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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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The magnitude of the title loss could not be overstated. The Undisputed System's monopoly was officially crumbling in real time. Just weeks prior, the Celtic Warrior, Sheamus, had violently ripped the Intercontinental Championship away from Kofi Kingston. Now, the faction had lost the WWE Tag Team Championships. The visual of the golden empire was beginning to tarnish, piece by piece.
With the loss of the tag team titles dominating the trending topics, the fanbase and the wrestling journalists immediately began to speculate about the internal fallout within the Undisputed System.
Sandro Zhang was not a benevolent leader. The Triple Crown Champion demanded absolute perfection, uncompromising loyalty, and total dominance from his subordinates. He had routinely punished his own men for minor infractions in the past. Now, Wade Barrett and Drew McIntyre had lost a major piece of the faction's leverage.
@InsideTheRopes: "There is going to be an absolute quake of anger inside the Undisputed System's locker room tomorrow night on RAW. Sandro Zhang is a sociopath who views championships as his personal property. Barrett and McIntyre just lost his property."
The fans pointed out the cruel irony of the week's events. Just a week prior, on Wednesday night, Dolph Ziggler and Xavier Woods had successfully captured the NXT Tag Team Championships in a brutal, underhanded victory over Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins.
It was supposed to be a massive feather in the cap for the faction, a cause for grand celebration. Paul Heyman had been practically weeping with joy.
But now? That celebratory mood was completely, definitively dead.
@NXTDieHard: "Ziggler and Woods must be terrified. They brought gold home from developmental, but it doesn't even matter now because Wade and Drew dropped the main roster titles. The God King doesn't care about NXT gold when his primary empire is actively burning to the ground. The paranoia inside that faction is going to be incredible television."
While the title changes and the backstage drama provided endless fodder for the timeline, the ultimate focal point of the post PPV discussion was, inevitably, the Elimination Chamber main event.
Sandro Zhang's successful defense of the World Heavyweight Championship against five of the top stars in the industry was an instant, undeniable classic. But it wasn't just the breathtaking high spots, like Sandro's terrifying diving knees off the pod or the Macho Man's legendary elbow drop, that had the fans talking. It was the composition of the match itself.
Leading up to the pay per view, the WWE had kept three of the Chamber participants a complete secret. The fans only knew that Sandro Zhang, The Rock, and Randy Savage had officially declared themselves for the match.
When the event finally started and the pods began to fill, the reveals sent a shockwave through the audience.
When John Cena's music hit, the internet collectively nodded in agreement. It made perfect sense. Cena was the Franchise, the standard bearer of the modern era. If there was a multi man match for a World Championship, John Cena practically belonged in it by default.
But it was the next two entrants that truly set the wrestling analysts ablaze with speculation.
Alberto Del Rio and The Miz.
Two natural heels, entering a match already dominated by the ultimate heel in Sandro Zhang, and surrounded by universally beloved icons like Cena, Rock, and Savage.
@BookingGenius: "The inclusion of The Miz and Del Rio in this specific Chamber match is fascinating. From a storyline perspective, they didn't stand a chance. But from a backstage, corporate perspective? This tells us everything we need to know about how WWE management views them."
The smarks (smart marks) and dirt sheet writers immediately began connecting the dots. The WWE was utilizing the immense, undeniable gravity of Rock, Cena, and Savage to actively elevate the younger talent and Sandro willingness to share the spotlight for them.
@WrestlingObserver: "You don't put The Miz and Alberto Del Rio in a cage with Dwayne Johnson, John Cena, Randy Savage, and Sandro Zhang unless you are trying to mold them into your next generation of heel main eventers. By simply breathing the same air as those four megastars, Miz and Del Rio's stock just skyrocketed. The WWE is testing them in the deep waters to see if they can swim with the sharks."
Even though Miz and Del Rio were predictably the first two men eliminated, the fans acknowledged that they played their roles perfectly. They provided the necessary cannon fodder to protect the icons, while simultaneously absorbing the main event spotlight that would serve them well in the future.
As the night wore on into the early hours of Monday morning, the raw emotional reactions of the fans began to give way to the calculated, in depth breakdowns from professional wrestling journalists, popular podcasters, and wrestling analysts. The timeline transitioned from all caps screaming to links for emergency, post PPV podcast episodes.
Leading wrestling journalists dropped their star ratings and extensive columns, universally praising the pacing and the storytelling of the entire event.
A prominent voice in the IWC, hosting one of the most listened wrestling podcasts in the current time, went live on YouTube to thousands of concurrent viewers to break down the psychology of Sandro Zhang's victory.
