LAS VEGAS — In what was less a match between Superstars and more a battle between darkness and light, “Woken” Matt Hardy vanquished Bray Wyatt at WWE Elimination Chamber in both body and soul.
Hardy thwarted The Reaper of Souls before the bell even rang when he vanished from the ring, taunting the former WWE Champion as a disembodied voice that promised nothing less than obsolescence for The Eater of Worlds.
Wyatt was completely taken aback when Hardy reappeared. The Woken One attempted a series of Twists of Fate at the start, and each nearly found their mark before The Eater of Worlds used his comparative bulk to press Hardy into the mat. Wyatt continued to find success when the fight spilled on the outside, too. Even though Hardy avoided a uranage on the steps, a clothesline turned him into a splatter on the T-Mobile Arena floor all the same.
With his Woken Warriors willing him back into the fight, Hardy mounted a wonderful rally. Still, The Eater of Worlds’ strength advantage allowed him to cut off the deletion process nonetheless. What The Woken One did possess, however, is speed, and after Hardy evaded the clutches of Sister Abigail, a boot to the gut left Wyatt open to a splendiferous Twist of Fate that all but bathed Las Vegas in a heavenly light.
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The Fatal 5-Way that pitted Superstars who lost their initial Men’s Elimination Chamber qualifiers (plus Seth Rollins, who maneuvered his way into the match) against each other for the last berth in the fateful contest ended in unprecedented fashion, as both Rollins and Finn Bálor administered a match-ending pinfall that led to a historic ruling by Raw General Manager Kurt Angle.
It was a fitting conclusion, as both Superstars had perhaps the most to prove, though Bray Wyatt, looking to return to the site of his first WWE Title victory, certainly kept himself in the thick of the hunt. Sure enough, despite strong showings from “Woken” Matt Hardy (who was so unmoved by Wyatt’s mind games that he got the WWE Universe to offer The Reaper of Souls a golf-clap) and Apollo Crews (who saved the match after Rollins took out Bálor, flattening The Architect with a pair of Standing Shooting Star Presses much to the delight of a ringside Titus O’Neil), the match quickly came down to the three former World Champions of the bunch.
Wyatt dispatched his rival Hardy from contention, administering Sister Abigail to The Woken One on the arena floor and honing in on Crews, who was stranded by himself atop the turnbuckle. Rollins and Bálor joined forces for a Tower of Doom, but while Crews quickly rolled out of the ring after the impact, Wyatt suffered a simultaneous pinfall from both The Kingslayer and The Extraordinary Man. With the result of the match thrown into question, Angle opted to split the difference in a post-Raw confrontation on Facebook Live, decreeing that both Rollins and Bálor would be allowed into the Chamber, turning the bout into a seven-man contest for the first time ever.
Credit: WWE.com
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According to Bray Wyatt, Roman Reigns is a “failure,” but it was Wyatt who was left out in the cold at the end of a qualifying match for the Men’s Elimination Chamber Match, where Universal Champion Brock Lesnar’s WrestleMania opponent will be decided.
Fighting words aside, that’s a bitter pill for Wyatt to swallow, given that he won his first WWE Championship inside the Chamber last year and has been chasing those heights since losing the title at WrestleMania. Re-entering the site of his greatest triumph would have been the perfect launching point for him, and Wyatt fought like a man who understood the stakes, taking the match to the outside when Reigns began to gain the advantage.
Even when The Big Dog slowly but surely clawed his way back, Wyatt hung with him every step of the way, turning the match into a high-stakes war of attrition. Reigns regained the upper hand by kicking out of Sister Abigail to send Wyatt into a twitchy, wide-eyed frenzy and powering out of a second attempt in order to set up a match-ending Spear. The loss would have been bad enough for Wyatt, of course. But thanks to a post-match attack from “Woken” Matt Hardy, whom Wyatt cost a Chamber position last week, The Eater of Worlds’ night ended in something even worse than failure: Deletion
Credit: WWE.com
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