WWE TLC 2014: Worst Matches in History of PPV
TLC, like any other pay-per-view centred on a gimmick match, can sometimes suffer from stipulations being forced upon matches.
However, the fact that it comes at the end of the year is almost as much of a constraint; it's typically a dead period for WWE before the Royal Rumble starts the Road to WrestleMania in January.
TLC 2014 is shaping up to have quite a strong card, but we've seen some terrible bouts take place at the event in the past. These are the worst of the bunch—matches that didn't just hit the mark but negatively impacted the show as a whole.
10: Natalya and Beth Phoenix vs. Lay-Cool at TLC 2010
1 of 10
Table matches always require a little suspension of disbelief, but this Divas stinker throws any sort of logic out before the opening bell.
The sheer amount of situations in this match that don't end with someone going through a table is rather beyond belief. It's akin to having near fall after near fall in a singles match—it diminishes the actual close calls.
Seeing Beth Phoenix hold Michelle McCool in a stationary Gorilla Press next to a table for 10 seconds before she wriggles free is a surefire way of making your supposed fan favourite look completely absent-minded. All too often do Phoenix and Natalya choose to mug to the crowd rather than finish the match.
Clocking in at less 10 minutes—still longer than the Triple Threat Ladder Match for the Intercontinental Championship got that night—you'll be surprised at just how long this one seems to go on for.
9: The Miz, Alberto Del Rio and the Brooklyn Brawler vs. 3MB at TLC 2012
2 of 10
While there's an obvious appeal to having the Brooklyn Brawler make his return to the ring in Brooklyn, very little about this match is PPV-worthy.
The match only runs some three minutes, and if anything, the six men involved attempt to cram too much into that short amount of time. Every single man gets some offence in, but given the rush to get to the finish, none of it has that much impact.
Having a short match between pay-per-view main events is a technique that WWE often uses to prevent crowds from getting worn out, but when you do that with a match as frenetic as this, it doesn't have the desired effect. This one perhaps should have been saved for Monday Night Raw.
8: Kofi Kingston vs. the Miz at TLC 2013
3 of 10
Set up via a languid "brawl" on the pre-show, this well-worn encounter was never likely to produce anything too special at such short notice—even with an extraneous no-disqualification stipulation.
At present, Miz has both his partnership with Damien Mizdow and his "Hollywood" persona going for him; last year he had neither and as such had very little to contribute to this bout.
Kingston puts forth a good effort to make this one watchable, but it never really takes off. The stipulation isn't capitalized on, and the finishing sequence is far too predictable to be of any real interest.
A last minute addition to a pay-per-view card can sometimes liven up an event—this one does not do that.
7: Big E Langston vs. Damien Sandow at TLC 2013
4 of 10
This Intercontinental Championship defence from last year doesn't look too bad on paper—but its execution really lets it down.
Sandow was just weeks removed from the unsuccessful Money in the Bank cash-in that stalled his career until recently, whereas Big E had just won the intercontinental title in front of a hot crowd on an episode of Raw.
In what should have been either a strong start to Big E's reign or the beginning of a renaissance for Sandow, both men were badly miscast. Sandow spends most of the match in control of the larger and more powerful Langston, with the champion getting in very little offence.
Big E picks up the win in the end but does so in such limp fashion that neither man benefits. Sandow looks like a fool for dominating and then losing quite easily, and there's nothing to be said for Langston having won the match with only a few moves.
This one is very typical of a dark period for midcard titles in WWE—something that we finally seem to be stepping away from in recent months.
6: Antonio Cesaro vs. R-Truth at TLC 2012
5 of 10
A bad Cesaro match is a rare thing, but there certainly wasn't much to enjoy in his United States title defence against R-Truth at TLC 2012.
The whole bout is completely languid and formless, never quite hitting any sort of stride. The muted crowd doesn't help matters much, but there's very little going on in the ring for the audience to get excited about.
