Elimination Chamber 2026 results: Orton and Ripley punch WrestleMania 42 tickets in Chicago

Elimination Chamber 2026 delivered exactly what the event exists to do: two brutal chamber matches that locked in the championship challengers for WrestleMania 42, plus a pair of title stakes bouts that reshaped the women’s mid-card picture and reinforced the top men’s title scene. The show took place Saturday, February 28, 2026, in Chicago, and by the end of the night Randy Orton and Rhea Ripley had emerged from the steel to secure guaranteed world-title shots on the biggest stage.

Here are the Elimination Chamber 2026 results in full, in the order the night’s major outcomes landed: Rhea Ripley won the Women’s Elimination Chamber match and earned a WrestleMania 42 title match; AJ Lee defeated Becky Lynch to win the Women’s Intercontinental Championship; CM Punk defeated Finn Bálor to retain the World Heavyweight Championship; Randy Orton won the Men’s Elimination Chamber match to earn a WrestleMania 42 WWE Championship match.

Rhea Ripley wins the Women’s Elimination Chamber Match — and the WrestleMania opponent is set

The women’s chamber field blended established stars with newer faces, but the structure of the match made one point clear: this wasn’t a “survive and advance” night so much as a test of who could stay dangerous while exhausted. Tiffany Stratton and Kiana James opened at a frantic pace, trying to turn athletic bursts into early pins before the field filled out. As more entrants arrived, the match tilted from speed into attrition—exactly the point where Ripley tends to thrive.

The pivotal moment came when Raquel Rodriguez entered last and immediately changed the physics of the ring. Rodriguez flattened anyone who tried to meet her head-on, and she scored the match’s most shocking swing by stacking two opponents and pinning them at the same time. It was the kind of sequence that usually sets up the inevitable “monster versus hero” finish.

Instead, the match flipped again. Ripley and Stratton were forced into a short, uneasy alliance—less friendship than necessity—just to remove Rodriguez from the board. Once the powerhouse was gone, the chamber returned to what it always becomes late: two exhausted finalists, one mistake away from losing the biggest opportunity of their year.

Ripley’s closing stretch was classic: patient, physical, and ruthlessly timed. She caught Stratton at the edge of a comeback and finished with the Riptide to win the Women’s Elimination Chamber. The practical consequence is immediate and enormous—Ripley is now booked into a WrestleMania 42 championship match against Jade Cargill, a pairing that reads like a collision of power, aura, and modern star-making priorities.

AJ Lee vs Becky Lynch: a title change built on chaos and composure

If the chamber matches are about survival, the Women’s Intercontinental Championship match was about control—specifically, who could keep their head when the match stopped being clean.

Becky Lynch entered as champion and fought with the sharpness of someone who understands how quickly momentum can swing in a high-stakes title bout. AJ Lee, back in a singles spotlight for a match of this magnitude, leaned into what always made her dangerous: transitions, submissions, and an ability to turn a half-step mistake into a full-on emergency.

The match escalated from technical exchanges into ringside disorder, with referee distractions and physical spillover that repeatedly threatened to turn the finish into controversy. That’s where AJ Lee’s composure mattered. She kept returning to her win condition—isolating Lynch long enough to cinch in the Black Widow—and when the decisive moment finally arrived with an official in position to see it, Lynch had nowhere to wriggle free.

AJ Lee won, and the Women’s Intercontinental Championship changed hands. In storyline terms, it’s a career-defining comeback milestone. In roster terms, it’s a signal that the women’s mid-card belt is being used as a real lever—something that can swing rivalries, elevate divisions, and create a “must-watch” title lane outside the top women’s championship picture.

CM Punk retains against Finn Bálor, with the night’s biggest reveal threaded into the chaos

The World Heavyweight Championship match between CM Punk and Finn Bálor played like two veterans trying to prove opposite points. Bálor approached it as a precision job—speed, timing, and damage accumulation—while Punk worked for big momentum surges, crowd energy, and the kind of signature finish that ends debates quickly.

Bálor had stretches where he looked a step ahead, repeatedly beating Punk to key positions and forcing the champion to absorb punishment longer than most title matches allow. Punk’s path back wasn’t built on out-wrestling Bálor for twenty minutes; it was built on weathering the storm and choosing the one window that mattered.

That window came late. After counters and near-falls that suggested Bálor might have the champion solved, Punk finally created the separation he needed and hit the GTS to retain the World Heavyweight Championship. The match’s subtext, though, was that the night’s broader story wasn’t finished—because the event also threaded in a major return tied to a masked attacker angle, and that reveal landed in the same atmosphere of disruption and surprise that defined the show’s second half.

Randy Orton survives the Men’s Elimination Chamber — and Seth Rollins’ return detonates the finish

The men’s chamber had the deepest “anything can happen” energy of the night: Cody Rhodes, Logan Paul, LA Knight, Randy Orton, Je’Von Evans, and Trick Williams is a field designed for volatility, because every name in it can plausibly anchor a WrestleMania program.

The opening stages were built to showcase pace and personality—Evans’ athletic bursts, Rhodes’ steadiness, and the constant sense that the match could pivot on one ill-timed risk. As entrants arrived, the match evolved into a sequence of opportunistic eliminations: a big move creates a pile, someone steals a pin, and the entire strategy becomes less about dominance and more about being the last person to capitalize.

Then the chamber turned into a crime scene. A masked figure attempted to force entry, security and officials tried to contain it, and the situation escalated into the kind of distraction that makes the structure feel less like a match and more like a trap. The reveal hit like a hammer: Seth Rollins returned, unmasked, and immediately altered the math for everyone still standing.

From there, the finish was equal parts survival and sabotage. Drew McIntyre, the reigning WWE Champion, stormed into the chamber chaos, landed a decisive shot on Cody Rhodes, and the closing seconds became a scramble of injuries, grudges, and opportunism. Orton, built for moments exactly like this, found the RKO on Rhodes and won the Men’s Elimination Chamber.

Orton now has a guaranteed WWE Championship match at WrestleMania 42 against McIntyre—an outcome that makes sense on two levels. First, Orton is the safest possible “big fight” challenger when the promotion wants a reliable main-event build. Second, the finish keeps multiple future paths alive: Rhodes has a grievance, Rollins has re-entered the ecosystem with immediate impact, and McIntyre’s willingness to interfere inside the chamber hints at a champion preparing to win by any means necessary.

Elimination Chamber 2026 ended with the roadmap clear and the tension intact: Ripley vs Cargill is locked, Orton vs McIntyre is set, Punk remains champion, and the return of Rollins ensures that the road to WrestleMania 42 won’t be a straight line for anyone.