "go f*** yourself," here are three things we hated and three things we loved about WWE Elimination Chamber 2025.

Buckle up, grab a snack. We have so much to cover.

The Women's Elimination Chamber match opened up Saturday's festivities in Toronto, and the opening bell was still resonating its high-pitched chime throughout the Rogers Centre when the night's dramatics began.

Jade Cargill. That's it, that's my piece — go read my peers' opinions of the show now! No, but in all seriousness, Cargill's return to WWE programming did not disappoint in the slightest. Cargill brought a certified storm to Naomi, and looked like a million bucks doing it. Cargill has always been at her best and most authentic when she is aggressive — just look at her time in AEW — so I'm glad she got a chance to be gritty with Naomi. Cargill's been playing too nice on WWE programming, and this newly lit fire underneath her is already doing wonders.

Speaking of Cargill's return, Bianca Belair was gunning for an Oscar with her reactions to Cargill's attack on Naomi. You could hear her high-pitched shrieks of hysteria from miles away, and she even sold her anguish into the opening moments of her performance against Liv Morgan. Belair's normally agile moveset felt bogged down by lead, and her addled mind allowed for Morgan to get in an unusual amount of offense in the opening goings of the match. Speaking of Morgan, she also performed well — her initial look of guilt upon Cargill's return nearly tricked several in my circles, and her following taunts to Belair, who had targeted her because of the Cargill attack, were nice touches to the overall storyline.

Frequent readers of these columns will know that I'm a Roxanne Perez fan, and I can confidently say that she exceeded expectations in her first Chamber match. While she was not a pencil-in to win, she did a lot better and lasted a lot longer than I was expecting. I'm glad that her elimination still left her some dignity; she was literally fighting off Morgan, Belair, and Alexa Bliss all simultaneously before she got pinned. She went down in a blaze of glory — can't really be mad about that.

I know that Belair was the most predictable winner for Elimination Chamber, but it's a choice I'm not mad about. There is no better time than now to return Belair to singles competition, now with her WrestleMania 40 trio imploded. The face-off between Belair, Women's World Champion Rhea Ripley, and current title challenger IYO SKY left just enough crumbs to infer that a Triple Threat match is set for Vegas, but even if WWE only delivers a singles match between Ripley and Belair, I have full confidence that they will show up and show out.

The Women's Chamber match set a high bar for the rest of the show, and while I didn't specifically compliment Bayley or Bliss in this review, I do think they were absolutely instrumental in making this match such a great start to Saturday's festivities. Toronto set the stage beautifully for Vegas. Now, we're off to WrestleMania!

Written by Angeline Phu

While of course you always want a lot of your champions on the card at any premium live event, WWE sneaking in WWE Women's Champion Tiffany Stratton here alongside Hall of Famer Trish Stratus was just kind of... pointless, which is sad. I love Stratton as a champion and it's always great seeing Stratus, but their tag team match against Nia Jax and Candice LeRae just fell flat on a card with two Chamber matches and an unsanctioned match. Maybe putting even the slightest stipulation to it, like a tornado tag, would have made it fit in just a bit better, not that it felt majorly out of place, it just didn't stand out or be memorable in any way.

It also didn't really further anything outside of Stratton and Jax's feud hopefully being over because it felt like things there were tied up nicely, at least. Charlotte Flair didn't make an appearance to beat down or even stare down Stratton following her getting the pin on Jax. I don't think we'll see Stratus back at WrestleMania, unless she just makes a small appearance, but doesn't wrestle, but maybe she'll have a match at SummerSlam later in the year or something for her 25th anniversary. This was a fine little "cool down match," for lack of a better term, and I hate to ever call a women's match that, but it was just a low point of an overall pretty good show. It wasn't bad or I suppose even hate-worthy, more of a mild dislike, but I'm glad to see Stratton moving on to focus on Flair and WrestleMania.

