WWE TLC 2014: Power Ranking Every Match at PPV
World Wrestling Entertainment's latest pay-per-view extravaganza, TLC: Tables, Ladders, Chairs...and Stairs, arrived with high expectations and left fans bemoaning poor booking, lackluster matches and a general sense of apathy toward the current product.
Outside of tremendous performances from Dolph Ziggler and Luke Harper, serious effort from Dean Ambrose and Bray Wyatt (despite an awful finish) and hard work from John Cena and Seth Rollins, the show was hampered significantly by lazy output from WWE Creative and subpar performances from a very talented roster.
With Royal Rumble on the horizon and the road to WrestleMania right around the corner, TLC was most certainly not the show management was expecting from its stars, especially considering the fact that the stars of NXT set the bar incredibly high just days earlier with their Takeover: R Evolution special.
Which matches succeeded Sunday night? Which underwhelmed slightly less than the others? Which ones stunk up the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio?
Find out now, courtesy of this exclusive ranking of every match on Sunday's card.
8. Steel Stairs Match: Erick Rowan vs. Big Show
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To say the Steel Stairs match between Big Show and Erick Rowan at TLC was slow, plodding and unnecessarily long would be absolutely correct. At the same time, it would fail to encapsulate everything wrong with the bout.
The stipulation was horrible, as the stairs themselves are as big and clunky and uninteresting as the competitors doing battle.
Worse yet is the fact that Vince McMahon and WWE Creative sat down to time out the show and thought it wise to give the two big men 11 minutes to try and craft a match.
It was a disastrous decision that exposed Rowan's weaknesses as a singles performer.
Considering the lengths to which the writing staff has gone to get Rowan over since Survivor Series, the match cannot be considered anything but counterproductive.
7. Chairs Match: Ryback vs. Kane
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If Big Show vs. Erick Rowan was slow and plodding, Ryback vs. Kane in a Chairs match was a sprint by comparison.
That is not at all an endearing comment. In fact, it is merely a comparison between two utterly slow, boring matches that may have thrived without the ridiculous stipulations.
Like the aforementioned Big Show-Rowan debacle, Ryback and Kane were given far too much time, and in result the crowd grew bored with the power-based offense and the slow-as-molasses pace. Chants of "Feed me more" indicated that the fans cared slightly more about this contest than others, but it was hardly enough to advance it past "unwatchable" status.
Ryback was in need of a really solid match to maintain the momentum he's had since the build to Survivor Series. Now he's in need of something simply passable to warrant inclusion in meaningful fare.
6. United States Championship Match: Jack Swagger vs. Rusev
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If you got a sense of deja vu while watching the United States Championship match between Jack Swagger and Rusev, you were not the only one.
The familiar rivals wrestled essentially the same match they have countless times in the past, leaving fans to wonder exactly what the purpose of recycling Swagger as a Rusev foe was.
Outside of an initial tease when the challenger passed out to the tremendous pain form the Accolade only to succumb to the hold moments later, there was nothing to differentiate the battle from their previous encounters.
Rusev won, Swagger let his country down and JBL apparently lost all hope that anyone can stop The Bulgarian Brute.
Lather, rinse and repeat.
5. Divas Championship Match: AJ Lee vs. Nikki Bella
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The Divas Championship match between Nikki Bella and AJ Lee was the first on this list that slightly resembled an interesting and entertaining wrestling match.
Bella controlled the match, and AJ mounted her comeback. It was exactly what it needed to be, with a finish that may not have been the most ideal but definitely sets the evil twins up as sneaky, manipulative and willing to do whatever it takes to maintain control of the Divas Championship.
AJ looked like a world-beater late in the contest, something that should help her stay in title contention going forward, but a nice break from the championship would go far in creating a sense of freshness for her, something she is in desperate need of at this point.
It was not a perfect match, but good enough given the time allotment and the still-blossoming chemistry of the performers.
