It's WWE's final pay-per-view of 2013,
so you think they'd want to finish with a flourish, right? TLC:
Tables, Ladders and Chairs is entering it's fifth year on the WWE PPV
schedule, and for a gimmick PPV has usually fared quite well,
offering up matches like Christian vs. Shelton Benjamin in a Ladder
match in 2009, John Morrison vs. Sheamus in another Ladder match in
2010, CM Punk vs. Alberto Del Rio vs. The Miz in a TLC match in 2011,
before last year presented possibly the best incarnation of the PPV
to date, with The Shield taking on Ryback and Team Hell No in the
standout bout of the evening.
However, this year we've seen
WWE hold back a little on the Tables, Ladders and Chairs, in fact
you'll find more three-on-one handicap matches on this show than
you'll find any of the weapons mentioned abouve. This could be seen
as a way to stress the importance of John Cena and Randy Orton's
title unification bout that main evented the show, however it does
feel rather strange to have a show that is sold on having Tables,
Ladders and Chairs and only have one match involving any of those
weapons.
Right, let's get into the show shall
we!
The show kicked off in a similar way to
Survivor Series three weeks ago, with Triple H and Stephanie McMahon
coming out to hype up the main event of the show. Whilst I didn't
have too many problems with the promos that either delivered, I
didn't really see the point of this opening segment, it felt very
similar to an episode of Raw, where the objective would be to keep
the audience interested and keep them tuned in for the whole show by
hyping what was to come, however within the context of a Pay-per-view
in which everyone already knows what they will be seeing and have
decided to pay for already, there really doesn't seem much point,
apart from filling some PPV airtime.
After that followed a delightful
opening video package, focusing once again on John Cena and Randy
Orton's main event contest. Whilst, as usual, this package was very
well put together, the opening segment with Triple H and Stephanie
McMahon had already made it redundant, which was a shame.
Three-on-One Handicap Match:
The
Shield
vs.
CM Punk
After some pyro
and ballyhoo, it was time for our opening contest. I had been fairly
sceptical about how WWE would manage to keep both handicap matches
interesting for an decent amount of time and to their credit they did
a good job with both. This was a pretty straight forward divide and
conquer storyline, with the idea being set up early on that when The
Shield were on the same page they could dominate Punk fairly easily.
After a slow start, the catalyst for the match getting interesting
was Roman Reigns missing a spear on the outside, that sent Reigns
flying over the top of the announce table, with JBL and Michael Cole
on commentary getting over that Reigns had somehow injured his eye in
the collision well, whilst Jerry Lawler was distracted by some
puppies. The strongest wrestling section of the bout saw some nice
interchanges between Punk and Seth Rollins, with Punk getting a
number of near falls on the former tag team champion, including
Rollins spending some time in the Anaconda Vise with United States
Champion Dean Ambrose made the save. The final stages of the bout
continued to play on the dissention in the ranks of The Hounds of
Justice, with Rollins taking a GTS from Punk, Punk attempting a GTS
on Ambrose, only for Ambrose to slip free, with Reigns charging into
Ambrose with a thunderous spear, after Punk had side stepped Reigns.
After Punk had bundled Reigns out of the ring, the Best in the World
was able to pick up the pinfall victory on Reigns. The bout was kept
to the right length to tell the story it needed to do, and whilst
many will bemoan The Shield losing to a single man, the way the bout
was layed out shouldn't really draw any complaints.
Winner:
CM PUNK! (13 Minutes, 41 Seconds)
Backstage, the
lovely Renee Young interviewed Diva's Champion AJ Lee, who was
flanked by Tamina Snuka. This was another strong promo from Lee,
attacking the WWE fans for not voting for her to win Diva of the Year
at the Slammys, and of course talking about her hatred for Total
Divas, which is obviously a clever promotion tool for the show.
Whilst Lee has the strongest character of any of the women in the
division and looks extremely comfortable cutting promos, she needs to
be careful not to forget about who her opponent is and therefore bury
them by default, it would have been nice to hear her talk up Natalya
here, which would have allowed me to be drawn into the match even
more, and made it mean even more when she picked up the win.
Diva's Championship Match:
Natalya
vs.
AJ Lee ©
with Tamina Snuka
A decent psychical
women's bout here, with both Lee and Natalya looking strong
throughout. The earlier part the contest was back and forth exchange
of holds, before Lee took control by slamming Natalya into the
barricade. The strongest part of the bout saw the pair exchanging
their signature submission holds for good false finishes, with some
nice innovation from both to get out of the moves. The finish saw
Natalya locking in the Sharpshooter for a second time, only for Lee
to grab a handfull of hair and pick up a pinfall victory with a small
package. This match could have benefitted from an extra five minutes
or so, as it would have been nice to see Natalya and Lee working body
parts to set up for their submission holds and weave in an extra
element of story.
Winner and STILL Diva's Champion: AJ LEE (6
Minutes, 35 Seconds)
There was another
video package hyping the main event, this time with past champions
talking about the importance of the titles. I've pretty much covered
this already, again a rather pointless exercise when the PPV has
already been bought, and merely came across as a time filling
exercise.
