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.
Even as the gateway to The Road to WrestleMania is narrowing by the second, it seems there’s still room for a surprise or two. Or, fittingly enough, two.