If you can’t tell by the title of this week’s column, I don’t have much faith in TLC next Sunday and it’s in that spirit in which I trudge along.
Pre-Show:
Divas Battle Royal to determine #1 contender for Divas Championship: AJ vs Kaitlyn(‘s boobs) vs Layla vs Alicia Fox vs Natalya vs Tamina vs Aksana vs Rosa
Well let’s see, Layla is currently not in any sort of story at the moment so that rules her out, same as Aksana and Alicia Fox (who was a face for the purposes of last week’s Raw as well as borderline treasonous). Natalya is involved in something but that’s something that includes Khali so that may as well not even exist. Kaitlyn was in a decent match for the championship last month but hasn’t been in the ring since. Tamina had one match with AJ, lost and was nowhere to be seen this past week. Yeah, process of elimination has determined AJ to win by proximity to relevancy (what do we want? TIME MACHINES! When do we want them? THAT’S IRRELEVANT!).
United States Championship Match: Antonio Cesaro(c) vs R-Truth
I’m still not convinced they want to take the belt off Cesaro just yet but I don’t mind seeing another match between these two guys. There clearly isn’t an idea on the table as to what the future will be for Cesaro with the US belt (but then again there never is). This rivalry has essentially been a way to keep Truth and Kofi as a tag team without actually being a tag team.
Tables Match to determine #1 Contender for Tag Team Championship: Rhodes Scholars (Cody Rhodes and Damien Sandow) vs Masked Atrocities (Sin Cara and Rey Mysterio)
First of all, when were Masked BJ’s awarded the right to be in this match? Did I completely miss a match or something? Doesn’t really matter because I’m making the assumption WWE is still violently against booking faces facing each other (that’s right, I said “faces facing.” Wanna fight about it?) so that lends to Scholars getting the win here, riding the new momentum of Cody’s hairy return.
Side note: that brown eye reference has made Miz to be forever in the doghouse with me, we don’t need another face with cheesy jokes.
Intercontinental Championship Match: Kofi Kingston(c) vs Wade Barrett
I see Wade getting the belt here, not like it matters because much like the US belt, there really is no plan here plus Kofi seems to become exactly what we feared, he is once again a placeholder champion. Not saying that a Wade Barrett reign would be much different.
MitB Ladder Match: Dolph Ziggler vs John Cena
I’m pissed about this match for the simple fact that it even exists. I’m more pissed that Dolph has yet to cash in the briefcase because it’s evident that WWE forgot he had it for a while. Wishful thinking, a hard fought, bloody encounter ensues in which Ziggler eventually gets the decisive win and maybe even a respectful nod/handshake from Cena. Later that night, Big Show/Sheamus wins the WHC in a hard-fought battle and here comes a still-bloodied Ziggler, walking with a purposeful limp with briefcase in hand and essentially has a full-blown match with whoever the champ is and wins. And a huge star would be born.
The reality? Cena wins, completely disregards that it’s for the WHC and announces he’ll cash it in at Mania against Rock blah blah blah and I’ll throw something at my TV and yell obscenities.
Chair Match for the World Heavyweight Championship: Sheamus vs Big Show(c)
So the two guys are gonna get chairs and basically go all “Rock’em Sock’em Robots” on each other? No thanks, I saw that last year with Show and Henry and there’s no Daniel Bryan looming and as mentioned in the previous portion, a purposely-limping Dolphin is not likely. Don’t know who wins, don’t care.
A “No-DQ match with weapons for no real purpose that definitely isn’t anything that even resembles a TLC match” Match: Team Friendship and Ryback vs The Copyright Shield
Why is this happening? Punk gets injured and so everything falls apart? Last year’s TLC survived without Cena and if WWE can manage 1 show with out him then they can put together a decent PPV card without it’s champion. Literally anything would be better than what they’ve put together. A “TLC Match” that’s decided by pinfall or submission? Are you kidding me? Would it have absolutely killed you to have made at least ONE TLC tag team championship match? Hell, you could still have Ryback in it, throw Cena as his partner and that would solve the dumb ladder match problem and those two can go all crazy on Shield’s team while Team Friendship escape with the belts. See? I literally came up with that on the spot and it was a million times better than this peanut butter and hepatitis sandwich of a match they put together. And then you have the nerve to call it the main event match? What, is Laurinaitis gonna be involved? Because that sounds like his kinda booking. Remember those months were Cena crushed Nexus PPV after PPV? That was horrible but at least there was some sort of build. This essentially crams everything Shield has done within a month and expect it all to end Sunday because there’s no way WWE doesn’t crush them against Ryback and Friendship. I mean, sure, they can try to bring them back after this but how are we suppose to buy them as a legit threat after that? I could play devil’s advocate and ponder what-ifs about Shield escaping with a win but why bother? What is WWE gonna do? Have their new rising star lose for a 3rd straight PPV against people that don’t have any sort of championship? Exactly.
Wow, I haven’t Raged like that in a while, the taste of it warms my cockles.
Is anyone else in a rage over this or am I the only one?
Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do twice,
Chris
The Answer:When my stomach light meets your stomach light, we can all phone home together.
