Bengaluru, January 30: Daniel Bryan carrying an 'eco-friendly’ WWE Championship belt did not bring him any luck. Rather, his title run looks to be in serious jeopardy now with his next title match being announced. Within just three weeks of time, he will have to defend his title inside the Elimination Chamber structure. It would be the toughest championship defense of his reign where five superstars will be his challengers.

In the announcement, WWE COO, Triple H confirmed that the next WWE Championship defense will take place at the Elimination Chamber PPV event. Daniel Bryan will have to go in a war against five of the prime superstars from the Smackdown Live brand. AJ Styles, Randy Orton, Samoa Joe, Jeff Hardy and Mustafa Ali are the ones who get the shot at the title. Mustafa will compete in a PPV title match for the first time ever after his main roster move from the NXT brand.

All these names demanded for a title opportunity and they showed up on Smackdown to set up a confrontation that later turned into a brawl. So Triple H had to step in and make an announcement about the fate of the WWE Championship. He made it official for the upcoming PPV that will be contested under Elimination Chamber rules. His comments were as follows (courtesy WWE.com)

“In the Elimination Chamber, two competitors will start the bout while the remaining four Superstars remain enclosed in pods. At specified intervals, a pod will open at random, enabling a Superstar to enter the match. This will continue until all six of the combatants have joined the bout. Any Superstar can be eliminated at any time via pinfall or submission and must leave the chamber. The last Superstar standing will be the WWE Champion.”

The other big title match of confirmed from Smackdown Live will take place for the tag team championships. Shane McMahon and The Miz have became new champions at the Royal Rumble event. The former champions did not receive any mandatory rematch clause since this rule does not exist in current WWE context. Rather we received a number one contender’s match on the show.



It was a four-corners tag team elimination match featuring the Heavy Machinery (Otis Dozovic & Tucker Knight), New Day (Big E & Kofi Kingston), the Bar (Cesaro & Sheamus) and the Usos (Jimmy & Jey Uso). The Usos were victorious eliminating The Bar with their signature superkicks and Frog-Splash. Once the match was over, WWE.com made the tag team championship match official for Elimination Chamber with the following statement,

“The Usos — SmackDown’s longest-tenured tag team and arguably its most dominant — will challenge the “Co-Besties” for the blue tandem titles at Elimination Chamber. With his & Miz’s pride and joy up for grabs against a dangerous tandem, he may well regret giving the nod to the two brothers who can turn their dream run into a very, very rude awakening.

Tune in to Elimination Chamber on Sunday, Feb. 17, at 7 ET/4 PT to see which team is left standing, streaming live on the award-winning WWE Network.”