Intercontinental Championship Match:
Damien Sandow
vs.
Big E Langston ©
Before the bout
got under way, Damien Sandow cut a cleverly worded promo to attempt
to get some interest in this rather rushed together bout. There's no
doubt that Sandow's promos are the strongest part of his game, and
this one only reinforced that idea, although it would be nice to see
him pushed out of his comfort zone with a promo once in a while and
bring a bit more edge to proceedings.
The match itself
really wasn't that interesting, I had been given no real reason to
care about the outcome and suspected that Langston would be picking
up a fairly hassle free victory. It would have been so much better if
Langston had actually been in a feud with Sandow leading into the
match, instead Sandow had spent most of the build up in a feud with
Dolph Ziggler, whislt Langston was involved in a tag team with Mark
Henry. There was no real story built into the bout, with the two
running through the motions for a six or seven minutes, before
Langston picked up the win with a Big Ending. It wasn't an awful
match, and the two looked crisp in the ring, there was just nothing
to draw me in and invest in the action.
Winner and STILL
Intercontinental Champion: Big E Langston (6 Minutes, 27 Seconds)
Backstage we saw Vince McMahon meeting with WWE Champion Randy Orton, with some weird sounding audio where you couldn't really make out what was being said, I'm not sure if this was a technical error but it didn't sound right at all. I correctly predicted on Twitter, that we'd see Vince doing the same segment with John Cena later on in the show.
Then there was an advert for some American Fast Food, which unless they want to pay me as well I won't mention here!
It was then off to the Kick Off panel, this time consisting of the character-less Josh Matthews and WWE Hall of Famers Booker T and Mick Foley. They replayed action from the pre-show that saw a brawl between Kofi Kingston and The Miz, where the only point of interest was Miz struggling to remove his suit jacket. It was revealed that a No Disqualification bout between Miz and Kingston would be taking place later on. Why they did make it a match that would suit the gimmick of the PPV, I don't know.
Tag Team Championship Fatal Four-Way Elimination Match:
The Real Americans
vs.
Big Show & Rey Mysterio
vs.
Curtis Axel & Ryback
vs.
Cody Rhodes & Goldust ©
I said in the prediction video for this show (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHH9zt4Q334) that I expected this one to be the match of the night, and it didn't disappoint. The opening stages focused on Goldust bumping around for Ryback and Curtis Axel, with the veteran making the younger guys look great in the ring, before managing reversing Ryback's Powerbomb attempt into a roll up to eliminate the former Paul Heyman guys. It was then The Real American turns to dominate Goldust, really helping to get the crowd behind Goldust in his repeated attempts to make the tag to his brother, only for Cesaro or Swagger to block him off at the pass. They repeated the spot that was used in the three way tag bout at Hell in a Cell, with Goldust looking to have made the tag to Cody, only for Swagger to pull the younger Rhodes brother off the apron. Goldust eventually managed a hot tag to Big Show, who dispatched of Cesaro fairly quickly after hitting Knockout Punches on both Real Americans. It was surprising to see them go down to the two face teams, and I thought this would be the downfall of the contest, luckily that wasn't to be the case. Show and Goldust were quickly taken out by the ring post and the barricade respectively, leading to a very good exchange between Rhodes and Rey Mysterio, with a number of interesting reversals, including Rhodes turning a 619 into an Alabama Slam. This was the best I've seen Mysterio wrestle for sometime, and it was wise to keep him out of the majority of the match until this point, as I doubt he could have wrestled at this pace for much longer. After some back and forth Rhodes picked up the victory with a Cross Rhodes. I wouldn't expect The Rhodes Brothers to be holding onto the Tag Team Championships for too much longer, with their predicted Wrestlemania match only a few months away, who they'll be dropping the titles too is unclear with WWE doing a great job at keeping the tag team division unpredictable lately.
Winners and STILL Tag Team Champions: Cody Rhodes & Goldust (21 Minutes, 4 Seconds)
A rather bizarre segment followed to promote WWE's Brawlin' Buddies toys, with a whole host of unused talent appearing, including The Prime Time Players, The Great Khali, Los Matadores, Vickie Guerrero, Brad Maddox and Kane. It was mildly humourous at points, with Brad Maddox continuing to make me chuckle with his Anchorman-esque delivery. It all finished with Kane throwing John Cena's brawling buddy to the floor.
Brodus Clay
with Tons of Funk
vs.
R-Truth
with Xavier Woods
This bout was unadvertised and the crowd struggled to get into it too much, although they LOVED joining in with R-Truth's signature “What's Up?” catchphrase. This match was designed to continue Brodus Clay's heel turn, with him destroying Truth for most of the match and looking impressive in the process. Clay spent a lot of the match arguing with tag partner Tensai, who eventually left with The Funkadactyls, which lead to Truth hitting a jumping kick and getting the victory with a roll up. This match could easily have just been on Raw or Smackdown, but was entertaining for the time it was on screen. I'm happy to see Brodus Clay in a heel role again, and R-Truth has found purpose alongside Xavier Woods.
Winner: R-Truth! (6 Minutes, 2 Seconds)
It was then time for the afortmentioned meeting between Vince McMahon and World Heavyweight Champion John Cena. I would've been feeling like Mystic Meg, if I hadn't got so many predictions wrong!