"What we saw tonight in Oakland was the absolute crystallization of the Triple Crown Era," the podcaster stated, his microphone peaking as he leaned forward in his chair. "A lot of people are complaining that Sandro won. They wanted the fairy tale ending. They wanted the Macho Man to hit that elbow and slay the dragon. But you have to look at the bigger picture. The Undisputed System lost the tag titles tonight. The faction is bleeding. If Sandro lost the World Heavyweight Title too, the empire wouldn't just crack, it would completely collapse before we even get to WrestleMania. The money is in the chase!"
Other analysts focused heavily on the mysterious absence of the God King during the earlier title matches.
"We need to talk about the psychology of Sandro Zhang staying in the back while Wade and Drew got slaughtered by Rated RKO," another popular wrestling journalist tweeted out to his hundreds of thousands of followers. "Sandro could have easily run down the ramp or have the other members do it. He could have interfered. He could have caused a disqualification! Yes, Edge and Orton would have technically won the match, but championships don't change hands on a DQ! Sandro could have saved the gold!"
The retweets and replies flooded in, offering a myriad of theories.
"Exactly!" a fan replied. "He let them lose! Why? Because he wants them to know they are replaceable! If they can't defend the gold on their own, they don't deserve to hold it!"
"Or maybe," another analyst chimed in on a live audio space, "Sandro is finally starting to feel the pressure. He knew he had to survive the Elimination Chamber against Cena, Rock, and Savage. If he ran out to save Wade and Drew, he risked getting injured by Edge and Orton right before his own title defense. The God King protects himself above all else. He sacrificed his pawns to ensure the King survived."
The psychological depth of the booking was a goldmine for content creators. They debated the durability of the Macho Man, praising the 58 year old legend for taking a fifteen foot diving double knee drop off a plexiglass pod and continuing to fight.
They analyzed the sheer, brutal impact of the Heavensfall and The Last Note combination, declaring it the most protected, lethal finishing sequence in modern professional wrestling.
As the sun began to rise on the East Coast, the digital conversation showed absolutely zero signs of slowing down. The 2011 Elimination Chamber had delivered on every single conceivable metric.
It had provided heartbreak with Beth Phoenix, pure euphoric triumph with Rated RKO, and a masterful, violent, cinematic conclusion with Sandro Zhang standing atop the mountain of bodies in the Devil's Playground.
The Road to WrestleMania had officially entered its final, most critical stretch. The locker room rebellion had successfully wounded the beast, stripping away its armor and exposing the vulnerabilities of the Undisputed System.
But the head of the snake, the Triple Crown Champion, remained completely intact, his sociopathic grip on the industry's top prize tighter than ever.
As the fans finally logged off and tried to get a few hours of sleep before Monday Night RAW, one terrifying reality hung heavily over the entire WWE Universe, Sandro Zhang was wounded, he was paranoid, and he was angry. And an angry God King was the most dangerous entity on the face of the earth.
The very next day was Monday. It was time for Monday Night RAW.
The WWE juggernaut had not traveled to a new city. The flagship television program was scheduled to be broadcast live from the exact same venue, the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California.
The physical and emotional impact of what had occurred inside that building less than twelve hours prior, both the catastrophic violence of the matches and the ensuing shockwaves tearing through Twitter, had not even begun to die down. The air inside the arena still felt thick, heavy with the residual adrenaline of eighteen thousand screaming fans.
But inside the empty, echoing bowl of the stadium, the atmosphere was entirely strictly business.
The massive, localized army of WWE ring crews and local stagehands had been working tirelessly since the moment the arena emptied out the night before. The terrifying, ten ton steel structure of the Elimination Chamber, which had served as the God King's ultimate proving ground, was currently in the final stages of being methodically dismantled.
Heavy machinery whirred and beeped, sparks flying from grinders as riggers in hard hats carefully detached the massive steel chains and lowered the bulletproof plexiglass pods down to the concrete floor.
Simultaneously, the ringside area was undergoing a complete, rapid fire metamorphosis. The crew was meticulously stripping away the pay per view branding, changing the ring canvas, wiping down the ropes, and swapping out the massive entrance banners and digital titantron graphics to reflect the signature red, white, and black logos of Monday Night RAW.
Up in the sprawling, steep tiers of the fan seating area, a small army of cleaners moved methodically through the aisles, sweeping up the massive debris field of popcorn boxes, spilled sodas, and discarded, torn up handmade signs left over from the chaos of the previous night. The sounds of industrial vacuum cleaners and clanking steel echoed loudly through the cavernous space.
