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Welcome to the Weekly Report from the guys here @TheTopRope, if you haven’t already checked out our Audio Shows, you can download the shows on iTunes.

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James Partridge – @GoofyVillain

3 nights of WWE live began with the Elimination Chamber. As many have said, the order of the matches felt wrong. I’d have started with the Smackdown Chamber, and ended with the Raw one.

As for the matches, I enjoyed the Raw chamber, due to the cool spots (and ones that made me go “ouch!!”, like the DDT to Dolph on the steel floor). The ending wasn’t what I expected, so fair play to WWE for a different ending than usual. I kept waiting for Jericho to re-enter and steal the title from CM Punk, but it wasn’t to be. The Divas title match was better than I expected, and more enjoyable than most Divas matches lately.

Smackdown’s Chamber dragged on a bit, and only seemed to liven up once Big Show broke into Daniel Bryan’s pod. The work of Cody Rhodes, Wade Barrett and Santino Marella really helped improve the match, and the last 10 mins were quite good. I couldn’t believe how loud the cheers were for Santino! Really delighted Daniel Bryan retained though, glad he will be Champion for Wrestlemania. 

I wasn’t bothered by the US Title filler match, as the match up made no sense, while the Ambulance match was fine. It went how I expected to be honest.

Onto Raw, the Eve segment was strange. It seemed like the heel turn was rushed. I also feel they could have gone without some of the things Cena said to her. The WWE.com exclusive video did more for her, then this segment.

As for the Battle Royal, while we got the expected Jericho win to set up a Mania match with Punk, I had one problem here: I felt Big Show was a bit reckless. When he threw Dolph, it looked like he threw him slightly too high (and hard) for both guys to catch, injurying Wade and nearly doing the same to Dolph. Same for when he got rid of Cody Rhodes too, that almost went wrong.

As for Smackdown, I felt that was a bit of a let down. Khali/Drew barely lasted, Otunga/Zeke was as dull as the night before. The Big Show/Henry match, while I feel is setting up Show/Cody at Mania, it made no sense to knockout Henry and just leave. The plus points were certainly Sheamus/Miz and Punk/Bryan. I’d like to see Punk/Bryan again, and with a winner too please!

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Lee Charleton – @Leeleemu

7 Days removed from last weeks WWE PPV, I don’t want to dwell on it too much apart from state I think the WWE missed alot of potential ways to build future storylines and even shake things up going into Mania. I think the returns of Del Rio and Christian were completely wasted but was happy Bryan and Punk came out victorious.

However, I want to talk more about WWE Raw tomorrow night with The Rock surely going to unleash a tirade against John Cena but I am not sure how it is going to go down. John Cena cut a very convincing promo last Monday in what was one of the brighter moments of the wrestling week. I didn’t agree with the Eve/Ryder/Kane storyline but he had to be involved with something until the Rock was able to stop promoting his C List movies and “come back home.”

I am not stupid and I know how business is going to go through the roof for WWE this Mania year due to The Rock’s exposure but I think The Rock is potentially bulling himself up a little too much. Sure, wrestling fans from yesteryear will probably buy Wrestlemania due to the nostaligic value but I doubt a huge amount of people who have watched his films but dislike wrestling will.

Furthermore, I will be in attendance in Miami for Mania 28 and I will be standing next to at least one John Cena fan in my girlfriend, but honestly I think I will be a secret Cena fan. Love him or hate him, John Cena has dedicated his life to the WWE and you could even argue he found it harder to get to the WWE then The Rock due to Dwayne Johnson being a third generation star. Yes wrestling is in his blood, but surely he was expected to become a wrestler which is slightly different then someone wanting to be a wrestler and working ridiculously hard to get there.

I think people forget that in this Rock/Cena feud, if you have to be honest, The Rock was probably given a few more chances then Cena to make it big. Don’t get me wrong, I am a massive Rocky fan but over this feud, I have found the Rock coming across extremely arrogant and I think people forget the period of time The Rock avoided the WWE. Unlike Foley, Jericho and Austin who have always come back and given something, The Rock left it years before doing so and therefore I can understand where Cena is coming from.

I was one of those last year that criticised The Rock when he said he will never leave the WWE to only come back 4/5 times in the following 10 months whereas Cena is busting a gut most nights, around the world as well as representing the company in public. I am certain I will enjoy the Rocks promo tomorrow and will probably agree with alot of it but at the end of the day, no matter how big the Rock was in the past, Cena has been around just as long and has won just as many titles as Dwayne and if anything, has been more of a company man and I for one, I guess, will be one of the few 21+ year olds who is actually supporting Cena.

Otherwise, with Punk/Jericho, HHH/Taker, Rock/Cena, Bryan/Sheamus, I am looking forward to the run in to Mania and what the rest of the card will be. I am glad the Shaquille O’Neal rumours are subsiding as I really cannot be bothered seeing a waste of space in the ring and I am hoping this Mania will be one which was worth me spending the money on flying over to Miami.

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