The Elimination Chamber

The Elimination Chamber is a match type in professional wrestling, specifically seen in World Wrestling Entertainment.

Origin

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) originally had only two matches in a caged environment, the Steel Cage and Hell in a Cell matches. The Steel Cage was the first type of match in a cage in professional wrestling and consisted of four walls of steel surrounding the ring apron, while the Hell in a Cell was a roofed-derivation that was taller and surrounded the ring on the ground as opposed to the apron. In 2002, WWE announced the creation of the Elimination Chamber, a match that combined elements of WWE's Royal Rumble match, Survivor Series matches and World Championship Wrestling's (WCW) WarGames matches, in that the countdown timer comes from the Royal Rumble and War Games, the enclosed cage format from War Games, and the elimination process from the Survivor Series.

The structure is a giant circle that covers the ringside area. There are four plexiglass chambers for the wrestlers to wait in and the area outside the ring between the chambers is made of steel grating. The domed structure is made of solid steel beams with thick ropes of chain making the structure impossible to escape. The Elimination Chamber is 36 foot in diameter, consists of over 2 miles of chain, is 16 feet high, and weighs over 10 tons. The WWE claims to have spent over $500,000 to construct it.

Match rules

The Elimination Chamber match is a variation of the steel cage, War Games, and Hell in a Cell matches, in that the ring is surrounded by a circular steel structure of chain and girders, but instead of a standard steel cage, the Elimination Chamber is circular, allowing for four inner chambers (or "pods") to be placed on the apron behind the four ring posts, with platforms keeping the wrestlers from the floor. The match is contested by six wrestlers, two beginning the match in the ring and the other four in the glass chambers. After a pre-determined amount of time (three, four or five minutes), a pod opens at random and a wrestler is added to the two already competing, and this continues until all men are released. Wrestlers are eliminated by pinfall and submission that count both inside and outside the ring. The winner of the match is the final wrestler left, who has not been eliminated.

Match history

The Elimination Chamber has been scheduled exclusively to WWE pay-per-view events and debuted at Survivor Series (2002) on November 17, 2002. Since the inaugural match, there have been ten other matches (eleven overall) as of WWE Elimination Chamber on February 21, 2010. Raw has been featured in the most matches, with seven; ECW has been featured once and in one joint-branded match with SmackDown for a total of two; SmackDown has been featured twice and in one joint-branded match with ECW for a total of three. No Way Out has featured the most matches than any other pay-per-view, with four; Triple H also has also won the most matches with four wins. Except for the 2008 matches which were fought for championship matches, each match has been contested for the top-tier WWE championship, with the World Heavyweight Championship (WWE) being fought for the most in five matches. The match has been contested only in indoor arenas in the United States and once in Puerto Rico. Since 2008, the match has been featured in February pay-per-view events.

Source: Wikipedia