A low point of the encounter—and perhaps the TLC pay-per-view as a whole—comes when R-Truth performs his signature "thrusting" taunt whilst shouting "U-S-A" with a thrust accompanying each letter. It's not clever and certainly not funny.
5: Beth Phoenix vs. Kelly Kelly at TLC 2011
6 of 10
It's a shame that Beth Phoenix's tenure in the WWE ended before the new crop of women's wrestlers began to rebuild the female side of the WWE roster—competition like Kelly Kelly was never going to make for good in-ring action.
Here, Kelly plays the most obnoxious underdog imaginable—it's rather difficult to imagine anyone not rooting for Phoenix to get the win. Kelly screams, shouts and is very sloppy with her logic-defying, brain-dead offence.
There were some major problems with this year's Paige-AJ Lee feud, but it was still a huge leap forward from what we could expect from women's wrestling in WWE just a few years ago.
4: The Miz vs. Randy Orton at TLC 2010
7 of 10
This Tables match for the WWE Championship was emblematic of Miz's run as champion as whole; even during feuds that managed to garner some heat, the match quality was never there to back them up.
Putting a sneaky champion like Miz up against stiff competition such as Orton with such an easily manipulated stipulation makes it easy to see where this match is going before it starts. You know instantly that there's going to be shenanigans as to how Orton is beaten, but the finish still manages to be dafter than you would expect.
It's a standard cowardly title defence, complete with Miz's minion Alex Riley popping his head up throughout to keep things in his owner's favour. The match is something of a chore and made even worse by Michael Cole's monotonous commentary—his friendship with Miz was in full force at the time.
There's often debate as to whether the WWE Championship match deserves to go on last on a pay-per-view simply because of the title—this bout's placing in the middle of the card is well-deserved.
3: Brodus Clay vs. R-Truth at TLC 2013
8 of 10
If you're ever looking to watch a match that goes absolutely nowhere, it would be difficult to find a better example than this tepid encounter.
Neither Clay nor Truth is without merit, but you'd be forgiven for questioning their talent based on this bout. An early flurry by Truth is soon cut short by Brodus, and after that the pace slows to a crawl—and never picks up again.
The point of the match seems to be officially splitting Tons of Funk, as Tensai deserts his partner during the match due to his unsporting behaviour. The whole thing seems to be in service of a faceoff between the two; so why is this on the pay-per-view?
This feels like a television match to set up something down the line—and a rather bad one at that.
2: Big Show vs. Mark Henry at TLC 2011
9 of 10
The Chairs match is undoubtedly one of the worst stipulations of recent years—perhaps set to be outdone by the Stairs match at TLC 2014—but there are plenty more problems with this woeful bout from 2011.
Someone out there must like the combination of Mark Henry and Big Show, because it seems we're never too far from them teaming up or feuding. However, matches like this one make a good argument for the pair never being allowed to share the ring again.
Henry's career resurgence and enjoyable world title run came to a crushing halt with this five-minute match, where he's bested by a Knockout Punch and a lethargic pin. Thankfully, Daniel Bryan cashed in his Money in the Bank contract shortly afterward, preventing a similarly dreary rematch.
1: Triple H vs. Kevin Nash at TLC 2011
10 of 10
The real shame of this match—aside from the forced Sledgehammer on a Pole stipulation—is what it could have been.
For one, it's the culmination of the needless interjection of both men into 2011's Summer of Punk storyline, which many would agree stifled one of the most engaging WWE storylines of the past 10 years. More to the point, it simply wasn't the match that we would expect from two legends.
Kevin Nash looked nothing like his best—too slow at his quickest and ill-suited to a ladder match. Triple H was also in something of a slump; comparing his performance here to his excellent work this year is like night and day.
There's a decent amount of physicality, albeit nothing that compares to their battle inside Hell in a Cell at Bad Blood 2003. Both men seem ready for retirement based on their sluggish performances here—but, given that both have had much more impressive performances since, we can perhaps write off TLC 2011 as an unfortunate outlier.
Which is your least favourite match to be featured on a TLC pay-per-view? Let us know in the comments section below.
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