WWE TLC 2011: 5 Reasons PPV Will Provide Fans with Early Christmas Present

With Christmas just around the corner, WWE is bestowing its fans with an early present in the form of a pay-per-view. It's an unusual gift because we have to pay for it, but it is one that fans should be excited about watching. 

The card, which at the moment does not feature John Cena, is as deep as any card that WWE has had this year. The build for the show was terrible, but that will have no impact on the matches that we see. 

It's a shame the company didn't do more to promote the show—or at least promote it well—because it has the potential to be one of the better events of the year. 

We are all getting in the holiday spirit, and WWE is going to leave us with something that we will be able to enjoy all the way through the new year.

So without further ado, here are a few reasons that we are really excited to see the final major WWE show of 2011. 

Dolph Ziggler vs. Zack Ryder

While Dolph Ziggler and Zack Ryder have wrestled many times before, this is the first match that they have had that has actually had any kind of build and feels like it means something. 

The United States Championship might be the main prize at the end of the rainbow for the winner of this match, but the real story of this contest will be which young star is going to have the brighter future in WWE. 

Ziggler has seen his stock skyrocket in the last three months with great matches on Raw and pay-per-view. In fact, this is the first time since the Hell in a Cell show that he isn't wrestling twice in one night. 

Ryder has become a pleasant surprise for the company because of his Internet show, though he hasn't gotten the push that you would expect for someone who regularly gets the third-best pop among regular stars, behind John Cena and CM Punk. 

If this match is given time to develop, it will be the best of the night. Ziggler can carry anyone right now, and Ryder is smart enough to know that he doesn't have to do anything crazy. These two will steal the show.

Mark Henry-Big Show Feud Ending

This one is more just speculation on my part because it is possible for WWE to keep dragging the battle between these two giants going through the Royal Rumble. 

However, Show has had three months to compete in the SmackDown main events, and the last match was one of the worst World Heavyweight title bouts of the year, so I think that no matter who wins this one—for the record, I believe it will be Henry—it will end after this match. 

Henry needs to move on to someone who is capable of carrying him to a good match or else the fans are going to turn on him in a hurry. The fact that they haven't yet is a testament to how good he has been on the microphone. 

Big Show, while he is an entertaining personality, does not belong in the main event mix anymore. He has had his chance and failed. 

The build for this match has been okay—relative to everything else on the show that is—but the sooner it ends, the better off these two will be. 

No John Cena*

I am not going to bash John Cena because everyone else does, and I don't hate him or think that he is in someway bad for WWE. 

However, I think that giving him a break from an event is a good thing for him and the fans. Cena is getting booed by crowds for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest is because he is always in a pay-per-view main event. 

Fans are tired of seeing the same thing week after week, month after month, year after year. By taking Cena off just one show, it gives other wrestlers a chance to shine that they would not have otherwise gotten. 

Plus, making new stars is a problem that WWE has had for years. By letting wrestlers like CM Punk, Dolph Ziggler, Zack Ryder and Wade Barrett work without having the almighty Cena present gives them a little more incentive to perform, because they could be trusted to handle a big spot in the future.

*As of this writing, Cena still has not been booked in a match, though it is possible he will be added to another match or have an impromptu match. But for the purpose of this article, we will act as though he is not wrestling. 

TLC Matches Are Always Good

WWE introduced the Tables, Ladders and Chairs match in 2000, and since that time there have been 11 of them that have taken place. Tonight's show will be the 12th and it has a lot to live up to. 

CM Punk, The Miz and Alberto Del Rio has the potential to sit alongside some of the great TLC matches that we have seen in the past, but even if it doesn't go down in history as one of the best, it will still be good and well worth the price of the show. 

Every TLC match has had at least one great moment that fans carry with them for years. This is the match that helped make Edge a legitimate superstar, and it can do the same thing for Punk, Miz and/or Del Rio. 

While it would not be fair to expect that to happen tonight, we know that the possibility exists because we have seen it before. 

CM Punk as WWE Champion

When TLC is over, CM Punk should still be WWE champion. At the start of the year, the idea of someone like him holding the most prestigious title in the company would have been far fetched. It's not that he didn't deserve it, but he doesn't have the look that Vince McMahon goes for. 

But in June everything changed. Punk became the most talked about wrestler in years, and he headlined the best show of the year at Money In the Bank. 

His hot streak got cut off when WWE botched the angle with him leaving as champion, but the fans are still captivated by his unique personality and ability to have consistently great matches that not a lot of other wrestlers in the company are capable of providing. 

And even better than all of that, he is not John Cena or Randy Orton. I don't have a problem with either of those two, they have earned their spots, but for the past six years they were the only two that we have seen get the ball. 

Punk may never be the breakout star that he could have been if everything had played out as it should have back in July, but he is still something different, and that is all we have asked WWE for.

Bonus: The Gift of Laughter

To say that the Kevin Nash return has been a waste of time would be an insult to wastes of time. It has been the most pointless thing that WWE has done this year, and that is saying something considering all of the garbage that we have had to stomach over the last 12 months. 

But at least it will have a happy ending for us, because we get to see Nash, on his 52-year-old knees that crack every time he stands up, try to climb a ladder.

Even if the rest of the show is terrible, which is doubtful considering how deep the card is, seeing Nash do his best to hobble up and down a ladder to retrieve a sledgehammer will be well worth the price of admission. 

Just for the record, I am not a heartless individual rooting for Nash to get hurt, but we all know it is going to happen, so we might as well enjoy it. 

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