Standing in the dead center of the freshly cleaned squared circle, completely surrounded by the chaotic symphony of the arena's transformation, stood a tight, highly exclusive circle of the most powerful figures in the entire professional wrestling industry.
Sandro Zhang, Vince McMahon, Triple H, and Stephanie McMahon.
Sandro had entirely shed his sociopathic, terrifying God King kayfabe persona. There was none of his three titles draped over his shoulder, no arrogant smirk, and no dark, empty stare.
He was dressed in a sharp, understated, charcoal grey tailored suit, exuding the calm, razor sharp, and highly calculated focus of a the heir and also the genius of multi billion dollar tech company. He was not a wrestler right now; he was a corporate titan negotiating the future of the product.
Sandro turned to the Chairman of the Board.
"So, Vince," Sandro asked, his voice even and completely devoid of his usual theatrical cadence, speaking loud enough to be heard over the grinding of the crew dismantling the Chamber. "What do you think of the proposal I just laid out?"
Vince McMahon stood with his hands on his hips, wearing a pristine suit, chewing aggressively on a piece of gum. He looked down at the canvas, his mind running a million miles an hour, calculating the box office potential, the merchandise sales, and the sheer, unadulterated risk.
Sandro had just dropped a creative and logistical bombshell on the WWE brain trust. He had personally reached out to two incredibly specific, highly crucial individuals who had a legendary, deeply entrenched, and very real history of bitter personal animosity. It was the kind of real life heat that dirt sheets had written about for years, the kind of bad blood that was supposed to last a lifetime.
But Sandro Zhang, utilizing his unmatched negotiating skills and the sheer, overwhelming financial gravity of Nexum Core, had managed to broker a peace. He had sat down with both sides, acting as an impartial corporate mediator, and successfully persuaded both men to finally bury the hatchet.
More importantly, he had convinced them to use this unprecedented, shocking reconciliation to generate the biggest, most lucrative WrestleMania angle of the decade.
Vince stopped chewing his gum. He turned his head slowly, his piercing eyes locking onto Sandro.
"Do I think it's a good idea?" Vince rasped, his voice thick with skepticism. "On paper, Sandro, it's a license to print money. It's the kind of main event attraction that sells out stadiums in an hour. But you're dealing with massive egos here. I don't believe for a single second that these two men have completely buried the hatchet. You don't erase a decade of bad blood with one phone call. If I put them in a room together, or worse, if I put them in a ring together, there is a very high probability that it turns into a real fight."
Vince took a step forward, pacing the ring, his business acumen taking over.
"And furthermore," Vince continued, shaking his head. "I am not going to let this cause me massive economic losses. You're asking me to sign both of these guys to ironclad, short term contracts up until WrestleMania. The guarantees they are going to demand for this kind of return are going to be astronomical. If this blows up in our faces, if one of them walks out before April, I am on the hook for millions."
Sandro didn't blink. He simply nodded his head, anticipating the Chairman's exact objections. A confident, purely corporate smile touched the corners of his mouth.
"You don't need to worry about the egos, Vince," Sandro reassured him, his tone absolute and unwavering. "I have personally guaranteed that there will be no physical altercations or walkouts. I drafted the behavioral clauses myself. They know exactly what is on the line. And as for the economic risk..."
Sandro adjusted his cuffs, delivering the ultimate trump card.
"...you aren't going to lose a single dime. I have already structured the financials. Nexum Core is entirely footing the bill. I am paying their wages, their guarantees, and their travel accommodations directly out of my own corporate budget. It is a zero risk investment for the WWE. You get the ratings, you get the buyrates, and Nexum Core gets the ultimate brand integration at WrestleMania. There is no need to worry."
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Name: Alessandro Zhang
Age: 21 (2011)
Birthplace: Orlando, Florida, USA
Brand: WWE - RAW
Wrestling Style: Mixed Of All Styles
Faction: The Undisputed System
Championships History: 1x FCW Tag Team Champions, 1x FCW Florida Heavyweight Champion, 1x TNA World Heavyweight Champion, 1x TNA X Division Champion, 1x WWE United States Champion, 1x WWE Champion, & 1x World Heavyweight Champion
Other Achievements: 1x Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royale Winner, 1x Mr. Money In The Bank, Youngest WWE Champion, PWI Top 500 (No.1) - 2010, & 1x KOTR (2010)
Wrestlemania Record: 1 - 0