why isnt drew mcintyre getting the shot? he killed this ppv last year

* Santino Marella won a Battle Royal to become the final entrant into the Smackdown Elimination Chamber. It came down to Santino, Drew McIntyre, Ezekiel Jackson, and David Otunga. Santino eliminated Otunga to win.

take out khali and santino

put in drew and zeke

my god. this isnt rocket science. put in the two serious beasty guys that are gonna be scary behind glass rather than the tall guy who can barely walk and the comedy guy with a sock puppet

my mind is blown right now

of repeat where Edge took out Kofi. I have zero expectation Santino will enter the chamber.

Alternately note that Otunga had a plan on Raw where he could have Johnny be GM of Smackdown too, so a situation where the smackdown assistant is in the chamber could be grounds to investigate Teddy by "the board"

I might be the only one who likes Santino here, but he's the best option for the last place. He's bat**** over and got signaturespots he can do, which is alot more then what you can say about McIntyre or Jackson. Without Santino there and if they speed up the Big Show heel turn, Khali could be the most over babyface in the match. If they tease Santino winning the belt it'll get the biggest pop of the night.

Also there is an article on wwe.com saying Santino is replacing Orton so we can stop using spoilertags

That's really weird that they're both saying that on wwe.com and still acting like a match for the honor is taking place on Friday night.

Santino being over is kinda irrelevant given there are 5 others in there with various degrees of overness. I also think its dumb to try and tease him winning cos we all know he wont (if they swerve us here we riot).

There are two reasons i can figure he is included that is likely and a third being not that likely but plausible:

1, as part of what ive said he is used as part of the story where holonaminitplaya gets levered out of the Smackdown GM job by Johnny who included GOATunga in the rumble match and he came second - id need to see the match to be sure but my theory is GOATunga did most of the work then let himself be eliminated as part of his plan that was mentioned on Raw.

2, he is in there as an over face who can do the job and not lose any momentum (cos lets face it he has none) and also they can build up how Bryan finds a loophole to win so he can let everyone eliminate each other then just make Santino tap. I dont like this at all and want Bryan to act like the ****ing boss that we all know he is, but its perfectly logical within the booking style and history the WWE has.

3, Jericho doesnt win the Chamber match against Punk so he pulls an Edge, curbstomps Santino and then gets put in the Smackdown chamber by Big Johnny because holonaminitplaya was too busy trying to make a tag team match elsewhere at the time, which kinda feeds into 1 in that it covers "the plan" however im not a fan of it. It also means that Smackdown's chamber goes on last which wont happen so its kinda goofy how they would write around it short of having Jericho win the WHC and the WWE on the same night and that is the story of how he blew our minds and ended the world as we know it. But however it goes down i really dont think it will happen having pondered the idea.

At a guess its probably a lot of 1 mixed with a little of 2.

There is always a chance Santino gets pushed. I doubt its not but he is soo over. He is legit tough so eventually I see him getting a top spot

1. I don't see Otunga being in the chamber because make it effectively Big Show vs 4 heels. If the SD chamber match had been more balanced i would have no problem with it.

2. Yes, this is what Santino does. He's a bat**** over jobber. They're not going to change booking Bryan as a chicken **** heel anytime soon. Imo it makes him different and interesting. Everyone else got the same angry badass heel gimmick.

Fwiw i think Barret is a slight favorite ahead of Bryan to win.

did you see mcintyre last year? he was amazing at ec. should have been his breakout performance if irl stuff didnt get in his way.

note: i have no issue with santino getting to the final 2 at the rumble. i dont even have an issue with santino going to the final 4 at king of the ring.

but this is elimination chamber....

its supposed to be a brutal, destructive chamber where you are scared ****less of the people in the pods, and they are going nuts to get in the ring. its supposed to be a serious, scary ppv. having a comedy guy in there just ruins the entire event.

(im holding out hope this is being done for mcintyre/xtian's comeback to take him out tho i guess)

Yes, McIntyre had a fantastic performance at the EC last year. I'm not hating on him, he's even in my favorite match of 2011. But he's not turned face yet and kinda lacks momentum. Ezekiel is on tv once a month for a reason.

I still think Santino is the best option for filling in the last babyface spot. I don't think he's a good fit at all, but the main event babyface talent pool is so shallow. Khali and Kofi is already in 2 of the 6 babyface spots, and none of the 3 got talent enough to be in the main event scene.

But I'll admit I was wrong if he's terrible in the EC. I'm giving him a chance atleast.

Reading through the spoilers, Big Show turned full heel. So they kinda have to have Santino in the match because there's literally no other faces in the match. Who's the crowd going to cheer for Khali? It's going to be a really weird dynamic where the only face in the match has no chance of winning.

Ive said it before, ill say it again, why not just put the funkasaurus in the chamber. Give him a good performance and he is an instant main event star even if he loses after taking a couple back to back finishers after he what the funks Khali to get an elim as a thanks for coming.

It depends on the execution of it. I think it's just the start of a heel turn because of the reasons you said. Also one segment on smackdown is not going to change the crowd reaction to one of the most over faces in the company. No one watches smackdown.