The main event of tonight’s (Sun., Feb. 25, 2018) WWE Elimination Chamber pay-per-view (PPV) from the T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada, was the first ever 7-man Elimination Chamber match pitting Braun Strowman vs. Roman Reigns vs. John Cena vs. Seth Rollins vs. Elias vs. Finn Balor vs. The Miz. The winner would earn a shot at Brock Lesnar and the Universal championship at WrestleMania 34.
You already know who was winning.
Elias, Strowman, Cena, and Reigns were given the pod placement while Rollins, Balor, and Miz started the match in the ring. Miz opened trying to create an alliance with someone, anyone, but no one took the bait.
Cena was the first guy out of his pod, and he smiled all the way, getting in Rollins’ face and engaging in a verbal spat before a pushing match. I’m not sure why they did this in the middle of a match instead of, you know, just fighting each other. But there you go.
Reigns was in next, still no eliminations. They set up for literally the worst spot of all time when all four guys just sat there and waited for Miz to ask the crowd who he should deliver the “IT” kicks to. He went with everyone.
They had Reigns staring down Strowman in his pod before the countdown clock brought him into the match. It was the best spot of the match to that point. With relative ease, Strowman put down every guy in the match until only Miz, who had been literally running away, remained. He caught up to him by climbing up onto a pod, where he knocked his head into the side and then threw him off into a pile of bodies below.
Shortly after, Strowman pinned Miz, making him the first elimination.
Just after, the clock counted down to Elias entering last. He slowed played it and that allowed everyone else in the match to gang up on Braun and put him down. That meant doing a quadruple powerbomb with all four guys trying to pin him at once.
He kicked out.
Cena followed up with an AA.
He kicked out.
Rollins followed up with a Curb Stomp.
Balor followed up with the Coup de Grace.
By then Strowman had rolled out of the ring, so they couldn’t attempt to pin him. Through it all, Elias had remained in his pod. Everyone in the ring put everyone else down, so Elias ran in and tried to pin literally everyone.
They all kicked out.
There was nothing he could do to score an elimination and finally, Strowman recovered, got in, hit the Running Powerslam, and pinned him to elimination Elias.
The four guys remaining not named Strowman again tried to gang up to take him out. That included Cena coming off the top rope only for Braun to catch him, hit the Running Powerslam, and eliminate him.
Balor was next to try to go toe-to-toe with Strowman and he actually held up really well, to the point that he put the big man down AND hit the Coup de Grace while a small chant for him broke out. Still, he couldn’t score the pin to eliminate the monster, who rolled away from danger to the outside. Balor continued running wild on Rollins and then hit Coup de Grace on Reigns but Strowman had recovered by then and hit another Running Powerslam to eliminate Finn.
That left just The Shield boys to get these hands. Naturally, they couldn’t avoid fighting each other in the madness but the main story remained that Strowman was the beast to get away from. Reigns managed to put him down with a Samoan Drop on the outside so Rollins could escape to the top of a pod. From there, Braun rolled into the ring and Seth came down with a splash from the pod.
Braun kicked out.
Rollins used a couple of superkicks to get Strowman to one knee but when he went for another Curb Stomp, Braun stood up and hit yet another Running Powerslam to score yet another pinfall elimination, his fifth of the match.
That left just Strowman vs. Reigns, and the crowd to chant “get these hands” as they came together for a staredown in the middle of the ring.
They battled and, finally, they broke a pod when Reigns avoided a charging Braun, who crashed through one. Reigns followed it up with a Superman Punch and the boos rained down. He got back in the ring and hit another, and the boos got louder. When Reigns went for the Spear Strowman teased the Running Powerslam but Roman got out of it, hit one more Superman Punch, then two more Spears.
Finally, that was enough.
Reigns pinned Strowman to win the match but Braun destroyed him after and the PPV went off the air with the next Universal title challenger laid out hurt.
Get complete Elimination Chamber results and coverage of the entire card here.