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Rogers Center in Toronto, Ontario, Canada will host the aptly named Elimination Chamber: Toronto (aka No Escape: Toronto in Germany) on March 01, 2025.The Elimination Chamber itself is a giant cage with four pods that each house a wrestler. Two wrestlers start the match and after a set amount of time, the pods begin opening up at timed intervals. A wrestler is eliminated by pinfall or submission (and occasionally for other silly reasons) with the last wrestler remaining declared the winner.
Besides the matches on the card, The Rock returned on the February 21, 2025, episode of Smackdown to confront Cody. After a convoluted segment, Rock offered Cody that he’d make Cody a superstar (small “s”) on the Rock’s level if Cody would become Rock’s (corporate) champion. Rock told Cody that he’d await Cody’s answer at Elimination Chamber.
John Cena vs. C.M. Punk vs. Logan Paul vs. Drew McIntyre vs. Seth Rollins vs. Damian Priest, Elimination Chamber match
Story in a nutshell: With the winner of the 2025 Royal Rumble choosing to face Gunther for his World Heavyweight Championship, the winner of the Elimination Chamber will get a shot at Cody Rhodes’s Undisputed WWE Championship.
Qualifying matches were held to determine who would participate in the Elimination Chamber. The winner of the chamber match will challenge Cody Rhodes for the Undisputed WWE Championship at WrestleMania. CM Punk defeated Sami Zayn, Drew McIntyre defeated Jimmy Uso and LA Knight, Logan Paul defeated Rey Mysterio, Damien Priest defeated Braun Strowman and Jacob Fatu, Seth Rollins defeated Finn Balor, to earn their spots. John Cena, however, simply declared he was in it after being successful in the Royal Rumble, a fact that has rubbed several of the participant the wrong way. Of the participants, Logan Paul and CM Punk have been having some verbal run ins lately. Punk has also had a recent blood feud with McIntyre and has had issues with Rollins. Punk has also been grumbling about Cena. Besides his issues with Punk, McIntyre was eliminated from the Rumble by Priest and at one point seemed to be about to start something with Rollins. Rollins, beyond the aforementioned, also “murdered” Roman Reigns at the Royal Rumble. Priest recently jumped to Raw from Smackdown so aside from beef from McIntyre coming his way, he’s pretty much fresh. And Logan Paul is Logan Paul.
Predictions: This year’s Elimination Chamber will determine what would likely be this year’s WrestleMania’s biggest match. As Rock has been a wildcard to plan around, there hasn’t been any clear path as to who will challenge Cody at WrestleMania. most of the challengers make sense to be Cody’s challenger at WrestleMania. Here are my thoughts for each one from least to most likely.
Logan Paul: Not happening. Longshot is that the Rock wants him on board because of his marketability.
Seth Rollins: While Rollins did warn Cody on Raw not to give in to the Rock’s offer, it’d be like him to be twofaced and take Rocks offer instead.
Damien Priest: The Rock just needs a body to do the physical work for him if he is to feud with Cody, and Priest character is one that is likely to make a Faustian bargain.
C.M. Punk and John Cena: I’m putting these two together because one is likely to win as is the other one. Punk’s goal is to main event a WrestleMania and Punk versus Cody one on one guarantees that. Cena wants to break the world title holder record, and this is his last WrestleMania. There could also be some screwy finish where they both get a shot. This then might lead to Cody turning to Rock for help turning him heel leaving it up to Roman Reigns to stop Cody in the rubber match but with the roles reversed. I think this one has the greatest potential in terms of storyline potential.
Drew McIntyre: Drew McIntyre has been on the cusp of being the number one guy again. His first shot as “The Guy” was foiled by a pandemic shutdown. His second was shattered by Vince’s nonsensical booking at the first WrestleMania with fans in attendance after the shutdown. His third was in the UK when the Bloodline stole his chance. To rub salt in his wounds, Cody usurped Drew’s story (both left under bad circumstances, reinvented themselves, and returned conquering heroes). Cody, living the life Drew should’ve had is one hell of a story right there, so Drew becoming the Rocks pawn to get at Cody is the likeliest choice of where they would go.
