Whether or not Sunday night’s WWE TLC pay-per-view was successful would really depend on who you talk to. There is so much chatter going on now about the WWE, including its declining TV ratings and poorly structured storylines (MexAmerica???), that there also was a lot of pressure on them to perform in this PPV and provide the sold out audience (and millions watching from home) with some hint of a saving grace and hopefully a resurgence.
In my opinion, the overall PPV earns a low B rating from me, but that’s good and a better rating than what I’ve been giving the weekly episodes. Interestingly, what captured my attention the entire night had nothing to do with storylines – thankfully — but with good old fashioned beat downs. The highlight match of the entire night was the Tag Team Championship with the Lucha Dragons, New Day and The Usos. It was a fantastic match and while I enjoyed the storyline of the Roman Reigns beat down of Triple H at the end of the night, this tag team match was superb and also proved to me that Kofi Kingston has 9 lives or is boneless.
Side note: By now everybody can see the talent that is the New Day. I was a latecomer to the New Day party. I hated the entire concept. I felt that Kofi Kingston was underutilized in this company and didn’t belong to this shtick, Big E just couldn’t find his place and Xavier Woods was a gloried jobber. That’s how I ‘used’ to feel. Now, if I could ask Santa McMahon for one wish it would be for the WWE administration to just give Xavier Woods the top writing job and let him run the entire creative team. But alas, I expect coal in my WWE stocking just for even voicing my opinion.
I would also ask Santa McMahon to forget the expression “repetition is key,” and think originality, originality, originality. I love the fact that Lana and Rusev are back and, believe it or not, I don’t mind their storyline. But have Lana do ‘something’ different each week to ‘fake out’ the competition. Granted, when I watched wrestling when I was growing up, Mr. Fuji would throw salt in everyone’s eyes. It was his thing. You expected it. Today, the audience is smarter than that. We expect that Lana will interfere, but the same way each time? Change it up just a little. Oh, Rusev won, but we expected that.
The next match I described as “We the People” lost to “What’s his face?” otherwise known as Alberto delRio. I’m bored here.
The tables match, which was the Wyatt Family vs Team Extreme was also pretty good, but again I haven’t felt any emotional connection to this storyline at all. Maybe I’m in the majority, but the grappling was great and it seems that WWE got back to just their own version of dirty deeds – get down and dirty with the fighting and work out the storyline kinks later – we hope.
Speaking of dirty deeds, it was expected that Dean Ambrose would come out the victor in the match for the Intercontinental title and he did. I like Ambrose and Kevin Owens because they are both seriously good on the microphone, but this match was more like a high energy street fight. There really wasn’t enough of build up to this match that has us emotionally vested in who wins. I think it would have made sense for them to keep it going for awhile before the belt was put on the line, but oh well. Dean Ambrose also has some of the best facial expressions in the WWE.
I don’t have enough of space to write about Charlotte vs Paige, so I’ll say this. Did you know that Charlotte was a Flair? I didn’t (insert sarcasm here). The writing here is horrible. First of all, Charlotte needs lessons on the microphone and Ric Flair needs to go home. It’s Charlotte’s turn to have her time in the spotlight. It was obvious Ric would interfere, but what bothered me the most was when Charlotte asked Ric ‘what do you want me to do?’ The audience pushed for the divas to become the strong independent storylines that they could be, but with Ric in the corner and Charlotte, who has done well for herself so far, turning to her daddy for advice, it completely strips her ability to carry a leadership role as a diva – whether it’s as a face or a heel. If Charlotte didn’t have Becky in the corner, she had daddy. Can Charlotte even stand on her own two feet? This divas match was as lame as lame can get for me and of course Charlotte retained her title.
The final match of the night pitted Sheamus against Roman Reigns and full disclosure, I’m a Roman fan and a Sheamus hater. Always have been both. I expected that Sheamus would win, but the full eruption of Roman’s anger and frustration with the authority and the interference of the League of Nations was absolutely beautiful to watch. You felt it and Roman sold it. You didn’t know what to expect. The superman punches were gone and Roman was releasing just pure anger. It was a fantastic way to end the show. It will be interesting to see where this goes next.
*Update* Monday Night Raw was one of the better ones than they’ve had lately — especially the Wyatt/Team Extreme match and the Sheamus/Roman match. If they can keep the momentum going and change some other storyline issues, they might be on their way to being back on track.
In the meantime, let’s hope that Santa brings me what I really want for Christmas and for 2016. Originality, humor, good ol’ fashioned wrestling and some, hopefully, great storylines with underutilized WWE superstars (hello Neville).
