Last night’s TLC pay-per-view was probably the least anticipated WWE show of the year. After weeks of poor story-telling, the entire WWE Universe pretty much expected this show to suck. And for the first time in months, we could not have been more wrong. WWE took the low expectations of everyone and somehow flipped their poor storylines into a night of compelling matches and interesting developments. Let’s take a look at what went down last night.
Reigns Loses, But We All Win
Our main event of the night was of course the Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match between Roman Reigns and Sheamus for the WWE Title. This match was basically the number one point of contention for fans everywhere because A) nobody wants to see Sheamus as Champ and B) nobody wants to see Reigns playing an underdog against the Authority.
So we all pretty much expected this thing to suck… and then the match happened and my goodness we could not have been more wrong. This was a hard-hitting, spot-heavy, brawl of a title match. Both guys took some huge bumps and really went all-in on the gimmicks, using weapons throughout the match and letting their wrestling do the talking.
Seriously, ALL-IN.
Quick tangent – Boston, get your crap together. Your crowd was horrible, chanting for Seth Rollins, John Cena, Daniel Bryan and even NXT during this while totally ignoring the great match going on INSIDE THE RING. If the match sucked then sure, go ahead and chant. But this was a damn good fight. Also – STOP BOOING ROMAN REIGNS. I get it, it was cool to do 8 months ago when WWE was ramming him down our throats and the kid was green as hell, but at this point it’s overplayed. Reigns has put in the work and is a stud in the ring, even if his promo skills are lacking. Give the kid a break.
Back to this match and everything was going great… until the finish.
While for the most part this thing was handled better than any of us could have expected, the finish to the match was right out of the WWE Creative handbook. Reigns takes control of the match and begins to ascend the ladder while Sheamus is totally out at ringside… when the League of Nations interferes and starts to beat the hell out of him.
Well I shouldn’t say the League of Nations, it was really Alberto Del Rio and Rusev because apparently King Barrett was either kicked out at some point during the show or he’s so low on the totem pole that WWE won’t even use him for a run-in interference anymore.
Reigns goes Cena 2.0 and somehow fights this off to stop Sheamus from climbing the ladder but eats a Brogue Kick and gets sent out of the ring. Sheamus begins to climb as Reigns tries to crawl into the ring to stop him, but he’s not in time as the Celtic Warrior grabs the belt and retains his title.
So one question… WHERE THE HELL WAS ‘THE FAMILY’?!
WWE Creative spent four weeks building up a feud between Sheamus’ League of Nations and Reigns’ ‘Family’ but only one stable actually shows up during the main event. What happened to Ambrose and the Usos? Why wouldn’t they bail their leader out… you know the way a stable generally does after a month of story-telling.
Ugh.
So it looks like we’re going to go off the air with WWE ruining another perfectly good match and show with horrible booking… but then something magical happens. And by magical I mean Roman Reigns goes absolutely crazy. Like totally pissed off, super fed-up, done with this crap crazy.
Reigns gets in the ring with a chair and just starts destroying everyone. After bashing Del Rio and Rusev a few times he focuses his attention on Sheamus, unloading at least five or six chair shots on the Champ.
Out comes Triple H, Stephanie McMahon and 46 refs to stop the assault.
Eventually, Trips gets in the ring to check on Sheamus and yells at Reigns for going insane. Remember how we said Reigns went crazy? Once Hunter got in the ring he went from crazy to bat-shit insane.
Reigns begins to absolutely destroy Triple H with chair shot after chair shot and my God, Hunter is selling this beating like his life depends on it.
Stephanie looks on in shock as Reigns just destroys Trips, eventually taking him outside and beating the hell out of him ringside before power-bombing the COO onto the Spanish announce table.
Unfortunately for Trips the table didn’t break so Reigns just elbow drops him through it for good measure.
Finally, Reigns starts to leave through the carnage he just created and heads up to the ramp as we all start to realize THIS IS EXACTLY WHO ROMAN REIGNS SHOULD BE.