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Liv Morgan vs. Bianca Belair vs. Alexa Bliss vs. Naomi vs. Bayley vs. Roxanne Perez, Elimination Chamber match
Story in a nutshell: The winner of this match will face the winner of Rhea Ripley/Iyo Sky at WrestleMania for the Women’s World Championship.
Qualifying matches were held to earn a spot in the Chamber. Liv Morgan defeated Iyo Sky, Bianca Belair defeated Piper Niven, Alexa Bliss defeated Candice LeRae, Naomi defeated Chelsea Green, Bayley defeated Lyra Valkyria, and Roxanne Perez defeated Raquel Rodriguez. Belair and Naomi are tag team partners who recently lost their titles to Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez. Bliss and Perez are recent additions to SmackDown with Bliss returning from pregnancy and Perez being called up so there’s not much backstory there and Bayley has kind of just been doing her thing.
Prediction: As with the men I’ll go from least to most likely.
Naomi: There’s stuff happening soon between Naomi, Bianca Belair and the “who took out Jade Cargill” story and I’d hate for it to muddle things for WrestleMania with the title. This also applies to Bianca Belair, but I just think Belair is more marketable.
Bayley: despite her appearing all over WWE TV recently, she still feels like she’s drowning and needs a lot of “Bey-ling” water (see what I did there) before she’s on solid ground again. Maybe winning this can be a spark since her veteran status does have value.
Liv Morgan: Not again. Please Lord not again. Morgan and Ripley have been feuding all year and the blowoff happened recently. This is as necessary as that fourth Matrix sequel I refuse to acknowledge exists.
Roxanne Perez: She’s new but has some buzz from NXT. Since none of the other challengers jump off the page, maybe she shocks the world.
Alexa Bliss: She just returned, and the fans love her, but they’ve been teasing that she has connections to the Wyatt 6, and she’s been having run ins with Nia Jax, so it seems like other things are in the works for her.
Bianca Belair: And somehow, I ended up with Belair at the top of my list. She’s the most likely candidate after dropping the tag titles freeing her up. If Belair is the one behind the Jade attack it positions her as the heel to Ripley’s face. I just feel that the baggage of the Jade storyline draws away from Ripley.
Tiffany Stratton & Trish Stratus vs. Nia Jax & Candice LeRae
Story in a nutshell: Nia Jax gets her chance at revenge for when Tiffany Stratton cashed in the Money in the Bank contract pin Jax for the WWE Women’s Championship.
Nia Jax and Tiffany Stratton has an asymmetrical alliance (Tiffany did what Jax wanted and Jax didn’t kill her). Nia Jax was the WWE Women’s champion when Tiffany Stratton won the Money in the Bank contract. Candice LeRae, who noticed that Stratton was having success in her alliance with Jax, slipped herself into the alliance and began to try to push Stratton out. Eventually Stratton cashed in and won the WWE Women’s Championship. After a match between Jax and Stratton. Jax and LeRae attacked Stratton and Trish Stratus, who was in attendance, made the save.
Prediction: Tiffany Stratton needs a strong win heading into WrestleMania against Charlotte.
Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn, Unsanctioned match
Story in a nutshell: It’s Kevin Owens versus Sami Zayn so it was bound to happen again.
Kevin Owens tried to get Sami Zayn to help him in Owens’s match against Cody Rhodes for the Undisputed WWE Championship. The ever more erratic Owens took it out on Sami, hitting him with the banned piledriver. An incensed Sami Zayn wants Owens in a match, clearance be damned and GM Adam Pearce sanctioned it, or unsanctioned it, or… whatever
Prediction: Unless Randy Orton (another of KO’s victims) gets involved, I think Owens should win this.
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