It’s the last WWE PPV of the year… man, what a sour note to end the year on. The Nexus, what could have been a hot thing in WWE, is all but buried, you have Miz as WWE Champion, and John Cena is still a thing. My hopes aren’t high for this TLC show, so let’s see if I can “just be a fan” and enjoy the show.
Intercontinental champion Dolph Ziggler defeated Jack Swagger and Kofi Kingston in a ladder match that saw both Ziggler and Swagger grabbing the ladder off the hook, but it falls and then Ziggler drops down to pick up and win the match. That finish felt a bit goofy, but other than that, three guys showing off their moves and some smarts here and there is all you need for a solid opening match.
Nattie and Beth Phoenix defeated Laycool in a Tables match… not trying to be sexist here, but if four women are having a hard time breaking a table, then they shouldn’t be having table matches. This felt like a rehearsal gone wrong or something that should have been reserved for a blooper reel. Maybe if they had done a regular tag match, it would have been better… but instead, you put some talented women up against tables that didn’t want to put them over until Nattie did a splash to put this thing out of its misery. I wonder if the tables had creative control.
John Morrison defeated Sheamus to become the next challenger for the WWE title… hey, you know what? This was a good match. Never been big on Sheamus, but the guy has his moments where he can be the big bad bruiser that can compliment the more athletically gifted John Morrison. This might be the thing that sells me on the walking mayo man… maybe…
Oh wait, there’s a Wade Barrett bit where he finds his Nexus partners laid out like nameless grunts. Yes, bury this thing deeper than you already have. I’m begging you. Fuck.
WWE Champion The Miz… fuck me, that pains me to type out… WWE Champion The Miz defeated Randy Orton in a Tables match via shenanigans. After a ref bump, Randy put Miz flunky Alex Riley through a table, only to get skull-crushing finale’d by Miz… and then they do the ol’ switcheroo where Randy is put on top of the rubble, just as the ref wakes up and you can figure out the rest. I’m not
Edge defeated World Champion Kane, Rey Mysterio, and Alberto Del Rio in a ladder match to win the title. I guess I should be thankful that the Kane title reign is finally at an end after it really had nowhere else to go and honestly, if you’re going to move the title off Kane, you may as well give it to Edge. Rey as a champion feels like too much of a joke at this point and I’m not too keen on Del Rio getting the strap this early. The match itself was fine; the usual Ladder match stuff.
In the main event, John Cena defeated Wade Barrett to end the feud… well, not quite as Barrett tries to get away, but Cena waffles him with a few chair shots until they reach the main stage, where Cena pulled some gimmick to cause all the hanging chairs to fall on Barrett. Oh, goodie. John Cena not buries Wade Barrett and Nexus in a figurative sense, but also quite literally with all the falling chairs that comes across as a form of public execution. Well, you failed to make potential new stars out of your big NXT project and so you may as well kill off the experiment and let it rot in pieces. Credit where it’s due; the match was fine, but the ending was never in doubt and this felt like a conclusion of a long-sprawling feud and more of a mercy killing of a failed experiment.
Honestly, this show left me conflicted. There are bits of it that I liked and bits of it that I didn’t like, but at no point did I feel like this was a waste of time, which was generally the case with a lot of these WWE shows… or at least the weekly shows. Sometimes, when they feel like making an effort, WWE is capable of putting on a good show and this TLC show more than qualifies. A nice way to close out the year, I think.
dtm666 