Dot Net reader Thomas McCaulla attended the WWE Elimination Chamber in New Orleans, La. and sent the following report.

We arrived around 5PM at the arena only to be lucky enough to get to have some fun with JBL outside who was shooting his show. Afterwards he signed autographs for a while. About 30 minutes later Dolph Ziggler came out and looked pretty surprised at the pop he received. He was signing pictures in the merchandise trailer that was set up outside. This kind of sucked for us because we had just bought what we wanted and we had gotten back in line to get in but oh well life goes on.

This crowd was very hot for the heels all night. Rhode Scholars got a nice pop until Damien Sandow did his job in turning the crowd. The Brodus Clay and Tensai match was OK for what it was and kids seemed to enjoy it.

For the first match, nobody really cared either way about Big Show and everybody loved Ricardo Rodriguez and spoke along with him ala the old New Age Outlaws intros. There was a decent pop for Alberto Del Rio and the fans were pretty active the whole match until the botched kick to the can, which just made the crowd groan and laugh. Nobody cared for the ending once that botch killed the energy.

The Miz and Antonio Cesaro put on a good match with a bad ending that didn't look bad live until they showed the replay.

Jack Swagger didn't really get much heat but Zeb Colter had that place booing in a way that would make Vickie Guerrero jealous. I'm interested to see how well this gimmick works once they get back west a little bit where there are more people this may actually offend (more on this later). Decent pops for everybody but Randy Orton got a huge pop. Mark Henry got a really good pop as well from start to finish and it makes me wonder if they could push him just as a monster...but not a heel. The match was what it was and the best part was the end since the crowd was so hot for Orton then instantly silence fell when Swagger rolled him up.

This where it got interesting because in front of me was a guy who I saw agreeing with Colter during his promo. When Swagger won, he got out of his seat and cheered only to reveal his nice confederate flag shirt. Which is fine...unless you're in New Orleans cheering a xenophobic character surrounded by a lot of people who want to kick your ass now. So WWE needs to tread carefully with this gimmick simply because there are grown adults out there who take the characters as if they're real.

Eventually they're going to hit some country city for Raw and Zeb is getting cheered or they're going to go to Laredo and some fan(s) are going to jump the rail and kick his ass. Kudos for pushing the envelope a little, but they need to be prepared for the crazies who don't understand the concept of characters. 

Everybody expected the Diva's match or something un-advertised to go between the chamber and six-man tag so people got up for food and restroom only for John Cena's music to hit. Cena's pop was really weak since most of the kids were out and a lot of them seemed upset upon returning to their seats only to see he was already in the ring. Ryback had a lot of chants (more than Cena) and looked strong, but Roman Reigns looked like a beast the whole time he was in. I would have personally liked to see more of Seth Rollins given his high flying move set that hasn't really been shown on WWE TV, but I'll take The Shield winning as a sign we're going to see these guys for a long time.

The Dolph Ziggler segment wasn't really needed since Kofi Kingston doesn't need to be feed to the upper-mid card just to get them over. We started a "one more time" chant and some people got it but others thought we were crazy since they didn't get it.

I went to piss for the Diva's match. Nothing against them, but I had to piss and AJ is the only Diva I wanted to see.

A good pop for C.M. Punk and a huge pop for The Rock. The crowd didn't like how slow the match was and it was really obvious the Rock doesn't have the wind to go like Punk. Personally, the match wasn't that great physically but the story was told well. Most people knew there was no way Punk was walking out with the title so the near falls on the Rock didn't seem to get a reaction. The table spot was funny given last month it broke early and this month it didn't. After the match, the cameras cut The Rock was jawing with the Spanish announcers. I wasn't close enough to see if he was just messing with them or he was giving them hell but you could see he was pounding the table and rocking it back and forth.

The crowd went home happy with The Rock winning even though the heels won most of the matches. It was one of the better PPV's I've been to and seeing the Chamber and The Rock live for the first time made it worth the drive.

Best Pops (all tied from my POV):
Cena
Orton
Ryback

Most Heat:
Zeb Colter
The Shield

Everybody else had OK pops/heat or were split.

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