Reviewing Top Highlights and Low Points of WWE TLC 2017
In what felt like a one-match card, the 2017 WWE Tables, Ladders & Chairs event hinged entirely on selling the audience on the return of The Shield.
The build for their match was sloppy, but WWE clearly pinned the card's success on the idea of seeing Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins reunite, no matter who their challengers ended up being or how the storyline played out.
This all went sideways with Reigns' being pulled because of sickness, forcing things to get even more chaotic and leaving it all up to speculation on how WWE could pull it together.
Even before all the alterations, it seemed like a rather bland pay-per-view, with just Asuka's main roster debut as the only other selling point, so with everything being rearranged at the last minute, the fear for this show to be a success certainly lingered above it like a dark cloud.
History has shown, though, that these chaotic events have the potential to end up not just an expected mess, but also sometimes a surprise hit that's a lot of fun to watch.
Now that TLC 2017 has concluded, it's time for us to look back on what happened and assess the damage, talk about the ups and downs and see where the chips fell.
What were the highlights and the low points of the PPV, and how did things turn out?
Presented in order of appearance, here are those standout segments of the show, for better or worse.
Low Point: No PowerPoint Presentation
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Who would have thought there would be a WWE event where it would be a disappointment not to have a PowerPoint presentation on the pre-show?
This card was a mess, so it makes sense WWE had to rearrange a few things and that this would be one of the possible cuts, but it's still a shame.
Drew Gulak has been killing it with his gimmick the past few months, and this PowerPoint presentation gag has been one of the most hilarious and entertaining things on 205 Live.
For this to get some time on the show would have been a good means to get the fans who only watch Raw and SmackDown to see something else they might be interested in.
Since that wasn't the case, everything is back to normal, and it's unlikely any more viewers will be converted to tune in on Tuesday nights.
Here's hoping some time is carved out on Monday night's Raw to have this segment so more eyes can be on it than normal, but for now, not having it at TLC is definitely a low point.
Low Point: Sasha Banks vs. Alicia Fox
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While it was good to see Alicia Fox finally get on a card, as she's so frequently just ignored on a regular basis, that didn't mean this suddenly became a great match.
Since this feud means nothing right now and it was on the pre-show, this was a match the entire WWE Universe could have skipped out on and it wouldn't change anything.
Also, this was a match that was scheduled before the sickness outbreak happened, so this can't even be blamed on last-minute reshuffling, but rather, poor planning from the start several weeks ago.
A certain PowerPoint presentation probably would have been a better choice, just for something different.
Highlight: Asuka vs. Emma
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While this certainly won't make a list for being the best match of the year, the positive side of things is that it was good enough to do exactly what it needed to do.
The point of this whole segment was to introduce Asuka to an audience that wasn't familiar with her from NXT and to give her a win to keep her undefeated streak going.
WWE pulled off just that but also managed not to make it a total squash, which would have just been swept under the rug as another thing to skip.
Emma put up enough of a fight to keep her from looking weak but also put over the newer star, who should be able to take this win and capitalize on it going forward.
Low Point: Swann and Alexander vs. Kendrick and Gallagher
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As mentioned before, it's good to see more of the 205 Live crew to try to help garner more interest in the division, but that certainly didn't translate well with this match.
All four men are very talented, yet the crowd clearly had no interest in the feud whatsoever, as the audience seemed to be pretty silent most of the time.
Another negative was the change to Gentleman Jack Gallagher's music, which takes away part of the fun of his character, heel or not.
This is an example of a match only being on the card because the event was stretched thin, but just like Banks vs. Fox, where most people probably would skip it even if it were on a regular episode of Monday Night Raw.
The more effort put into the cruiserweight division, the less WWE will run into segments like this that don't generate much buzz even though the people involved are worthy of much better.
Highlight: Raw Women's Championship Match
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When Mickie James got into this feud, it seemed like a guarantee she would come up short since Alexa Bliss had carved her spot at the top of the division long ago.
Keeping the title on Bliss was the right move, so points go to this segment for not changing things up for the sake of a random surprise and for allowing the two women to put on a good enough match to get to that point, too.
Since James was being built up as too old, her loss could have been done in a way to legitimately make her seem like it was a statement on WWE's part that she was indeed past her prime, yet she showed that isn't the case.
Having her cut her promo after the match to be a feel-good counter to her loss was also the right move to make, keeping things more optimistic for the future and offsetting any negativity brought about from this storyline.
While James is not going to turn this loss into a title win anytime soon, this was still a good showing and should help her get on Raw events going forward much more easily.
Highlight: Enzo Amore Wins Cruiserweight Championship
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Love him or hate him, it's entirely true that the cruiserweight division has received much more attention with Enzo Amore at the forefront in comparison to anybody else leading the charge.
Kalisto has had numerous title reigns during his WWE career, and none of them really got people talking all that much, yet Amore has made 205 Live a more important entity.
Putting the title back on him is the smart move—especially with his winning because of shenanigans that take him further down the heel direction. Since no other titles were going to change hands, crowning a new champion here also acted as a wake-up point for the card.
Highlight: Finn Balor vs. AJ Styles
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While there was no storyline whatsoever and no discernible reason for these two to go at it, it's hard to imagine anybody is going to be complaining about the change to the card.
AJ Styles and Finn Balor was a match fans had been looking forward to for a long time, and it's great to see that the performance delivered.
This was far above the quality that would have come out of another Bray Wyatt match since he and Balor have already exhausted their feud with multiple fights over the past few months.
Given the circumstances of needing to find a replacement so late in the week, all things worked out for The Demon here.
Low Point: 5-on-3 Handicap TLC Match
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From the very start of this feud, everything was so chaotic that it created an uphill battle even if plans didn't need to be changed.
The TLC gimmick made no sense, seeing as how there was nothing to climb the ladder to obtain, which effectively turned this into a standard No Disqualification match like a regular street fight.
There was a struggle to get the five men on the heel team to be inserted into the feud in any justifiable way, but that was largely ignored with the promise of The Shield's reunion.
Then, of course, that didn't happen, but to give some leeway, that certainly wasn't WWE's fault like the other problems.
With all things being considered, this could have been even more of a fiasco, but just because it wasn't atrocious doesn't mean it was great.
Kurt Angle's involvement in the match felt awkward, and there were numerous other factors that felt disappointing, like Dean Ambrose failing to be thrown through a table.
Kane and Braun Strowman randomly fighting with each other was done pretty poorly and felt like something inserted at the last minute just to fill time.
For this to be the biggest selling point of this PPV and to be something so forgettable is a good reason to convince WWE's creative team to give a little more thought to its event ideas going forward and create more backup plans in case it needs to implement changes.
Not much could have prevented the illness spreading, but this card was already flawed to begin with, and the end result—excuses or not—didn't feel special enough for the final Raw-centric event of the year.
Your mileage may vary if you enjoyed enough of the spots and Angle's return in theory, but it's hard to imagine this panned out as well as WWE had originally hoped.
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.
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