With the Royal Rumble within the rear-view mirror, there’s just one path to a world championship match at WrestleMania, and that path is successful the Elimination Chamber. The occasion takes place on Saturday at United Center in Chicago.
Six males and 6 girls will enter the Elimination Chamber, with the winners of the lads’s and girls’s matches incomes their shot at a world title. With males’s Royal Rumble winner Roman Reigns already selecting world heavyweight champion CM Punk and girls’s winner Liv Morgan choosing girls’s world champion Stephanie Vaquer, that leaves WWE champion Drew McIntyre and WWE girls’s champion Jade Cargill for the Elimination Chamber winners.
There are additionally a pair of title matches set for the Elimination Chamber card, with CM Punk placing his world heavyweight title — and spot as a WrestleMania headliner — on the road towards Finn Balor, and Punk’s spouse, AJ Lee, difficult Becky Lynch for the ladies’s intercontinental championship.
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Shakiel Mahjouri
Let’s check out who the CBS Sports consultants imagine will emerge victorious on Saturday in Chicago.
2026 WWE Elimination Chamber predictions
Men’s Elimination Chamber Match — Randy Orton vs. LA Knight vs. Cody Rhodes vs. Je’Von Evans vs. Trick Williams vs. Jey Uso: Many occasions, choosing a winner in a match like this comes down to eliminating who would not be a winner. Evans and Williams aren’t at the moment on the degree the place they’re going to be going one-on-one for a world championship at WrestleMania. Orton is a legend, however not one who’s in a spot the place he is smart as a WrestleMania headliner in 2026. Uso is not going to have a second consecutive world title match at WrestleMania, and he’s a tag champion anyway, giving him different issues to be doing. That leaves Knight and Rhodes, solely one among whom has an ongoing concern — which some might say has been ongoing for much too lengthy — with McIntyre. That makes the result appear pretty apparent. Pick: Cody Rhodes wins — Brent Brookhouse (additionally Shakiel Mahjouri)
Women’s Elimination Chamber Match — Tiffany Stratton vs. Rhea Ripley vs. Alexa Bliss vs. Asuka vs. Kiana James vs. Raquel Rodriguez: The winner of this match will problem WWE girls’s champion Jade Cargill at WrestleMania. Those stakes assist slender the sphere. The champ seems to be like a field workplace star, so WWE ought to decide a challenger with star energy and expertise. Asuka and Cargill are each heels, and whereas that generally works, it does not gel effectively right here. Bliss suits the invoice, however she’s extra attention-grabbing teaming with Charlotte Flair. Ripley vs. Cargill screams WrestleMania, a collision between two of WWE’s strongest girls. Ripley’s standing as girls’s tag workforce champion complicates issues, however there’s extra upside right here than retreading Cargill vs. Stratton. Pick: Ripley wins — Mahjouri (additionally Brookhouse)
World Heavyweight Championship — CM Punk (c) vs. Finn Balor: It’s good to see Balor positioned like a serious participant as soon as once more, and equally good that it’s signaling the tip of his time in Judgment Day, however there’s simply no manner WWE pivots from Punk vs. Reigns at WrestleMania to Balor vs. Reigns. It was good to see WWE lastly deliver up the weird ending to Balor vs. Reigns at Extreme Rules 2021, however that is not sufficient basis for a WrestleMania principal occasion. Pick: CM Punk retains the title — Brookhouse (additionally Mahjouri)
Women’s Intercontinental Championship — Becky Lynch (c) vs. AJ Lee: Punk will easy issues over for Chicago after a tough begin for his or her adopted hero Lee. The girls’s intercontinental champion wants a profitable title protection, particularly with the potential for one more showdown at WrestleMania. Lee has wrestled twice in 10 years, beating Lynch in WarGames and a blended tag workforce match with their husbands. Expect Lynch to steal a victory by nefarious means forward of a one-on-one rematch in Las Vegas. Pick: Lynch retains the title — Mahjouri (additionally Brookhouse)