But before he leaves, Reigns gives us that one moment we’ll all remember as the exact second we all officially became Roman Reigns fans.
Reigns comes flying back and knocks the holy hell out of Triple H with one of the most incredible spears we’ve seen in a long, long time.
Kudos to Trips, he sold the hell out of the beating Reigns gave him and did everything he could to put the kid over.
FINALLY, WWE Creative gets it. FINALLY, we get our silent, destroyer of worlds version of Roman Reigns. FINALLY WE HAVE SOMEONE TO CHEER.
At least until tonight, when they maybe undo all of it on Raw.
Other Results:
Tag Teams Steal the Show – For the first time in years, WWE held a Tag-Team title Ladder Match and what do you know, IT WAS AWESOME! And to top it off, the WWE had Xavier Woods sit in on commentary.
Seriously, I don’t even have to tell you what happened int he match between the Lucha Dragons, the Usos and the New Day, I’ll let the GIF’s do the talking.
There were flipping Luchas and flying Usos! The match seriously had 10-15 awesome spots.
But none were more memorable than what may have been the absolute greatest ladder spot in WWE history. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Kalisto and the Salido Del Sol… through a ladder.
HOW THE HELL?! WHAT THE HELL?! WHY THE HELL?!
Every one of those things ran through my head after watching Kalisto launch himself crotch-first through the ladder. LOOK AT THIS THING AGAIN AND TELL ME IT’S NOT THE MOST AMAZING THING YOU’VE SEEN ALL YEAR.
Our finish sees the somehow still alive Kalisto trying to climb the ladder for the win before Woods throws his Trombone like Aaron Rodgers throws a hail mary and nails the Lucha Dragon.
The interference allows Kofi to climb up and grab the titles as the New Day retains.
What. A. Freaking. Match.
AMBROSE IS YOUR NEW INTERCONTINTENTAL CHAMPION – Easily the most anticipated match of the night, the battle between Dean Ambrose and Kevin Owens for the Intercontinental title did not disappoint. The two put on a great, physical battle that saw Ambrose take a beating throughout.
As things came to a close, Owens looked to be in control as he set Ambrose up for a Pop-Up Power Bomb but out of nowhere Ambrose reverses for the roll-up…
… and three glorious seconds later, we have a NEW INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPION!
Ambrose celebrates like the Lunatic he is as we all are in legit shock that he won the title.
This is bitter-sweet, on one hand AMBROSE IS A CHAMPION. On the other, Owens never really got a full title run and he was saddled with a Ryback feud for most of it. Either way, we all win because hopefully this continues through ‘Mania.
Del Rio Retains – Speaking of matches that were better than expected, the Chairs match between Alberto Del Rio and Jack Swagger wasn’t great, but it definitely wasn’t terrible. It featured a lot of physicality and some good chair shots like this one where Del Rio runs into a flying chair.
Our finish sees Del Rio pile all chairs into the corner and then stomp Swaggers heart through them off the turnbuckle.
Now can we bring John Cena back?
Like Father, Like Daughter – The Divas title match between Paige and Charlotte was interesting because we had no idea who was the heel when the match started. The two basically talked trash and traded insults throughout before Charlotte used some Flair tactics to win by dropping Paige face-first into an exposed turnbuckle.
Seconds later Charlotte would retain and we’d have a feud where the Diva who insulted someone’s dead brother is the face. Yup, WWE Creative everyone.
Wyatts Run Through ECW – One of the meh matches of the night featured the Wyatt Family taking 46 steps backwards and facing the Dudley Boyz, Tommy Dreamer and Ryhno in a tables elimination match. Yeah, from Taker and Kane to the ECW mid-card. All you need to know is Erick Rowan was the only Wyatt member eliminated, and Luke Harper is awesome.
Wyatts win.
Rusev & Ryback… Ugh. – Seriously, you don’t care, I don’t care, nobody cares. Rusev wins after Lana shows us she takes a bump as badly as she uses a Russian accent.
Yeah.