Written by Daisy Ruth

The Unsanctioned match between Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn more than delivered on its promise, a brutal affair that served to illustrate the sheer drop in morality KO has underwent over the past year. And while that could obviously be expected based on the names in the match – make what you will of them on a subjective level, some people will often say they don't see the main event potential in them, but it would be flagrantly false to say either guy aren't students of the game we love, delivering both physicality and emotion with each movement. 

That was perfectly encapsulated in their match at Elimination Chamber, a match of insane spots and bumps but weaved together with an underlying logic adhering to the story laid in the past. This was the night that truly showed that Owens had fallen off the deep end, he had taken it to the extreme with Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton beforehand, but one of those was a title rival and neither of them were his best friend. Sure, they're best friends that have fought, and fought, and fought before, but this time somehow more than every other time (ROH stories aside) felt more visceral, it felt like it had been taken a step or two further than before. 

This was truly the most untamed either man has been with one another since joining WWE, with a barbed wire chair making a rare appearance and it being Zayn who made extensive use of it. Because as much as the focus will be on the lengths the victor went to, Zayn more than did his part to sell the level of betrayal, casting the figure of a man coming to terms with the idea that his friend was out to end his career – if not more – and what he would have to do to keep up with that. But the outcome almost felt inevitable, knowing that Zayn was neither 100% nor really capable of doing what his opponent would go on to do. 

Owens tore through referees to ensure his hand was raised, and when Zayn continued to get back up, he ensured he couldn't; three powerbombs onto the apron later, and he had won. But it still wasn't enough. The bell had rung, concluding the unsanctioned match and restoring the jurisdiction of the officials who could do nothing before but watch. Owens sought to continue the punishment, pushing through said officials, only to be halted by the returning Randy Orton. Orton's return in itself would have been cool, but he caught Owens in the mood for a fight, and fight they did – until an RKO broke through the brawl. We then got a teaser for the punt kick's return, but tonight had been giving enough, so then the officials played party-pooper. Presuming this is where it goes, it will be a great decision to tease that move but deliver it at the Owens-Orton grudge match at WrestleMania. It should feel more than earned after a few more weeks of unhinged violence from Owens.

Written by Max Everett

If you've been reading these columns for any length of time, you know that there was never going to be a world where I didn't love Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens. I have to say, however, that there were a couple things about it that persistently annoyed me, even though I completely understand why they happened the way they did.

For example, I get why WWE wanted the Unsanctioned stipulation for this — Owens and Zayn went at least somewhat further than we've generally seen WWE stars go in terms of violence against one another (outside of something like Hell in a Cell) so they needed a narrative reason for the match not just being called off at some point. But as someone who doesn't usually go for the gory stuff, there was a disappointing lack of blood in this match, especially considering they were bumping on barbed wire at one point. Owens did a great eye sell after taking a drop toe-hold to a barbed wire chair, but the fact that nobody got busted open at any point strained credulity somewhat and made it feel less like an Unsanctioned match.

And yes, in hindsight it's clear that they didn't blade in this match because Cody was going to in the main event segment — fair! Similarly, I also watched this match to be the main event, not just because I love the wrestlers involved but because it doesn't make a ton of sense to put an Unsanctioned match in the middle of the card. But what are you going to do, have them follow John Cena turning heel for the first time in 20 years? No, you are not. So again, I really do get it. It's just unfortunate, because Zayn and Owens were kind of left in the lurch without a lot of the elements that help sell an Unsanctioned match — to the point that WWE figured they'd give it some different lighting to try and distinguish it, since that always works out. The lighting was probably the worst part of the entire thing, in the end.

And then finally ... look, I love me some Randy Orton. I'm excited for Orton vs. Owens at WrestleMania, I popped for the punt tease, I'm fine with all of it. It just kind of sucks, a little bit, that Sami and Kevin's big singles match in Canada got overshadowed by Orton at the end. Overall, I thought this match was fantastic and everything went really well. It just wasn't explicitly tailored to me from start to finish, and since Elimination Chamber generally delivered, that's going to have to do.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

Logan Paul has go-away heat and I will admit I'm also not his biggest fan, but he usually proves me wrong when he gets in the ring and does his fantastic spots where everyone begrudgingly agrees he's actually good at this. Tonight, however, I felt like that really wasn't the case, especially when you look back to Paul's first Elimination Chamber appearance last year. I think that's probably because last year, he had such a hot feud with Kevin Owens that carried into the Chamber match well, where Owens brutally beat him down all over the structure. This year, he stuck out being the only man in the match that wasn't a former world champion and he didn't do anything exciting enough in the ring for me to really get past that.

