The Road to WrestleMania™ has a particularly dangerous stop for WWE Superstars: the “Elimination Chamber” pay-per-view. TheWrap can exclusively unveil the competitors in the women’s Elimination Chamber Match.
Shayna Baszler, Asuka, Ruby Riott, Natalya, Liv Morgan and Sarah Logan will square off next month in the titular match at “WWE Elimination Chamber,” we’ve learned. Not only does that sound like a badass match, the stakes inside the perilous cage will be as high as they get: The winner faces Becky Lynch at WrestleMania 36 for her Raw Women’s Champion title.
The official announcement of the Chamber Match participants will take place tonight on “Raw.”
If Baszler wants to get back at Lynch, she’ll have to go through the disbanded Riott Squad (Ruby, Liv, and Logan) to get there — oh yeah, and Asuka and Natalya too. At least Riott and Morgan probably won’t be allies here — the former attacked the latter two weeks ago in her return to “Raw.”
Baszler and Lynch have been on a crash course with one another, resulting in the former MMA star viciously (storyline) biting the champ last week on “Raw.”
Watch Baszler go full “True Blood” via the video below.
Lynch, who had a meteoric rise last year that culminated in her pinning Ronda Rousey at WrestleMania and winning both the “Raw” and “SmackDown” belts, is experiencing a different kind of Road to WrestleMania™ this time. She’s no longer the scrappy challenger on a date with destiny: Lynch is officially the longest-running Raw Women’s Champion in WWE history.
“I think that this is where the challenge starts,” she told TheWrap. “Because there’s the fun part — but now you’ve got to prove that you can do it time and time again and that you’ve got longevity and that you’ve got staying power and that’s why you’re the greatest of all time, which I am and prove every single week.”
The crown is Lynch’s to lose this time. Will she?
“Hell no!” she promised. “I’d been waiting on that throne way too long. Way too long. I did it for what three, four years? Didn’t get recognized, didn’t get credit for what I did — for the work that I put in, the effort that I put in… and now I have it, I’m not letting go.”
If it’s Baszler coming for scepter, Lynch is ready to bite back — in any violent format WWE could come up with.
“I would love a Street Fight, No Holds Barred, whatever it is. I’ve been in all those matches, I don’t think she has,” Lynch told TheWrap. “I have the experience in all of those matches. I’ve won the Last Woman Standing match…the Match of the Year.”
“I don’t see a reason that this [result] would be any different,” she said.
The “Elimination Chamber” pay-per-view is scheduled for March 8. WrestleMania 36 takes place April 5 in Tampa, Fla.
Here’s how an Elimination Chamber Match works: Two competitors start in the ring, which is contained in a giant, roofed cage. Four other competitors are locked in individual clear pods in each corner. At regular time intervals, a pod opens by “random” (it’s not random, this is sports entertainment) selection, introducing a new competitor into the mounting chaos. Wrestlers eliminate each other one at a time until only the winner is left (barely) standing.
Catch Lynch and some of her potential ‘Mania opponents tonight on USA Network’s “Monday Night Raw,” which starts at 8/7c and runs for three hours. Baszler is still technically on the “NXT” roster; she mainly wrestles Wednesday nights on USA. WWE’s other main-roster show, “SmackDown,” airs Fridays on Fox.