There’s still plenty of time for WWE to prove me wrong on this, and maybe they will, but at the moment it’s hard for me to imagine caring very much about the Elimination Chamber card. With four matches already set, plus the announced Grayson Waller segment with Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins, that’s probably the whole shebang outside of maybe one more undercard match. And considering how those matches are likely to play out, it’s really difficult to see this as anything other than a glorified house show.

Probably the easiest match to get behind at this point is Damian Priest and Finn Balor vs. Pete Dunne and Tyler Bate for the tag titles, just because there’s at least a little hope we don’t know the outcome. The Judgment Day will probably win, just because after literal years of being held by wrestlers hovering around the main event picture, the tag belts feel a little bigger than the newly re-formed British Strong Style … but they might not, you never know! Judgment Day’s direction heading into WrestleMania is unclear at the moment, so there are more possibilities for the finish with this one.

The other three, however, seem pretty cut and dried. Drew McIntyre is winning the men’s Elimination Chamber (he’s the only person in the match who would make a ounce of sense as Rollins’ opponent) and Becky Lynch is winning the women’s Elimination Chamber to set up a WrestleMania match with Rhea Ripley, who will defeat Nia Jax. Is there anyone at all who believes that isn’t happening after WWE prematurely blew their load on the Lynch/Ripley feud at the WrestleMania Kickoff event or whatever? Is anybody not picking those three people to win those three matches?

I’ve often said that predictability isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but predictability isn’t really the issue here. If the story between Rhea and Becky hadn’t already started going into this match, most people would probably still have taken them both to win. Launching that feud before Elimination Chamber doesn’t make their matches predictable — it actively makes their matches not matter at all (not the result, not the finish, not any of it) by directly showing us what comes next. As a wise man might say, that’s not a prediction, it’s a spoiler.

Even worse than that, though, is the fact that so far these Elimination Chamber rosters look pretty dull in terms of potential conflicts. LA Knight is in the match, but he’s feuding with AJ Styles, who isn’t. Bobby Lashley is in the match, but he’s feuding with Karrion Kross, who isn’t. The omission of Sami Zayn is frankly just insane — he’s feuding with McIntyre, and if you put Logan Paul and Kevin Owens in on Friday, you would have four guys right there who all have history with each other (except maybe McIntyre and Paul). And similar problems abound in the women’s chamber, where the primary avenues for character conflict so far would be Ripley vs. Liv Morgan and Lynch vs. Nia Jax. So of course, Morgan and Lynch and in the Chamber while Ripley and Jax fight for the title. It’s a recipe for the wrestling equivalent of empty calories — no real drama, just a bunch of moves in a slightly variant setting.

As for Seth and Cody … look, WWE probably thinks this is the big draw for the broader fanbase, but not having Cody, at least, wrestle a match in Perth is weak sauce. This is a card that had CM Punk and Brock Lesnar on it before Punk got hurt and Lesnar got disavowed; are you really just not going to replace any of that star power? Because I have to assume that neither Roman Reigns nor The Rock are flying to Australia for an unannounced cameo appearance in someone else’s segment.

Speaking for the Americans in the audience, this PLE is airing damn early, and those of us who live in the western states would have to switch on Peacock and two or three in the morning. On a Saturday. I’m sorry, but no — not with this card, booked this way. Y’all can tell me all about it when I wake up.

Written by Miles Schneiderman