WWE TLC 2015: Biggest Takeaways from Latest PPV Event

The repercussions are still being felt from Sunday's TLC pay-per-view extravaganza, as World Wrestling Entertainment continues its most noteworthy week in quite some time.

Roman Reigns is the new WWE World Heavyweight champion following his victory over Sheamus on the December 14 episode of Raw in which he followed up the previous night's massive beatdown of COO Triple H by finally capturing the title that had eluded him for so long.

Kevin Owens has rediscovered his killer edge, leaving the new intercontinental champion, Dean Ambrose, lying and making it abundantly clear that he is coming for the gold he feels is rightfully his.

Those are just two of the major events to happen in the wake of the annual demolition derby of a pay-per-view, which was the buzz of social media and the wrestling world shortly after it concluded.

The passing of time allows for a more concentrated look back at the event and several takeaways from the December 13 extravaganza, including the need to eliminate the show from WWE's calendar altogether.

Credit: WWE.com

1. The TLC Pay-Per-View Needs to Go

One of the most obvious takeaways from Sunday's spectacular is just how watered-down the various gimmick matches became as the show progressed.

After The Lucha Dragons, The Usos and The New Day stole the show from the get-go with a fantastic ladder match for the WWE Tag Team Championships, every match involving some sort of gimmick became less and less effective at popping the crowd.

Fans had been so overexposed to gimmick bouts, with Extreme Rules and TLC both going heavy on them in hopes of popping buyrates, that they fail to leave the lasting impression on the audience that they otherwise may have.

Then there is the potential injury factor.

At a time when the WWE roster is depleted due to injury, the last thing management should be doing is putting its talent in the position to be injured in some sort of specialty match that is not anything remotely close to a hot rivalry or will even be remembered a week from then.

There is too much risk for too little reward to continue booking a show involving tables, ladders and chairs every December for no reason other than to convince fans to tune in so WWE Creative has to do the bare minimum to create intriguing stories.

Eliminating TLC from the schedule not only takes the pressure off the Superstars to deliver performances that threaten their well-being, it also takes away the overabundance of gimmick bouts so as to restore meaning to them.

Credit: WWE.com

2. The Lucha Dragons Are Breakout Stars in the Making

The opening contest of TLC taught us, if anything, that The Lucha Dragons are stars in waiting.

Sin Cara and Kalisto stole the show from the onset, throwing caution to the wind as they crashed their bodies into ladders with reckless abandon. The latter's Salida del Sol to one of the Usos, off the top of the ladder and through another on the ground below, not only elicited the loudest reaction of the night, but it also set itself up to be one of the TLC event's most defining images.

Perhaps tired of being overshadowed by his smaller partner, Sin Cara broke out a Tope con Hilo onto a ladder on the arena floor, a spot that left fans with their jaws dropped.

After months of demonstrating indifference toward the team, fans were actively cheering for the duo to retrieve the tag titles and leave as champions, the result of the respect the audience had for the team following their inspired performances.

A little creativity on the part of the writing staff and some support from management could, and should, lead to the dynamic duo becoming the top babyfaces in tag team wrestling as the new year approaches.

Credit: WWE.com

3. Fans Actually Want to Cheer Roman Reigns

If the conclusion of the event was any indication, fans actually want to cheer Roman Reigns. WWE Creative had just done a truly awful job of giving them a reason to ahead of Sunday's pay-per-view. It had booked him the complete opposite of how it should have, trying desperately to recreate the "magic" that led to John Cena's meteoric rise to the top of the industry rather than recognizing what made Reigns different from the West Newbury, Massachusetts, native and playing to those strengths.

That changed Sunday night, as WWE Creative finally portrayed Reigns as an angry, frustrated badass who had been screwed over on countless occasions and was not going to let it happen again. He lashed out, beating the unholy hell out of The League of Nations before executing a beatdown on COO Triple H that was of epic proportions.

And then it happened.

The lack of smiling, joke-filled promos and tater tot references, and more unadulterated badassery led to chants of "Thank you, Roman" as he exited the arena.

The cheers were there largely because the fans were waiting for that one reason to voice their support for a guy who had shown quiet charisma before, who had torn through the competition and was among the hottest young stars in the industry as 2013 came to an end. They wanted to support him but needed assurance that he could be different from the goody two-shoes Cena that they had been forced to endure for years.

They got it Sunday night, and they reacted in kind.