WWE TLC 2017 Matches: Full Predictions for Miz, Alexa Bliss and Each Champion
Monday Night Raw's final brand-centric pay-per-view of the year, WWE TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs 2017, is scheduled for this Sunday, October 22, at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Normally, every belt is on the line at nearly every pay-per-view, but this event has quite a different lineup that prevents that from happening.
Something fans should be familiar with is how the Universal Championship will be absent, which is something that happens quite often with Brock Lesnar holding the title.
However, the Intercontinental and Raw Tag Team Championships will be tied up in a non-title match, making only two belts on the line at this show.
Those two titles are the Cruiserweight Championship where Kalisto defends against Enzo Amore and the Raw women's champion Alexa Bliss going up against Mickie James.
Keeping all this in consideration, what is in store for the red brand's champions at TLC 2017?
Let's gaze into our crystal ball and give our predictions for how these men and women will be used at the pay-per-view.
Cruiserweight Champion Kalisto
1 of 4
Fans of Kalisto who wish for his Cruiserweight Championship reign to last a long time might have a rough night come TLC.
There's been an alarming trend in 2017 of the WWE putting the title on someone just for a temporary surprise, only to revert back to the status quo a week or so later.
It's happened most with the United States Championship, but Alexa Bliss dropped her Raw Women's Championship to Sasha Banks only momentarily, the SmackDown Tag Team Championship has bounced around and so on.
Seeing as how Kalisto has nowhere near the attention-grabbing skills that Enzo Amore has, it's hard to have faith that he will retain his title and carry it into November.
By hook or by crook, Amore will find a way to recapture the strap and dethrone Kalisto, ending his title reign rather quickly in the record books.
Raw Women's Champion Alexa Bliss
2 of 4
There is no way Alexa Bliss drops the Raw Women's Championship to Mickie James at TLC.
Asuka is making her main-roster debut at this event in what will surely be a squash match against Emma, which is the next step in making her a huge deal to those who might not be familiar with her NXT career.
Over the next few weeks or months, that will continue to build until Asuka is ready to capture the championship, meaning a heel is the best possible option to be the champion who loses the title to The Empress of Tomorrow.
There is no better heel in the women's division than Bliss—on either brand, for that matter—so James is just being used as a placeholder feud to eat up some time until the inevitable happens.
This is still a good thing for James, who has been getting more attention these past few weeks than any other time being on the Raw roster, but she'll come up short in the end, allowing Bliss to retain for a little while longer.
Intercontinental Champion the Miz
3 of 4
Oddly enough, The Miz is going to transition from the person who kick-started this whole feud to someone who is not at the exact forefront of the match.
With his Intercontinental Championship not in danger, The Miz will likely fall back to one of his best roles as the cowardly heel who can take a beating.
In particular, this is going to be the case because his teammates are all more physically imposing than he is—especially when it comes to Braun Strowman and Kane.
He'll play the part of the ring general who bosses people around, although that might not work as well as it would normally go, seeing as how Curtis Axel and Bo Dallas are much more likely to take orders than Strowman, Kane and The Bar.
If his team is successful, it's not going to be because The Miz was the one firing all the shots.
Instead, The Miz will probably be on the receiving end of a lot of punishment, even though he'll likely gloat that their win was all his machination.
That is, of course, if his team comes out on top, which is anybody's guess now that Kurt Angle has replaced Roman Reigns, which changes every dynamic of this match.
It will be interesting to see if this means The Miz will have more or less to do than originally planned, as he may now have to handle more of the brunt of the match, since he makes more sense to pair off with Angle than someone more damaging like Strowman or Kane.
Raw Tag Team Champions Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins
4 of 4
Likewise with The Miz, the Raw Tag Team Championship is a non-factor to the TLC main event this Sunday.
Despite the change from Roman Reigns to Kurt Angle, this match is still in no way a title defense, so a win or a loss means nothing for the championship.
The biggest difference regarding Ambrose and Rollins, though, is going to be how much more weight will be put on their shoulders for wrestling the match and holding down the fort.
Angle's status as an in-ring competitor can't possibly be up to the same level since he's likely to suffer from ring rust as well as injuries and an advanced age in comparison, so it will be up to the tag team champions to handle most of the work.
A win for those two and Angle means almost nothing outside of overcoming the odds in a chaotic mess of a booking scenario, but a loss for them means just about the same in the grand scheme of things.
The only downside to losing is that one of these two will have to take the pin to keep Angle protected, but they can always fall back on the excuse that this isn't the group dynamic they had planned for.
No matter what the legacy, Angle is not Reigns in terms of youth, power, size or group camaraderie and they're already going into this match outnumbered.
They'll put up a great fight regardless of the outcome, so it's just a question of whether the WWE wishes to go with the numbers game or the story of the babyface team conquering their foes.
In any scenario, it's impossible to know what the original plan was for how things would go down if The Shield had been able to reunite here instead, so it's likely the WWE won't even have anything figured out until the last minute and will still book things on the fly.
What do you think will happen at TLC? Sound off in the comments section below with your predictions!
Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
