The build for Wrestlemania continues tonight with the second pay-per-view of 2010.  The February show is always a slightly awkward one.  January has the Royal Rumble, with the winner getting a title shot in the main event at Wrestlemania… in March.  Once they started running monthly pay-per-views, that left the question of what to do in February.  Since the brand split has left the company with two versions of the world title, an obvious solution would be to pick the second challenger in February.  But for some unfathomable reason, the WWE has instead decided that February is an ideal month to have both world titles defended in convoluted six-man cage matches.  This has never struck me as the best way to build to the biggest title matches of the year, but there we go.

And so, in keeping with the policy of giving every pay-per-view its own gimmick, the February show is now Elimination Chamber.

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As always, the WWE’s first pay-per-view of 2010 is one of the big ones.  Traditionally, the biggest show of the year in always Wrestlemania in the spring – this year, March 28th.  And back in the days when there were only a handful of PPVs each year, the Royal Rumble was the start of an extended build to Wrestlemania.  It’s a simple idea: the winner of the titular battle royal becomes the number one contender for the World Title, and the title match headlines Wrestlemania.  Then you spend two months building to it.

It’s a bit more complicated now.  The brand split means that Raw and Smackdown (and ECW, as if anyone still cares) all have their own separate versions of the world title, so the winner gets to choose which champion he faces.  And there’s also a February pay-per-view to fill – ideally by selecting challengers for the other major titles.  But the basic idea remains the same.  The build to the major show starts tonight and lasts for two months. (more…)

The WWE’s 2009 pay-per-view schedule wraps up tonight with TLC, another of the themed events which they’ve been trying over the last few months.  This one is notionally chosen by fans polled on the website, but (as usual when the WWE allows the fans to vote) anyone could have seen the result coming a mile away.  The fans have opted for the most spectacular, and least practical, option.  And now the writers have to try and make it work. (more…)

Continuing another series from If Destroyed, it’s time for another WWE pay-per-view preview.  Mercifully, the days of three-week gaps between shows appear to be behind us, as the 2010 schedule is generally more relaxed than this year’s.  So this time, the writers have had plenty of time to build to the show.  This isn’t to say they’ve done it very well.  But they’ve had the time.

Survivor Series is traditionally one of the big shows of the year – which is to say, it’s the Thanksgiving show, and they’ve been using the name for 23 years now, so it must be important.  As we’ve mentioned before, the WWE is currently on a kick of giving every show a gimmick, but Survivor Series always had one: 5-on-5 tag team elimination matches.  Fortunately, the company seems to have figured out that you can’t always shoehorn the main event storylines into the gimmick match du jour, so a pattern is emerging: two title matches to headline the card, three gimmicks below. 

And this month’s card looks like this… (more…)