Commentary briefly noted that Paul was once again drawing on the walls of his pod, like he did last year, but it wasn't cute or funny or really even focused on like last year. When it comes to commentary, I'm also extremely tired of hearing about the titanium plate in Paul's hand, but that might just be a personal thing that I think is just too repetitive. With Paul not being as experienced as the likes of CM Punk, John Cena, Damian Priest, Seth Rollins, and Drew McIntyre, I thought he'd be the man in the match to have a quite a few high spots, but we didn't see anything fresh from him. The one high spot he did hit, in a match that didn't have too many brutal spots, was a simple frog splash from the top of a pod to Priest below, and Paul even scored the elimination on Priest.

I guess I can be glad that Paul didn't score the first elimination, as McIntyre was shockingly eliminated before Paul took out Priest, but it felt like Paul was just kind of there to be another body in the match. I was concerned that his WrestleMania future was going to be a match against Punk, as the pair started brawling shortly after Punk got into the match, but thankfully, it was Punk who eliminated Paul, getting his revenge for Paul eliminating him from the Royal Rumble. While neither man won the Chamber to go on to WrestleMania, it still just feels like Punk is too big of an opponent for Paul on "The Grandest Stage of Them All," so Paul's spot at WrestleMania is a bit blurry to me. While I wouldn't hate if Paul was left off the WrestleMania card, I don't see that happening, so hopefully things for him on "WWE Raw" get more interesting in the coming weeks.

Written by Daisy Ruth

Much had been said about the ambiguous nature of The Rock's demand for Cody Rhodes to offer up his soul and be his champion heading into the Elimination Chamber, with many including myself trying to extrapolate any form of discernible meaning since he spoke the words to no avail. But what happened tonight really rendered that discussion moot, managing to continually one-up itself moment after moment, and delivering what had been long presumed nigh-on impossible: the heel turn of John Cena. 

Cena won the Chamber match to secure his shot at Rhodes at this coming WrestleMania, which in itself felt like a credible headline for the "Show of Shows" if nothing else particularly spectacular, but if truth be told no one was really going to take exception to the idea of Cena chasing his 17th world title at WrestleMania. This very easily could have been a vanilla face vs. face title match meets passing-of-the-torch moment, and very well could have been in a different timeline. Everything was leaning into that very idea too, with Rhodes delivering an excellently rare uncensored "Go f*** yourself" to malign The Rock and amuse Cena as he watched on. 

It really looked as though Cena was going to be the respectful challenger who stood with Rhodes against "The Final Boss," embracing him to apparently rub salt in the wounds of the scorned heel. But then came the expression on Cena's face, a few seconds of realization over what's to come, the internal questioning – "Are they really going to do this? No way, surely not." And then there it was, the classic wrestling trope of a kick below the belt; the question had been over whether Rhodes could turn and who would be challenging him, and the idea that what transpired would happen was so far out of the realms of belief it would have been dismissed as fantasy booking. But it was Cena, and it was a moment of shock and awe to see Superman turn evil, and they didn't even stop there. 

Cena continued the beat down, savaging Rhodes with his own Rolex as The Rock whipped him with the weight belt he had inscribed with Rhodes' signature and the death date of his father. It also cements Rhodes as one of the foremost crucial catalysts in the canon of wrestling, not only bringing "The People's Champion" into the realm of darkness but going one step further to be the man that John Cena turned on. He may never get to reign as WWE Champion again but Rhodes has in the past year defeated Roman Reigns to end his historic 1,316 day reign and turned both The Rock and Cena – two legitimate Hollywood heavyweights – and that really does read as the role of a lifetime.

Written by Max Everett