No Disqualification Match:
The Miz
vs.
Kofi Kingston
I've seen many on the internet talk about how awful this match was and I have to disagree. The match itself was actually a decent encounter, telling a good solid story, with The Miz working Kofi Kingston's leg to set up for the Figure Four Leg Lock, and Kingston selling the injury like a boss. It was a slow paced bout with very little frills and spills, with the No Disqualification gimmick only really coming into play towards the end, with The Miz removing the turnbuckle cover. The finish saw Kingston counter Miz's Figure Four sending him crashing into the exposed turnbuckle before hitting Trouble in Paradise to pick up the pinfall victory. With Kingston still selling the leg after the bout, it's difficult to fault either wrestler in this one, the main problem would have to come from WWE Creative who have really struggled in getting a clear idea of where this storyline is heading over the last few months. Neither The Miz or Kingston have been used effectively for a very long time, with both losing the majority of the matches they have competed in, therefore the live crowd really had no reason to care about it, especially when presented with a technical bout, Kingston and Miz would've been better off wailing each other in the head with random items for eight minutes, if they wanted this crowd to react.
Winner: Kofi Kingston (8 Minutes)
A promo for this year's Tribute to the Troops ran, proclaiming the show “The Most Patriotic of the Year” with appearance from some fella called Jeff Dunham and a group called Daughtry. Yeah, I'll probably give that one a miss.
Three-on-One Handicap Match:
The Wyatt Family
vs.
Daniel Bryan
This one had to offer something different from the Punk-Shield match from earlier in the evening, and luckily it did. There is no one in WWE at the moment that can do fighting from underneath like Daniel Bryan and fight from underneath he did here. Luke Harper and Erick Rowan looked fantastic in the early going picking apart the smaller Bryan, with the pattern continuing when Bray Wyatt decided to join the fray. Bryan's numerous comeback attempts were quickly thwarted meaning that by the time Bryan did begin to get some offense in, the crowd were fully behind him, as has been the case for sometime now. Bryan's speed was shown as an asset against the brute strength of the Wyatt's with Bryan managing to take out Rowan and Harper by sending one over the announce table and the other into the steel steps. The finish however indicated that WWE have big plans for Bray Wyatt as he over powered Bryan, with a series of vicious looking elbows strikes, before picking up the victory with Sister Abigail. The result was the right one here, as the balance needed to be struck with the other handicap match, whilst Bryan got in just enough offence to look competitive, whilst Wyatt was allowed a platform to shine in probably his strongest moment on the main roster so far.
Winners: THE WYATT FAMILY (12 Minutes, 25 Seconds)
DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!
Before we headed into the main event of the evening it was back to the Kick Off Panel, which was a nice touch as Booker T and Mick Foley really got the importance of the match over, contributing to the big match feel that WWE had been trying to achieve.
WWE Championship and World Heavyweight Championship Unification Tables, Ladders and Chairs Match:
John Cena (World Heavyweight)
vs.
Randy Orton (WWE)
Personally, I think this match was hindered by the TLC concept, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the big hook of the match was that one man would be walking out with both titles and therefore there needed to be a number of false finishes for both men to really build up the atmosphere and get the crowd involved, this is very difficult to do within the TLC concept, especially with only two men involved in the match. Secondly, neither Cena or Orton are known for having spectacular spots in their matches, something which a match like TLC demands and the fans expect from such a contest, with the only real BIG spot ending up botched as the ladder Cena was on fell away, meaning Cena landed awkwardly on a table in the corner, instead of crashing through it. The titles were also extremely low and could have done with being raised a foot or two, as they were so close to the competitors (even on smaller ladders) that it meant that it looked silly when they didn't just grab the belts, and ended up taking me out of the drama of the match a number of times. There were however a number of nice moments throughout the bout, like the return of the handcuffs from Cena and Orton's “I Quit” match back at Breaking Point in 2009, as well as both men delivered vicious looking chair shots. The aforementioned botched spot was the conclusion of the bout, with Orton taking a looooooong time in pulling the belts down, making it obvious that something hadn't quite gone right, I'm not sure whether there was supposed to be more to the match or whether Orton was simply considered putting Cena through the table properly, but either way it looked rather odd. This was far from a bad match, but it didn't really feel as important as it should have, I would've much rather seen a simple singles match or No Disqualification encounter between the two.
Winner and NEW WWE World Heavyweight Champion: RANDY ORTON! (24 Minutes, 35 Seconds)
After the bout, The Authority's Triple H, Stephanie McMahon and Vince McMahon were out to celebrate with Orton, with Vinny Mac's music playing to close the show, once again undermining Orton as the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, which was a shame as this really should have been Orton's time in the spotlight.
Overall, this was a decent PPV with some good storyline continuation in the three-on-one handicap matches, and the tag team four way stealing the show as match of the night. Whilst Orton and Cena ultimately couldn't create a classic in their TLC encounter, it was passable fare and I'm interested to see how having a sole World Champion effects the landscape of WWE as we head towards the Royal Rumble in January.
