Elimination Chamber Forces WWE Into SmackDown Change
A change has been made to WWE Smackdown due to Elimination Chamber taking place in Australia.
For the first time since an October 2018 Premium Live Event called Super Show-Down, WWE is doing a PLE in Australia. Elimination Chamber takes place in Perth, Australia on February 24th at Optus Stadium with 40,000+ fans likely in attendance.
In an interesting note regarding the WWE schedule, fans attending the Friday, February 16th edition of Smackdown in Salt Lake City, Utah are getting more bang for their buck because they will be getting two episodes of Smackdown in one night.
The reason for that is a logistic issue because flying from the US is a long flight and for WWE to bring the roster over as well as their production equipment, it’s going to take them a long time to set everything up. That also means the company will leave for Australia early, so taping the February 23rd edition of Smackdown right after the February 16th episode makes a lot of sense.
What Matches Will Take Place At WWE Elimination Chamber?
There are no official matches set for WWE Elimination Chamber as of this writing, but the build for the card has started.
This past Monday on the January 29th edition of WWE Raw, Australia’s own Women’s World Champion Rhea Ripley was attacked from behind by Nia Jax. It’s expected that Ripley will face Jax at Elimination Chamber. Both women were born in Australia and Ripley grew up there while Jax grew up in the US. Ripley will likely be cheered heavily against Jax.
The Judgment Day’s Finn Balor and Damian Priest will also defend their WWE Tag Team Titles as well. Pete Dunne & Tyler Bate won a four-way match on Smackdown. That team will face the winner of a four-way match on Raw. Whoever wins that regular tag team match will face Balor & Priest at Elimination Chamber.
It is expected that there will be Men’s and Women’s Elimination Chamber matches at the show as well. There have been many instances in the past where those matches have been for WrestleMania title matches, but nothing has been announced yet about what those matches will be.