4. WWE Tag Team Championship Match: The Usos vs. The Miz and Damien Mizdow
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It is incredibly difficult to have a bad match with Jimmy and Jey Uso at this point, so fans can rest assured knowing that when the twin brothers appear on a pay-per-view card, there is a certain level of quality (and a definite floor for said quality).
Sunday night, the brothers challenged The Miz and Damien Mizdow for the WWE Tag Team Championships in a match that may have been on the lower end quality-wise but was still immensely entertaining thanks to the contributions of Mizdow.
An outlet for his continued comedic genius, the contest featured Miz taking a much-deserved beating at the hands of his opponents...and Mizdow replicating the assault on himself.
The finish was garbage, with a disqualification preventing The Usos from suffering a loss and allowing the champions to retain. While that ruined an otherwise fine match that benefited from the heat surrounding the night's opener, it did set up a scenario in which the program should continue, allowing the story involving Naomi to reach a somewhat definitive conclusion.
If WWE Creative can remember that part of the show past the holidays.
3. Tables Match: John Cena vs. Seth Rollins
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John Cena and Seth Rollins worked extremely hard to deliver a match even remotely close to good and for the most part accomplished that goal. Unfortunately, their ability to push the quality anywhere past that level was stunted by the incredibly overbooked nature of the bout.
Every opportunity Cena had to put Rollins through a table was interrupted by Jamie Noble and Joey Mercury. Even after taking a beating at the hands of Cena, they managed to pop back up later and ruin the flow of the match.
It was a recurring problem that prevented the contest from reaching its full potential.
The return of Roman Reigns completely overshadowed the stipulation of the match, and in the end a major pay-per-view showdown between Cena and Rollins devolved into an overhyped segment of Monday Night Raw rather than the epic, star-making vehicle it should have been for Rollins.
2. TLC Match: Dean Ambrose vs. Bray Wyatt
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The Tables, Ladders & Chairs match between Dean Ambrose and Bray Wyatt headlined Sunday's pay-per-view, much to the surprise of the fans who were sure John Cena would compete in yet another main event.
While they had the spotlight to themselves and turned in strong performances in the marquee position, one still could not help but feel somewhat underwhelmed by the finished product.
Ambrose continued to make the most of his opportunities, delivering another outstanding showing that captured everything fans love about his character. Wyatt was good in his own right, bumping around the ring for Ambrose and enduring a great deal of pain and punishment, as his character should have given the story being told.
Unfortunately, booking let both stars down.
The finish was awful and made Ambrose look like a complete fool. Three times he held in his hands a television monitor that was clearly plugged in. Rather than taking the time to pull the cables out of it, he tried running with it twice, and on the second try it exploded in his face.
After demonstrating such stupidity, he deserved to lose the match—at least from a common-sense standpoint.
Wyatt's victory gives him a much-needed pinfall victory over someone perceived to be a headliner, but at the same time it came at the expense of Ambrose, who has shown flashes of being the first legitimate breakout antihero WWE has had since the height of the CM Punk pandemonium in the summer of 2011.
1. Ladder Match for the Intercontinental Title: Dolph Ziggler vs. Luke Harper
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The TLC pay-per-view's opening contest was also its best, as Cleveland's own Dolph Ziggler battled Luke Harper for the Intercontinental Championship in a Ladder match.
Both Superstars pummeled each other with the climbing device, bruises and lacerations forming almost immediately.
Clearly determined to steal the show right out of the gate, champion and challenger took tremendous risks, putting their bodies and well-beings on the line for the sake of entertaining the masses.
The falls from the ladder were especially scary, with Ziggler contorting his body just in time to avoid disaster.
Harper's big suicide dive through the ropes saw him catch his arm in one ladder and land with a sickening thud, leaving the commentators to openly wonder whether he broken his arm or not. A later spot in which the big man landed back-first on a ladder propped up between the ring apron and announce table resulted in a laceration and numerous staples needed by night's end.
In the end, both men were bloodied and brutalized, but it was Ziggler who stood atop the ladder, the IC title back in his grasp and the hometown fans erupting at the genesis of his fourth championship reign.
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