Opinion
Writing The Book: WWE TLC 2018
Welcome to “Writing the Book”! This is where I attempt to book entire wrestling pay-per-views in an interesting yet logical matter. This week we have WWE TLC 2018!
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Jimmy Jacobs is right. Writing a wrestling show is hard. This one, deceptively so. WWE’s next event is the Royal Rumble which has direct ties to Wrestlemania. So as I started toying with the match card, I realized that I had to essentially predict parts of the Mania card four months in advance. This WWE TLC PPV may have greater implications than we previously realized.
I’ve listed the matches in my desired order of the card.
WWE TLC Kickoff
The entire WWE TLC card is 12 matches which is unnecessarily long for a wrestling show. The pre-show is two matches most of the time but I added an extra one for Sunday.
Natalya v. Ruby Riott – Tables Match
Winner: Ruby Riott
I want both competitors to come out looking good here. Before Nattie eventually loses, I want her to find a way to put both of the other members of the Riott Squad through a table. Ruby gets the win but Natalya also appears fairly strong and resilient.
Elias v. Bobby Lashley w/ Lio Rush – Guitar suspended above the ring can be used as a weapon
Winner: Lashley
My original plan was for Elias to win after using a second guitar hidden under the ring. But Lashley needs the win more. He’s the most physically imposing guy on the roster but isn’t being booked like it. He held all the gold over at Impact but hasn’t been in a single title feud since returning. I don’t see that changing soon but a PPV win is a start. Lio Rush also needs to get involved. That’s what he’s there for.
Buddy Murphy (c) v. Cedric Alexander – Cruiserweight Championship
Winner: Murphy
The only person Buddy Murphy should lose that belt to is Mustafa Ali. The build isn’t there for a title change and I didn’t want it to get lost in the shuffle of this enormous card so I made it the main event of the pre-show.
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WWE TLC Main Card
The Bar (c) v. The New Day v. The Usos – Smackdown Tag Team Championships
Winners: Usos
The SD Live tag scene needs a slight shift. It looks like they’ll stick with having the spotlight on these three teams for awhile. The Bar took the belts off the New Day in October and haven’t gotten much action since. Perhaps an Usos/Bar feud can get some momentum going for both teams again.
Rey Mysterio v. Randy Orton – Chairs Match
Winner: Orton
With the way he’s been presented I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw Orton hovering around the world title picture in the coming months. Also, a chair needs to be involved in either a 619 or RKO. Not only will the kiddos love it, but so will I.
Finn Balor v. Drew McIntyre
Winner: McIntyre
This could be a show-stealer if given time and paired with a clean finish. I wouldn’t complain if Balor got this big win but McIntyre shouldn’t lose until he gets a Univeral Title opportunity.
***EDIT: There have been conflicting reports today on Finn Balor’s availability at TLC. If he is replaced, Drew needs to win regardless of who the opponent is.
R-Truth and Carmella v. Jinder Mahal and Alicia Fox – Mixed Match Challenge Finals (winners get entrant #30 slots at the Royal Rumble)
Winners: The Fabulous Truth
This will be a nice comedy match to let the fans breathe before the marquee matches at the top of the WWE TLC card. We’re going to need at least five dance breaks and meditation sessions from each side before the match’s conclusion.
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Braun Strowman v. Baron Corbin (Strowman wins: Awarded Universal Title match, Corbin is stripped of power. Corbin wins: Corbin becomes permanent Raw General Manager)
Winner: Strowman
This is the match I was excited to book. I don’t know what Strowman’s status is going to be like following his elbow surgery. I’d be shocked if he was already capable of competing in a full-blown TLC match. This is why I’m booking it as if Strowman is unable to compete.
Baron Corbin is in the ring about to declare himself the winner by forfeit. He even has some sort of government official with him ready to declare himself the Raw GM. That’s when Strowman appears on the big screen live from another hospital bed. He states that he can’t make it but found a suitable replacement. That’s when this music hits.
Yes, Lars Sullivan makes his main roster debut as a babyface. He walks to the ring and Corbin tries to put an end to the whole thing. Sullivan grabs a mic and says Stephanie McMahon allowed him to replace Braun as long as he signs with Monday Night Raw. Michael Cole sells the moment on commentary and elaborates on what a huge deal that is for Raw.
Lars eventually wins the match and strips Corbin of his power. The #1 Contender’s spot is still up for grabs. That can be claimed by Strowman when he’s healthy or McIntyre and Sullivan can try to claim their rightful stake to Brock Lesnar’s belt.
Ronda Rousey (c) v. Nia Jax – Raw Women’s Championship
Winner: Rousey
I’m willing to bet my car that Rousey holds that belt until Wrestlemania. She’s one of the biggest draws in the company so she needs one of the biggest singles matches at Mania. These two had an excellent match at Money in the Bank so I’m just going to let them do their thing at TLC.
Seth Rollins (c) v. Dean Ambrose – Intercontinental Championship
Winner: Dean Ambrose
Dean Ambrose needs to ride this momentum all the way into a championship win. If he loses cleanly then this whole persona change will feel meaningless. This is a great feud for both guys but many people consider Seth the best in the world. I think 2019 is the year we start to see Seth headline pay-per-views again, so this booking at WWE TLC will get us there. The Universal Championship is the final belt he has yet to claim.
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The New Daniel Bryan (c) v. AJ Styles – WWE Championship
Winner: Bryan
My long-term goal is for a babyface Miz to meet Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania. That means DB has to keep his championship at WWE TLC. AJ being out of the world title feud is hard to envision. The only other mid-card guy he can have a program with is Orton. That’s why I want these two to have one more match.
I’m booking this match to end via referee stoppage. Daniel Bryan will target AJ’s knee constantly. DB keeps strapping on the knee bars but AJ always gets to the ropes. However, AJ tries to hit a Styles Clash and his knee buckles. Then he tries to hit a Phenomenal Forearm but slips off the ropes. AJ can no longer stand so the referee stops the match.
Daniel Bryan ending the match by DQ feels cheap so this will allow a different avenue toward a rematch. They’ll have a Submission Match at the Royal Rumble. Submission matches rarely happen now and both men have submissions in their finishing arsenals.
Becky Lynch (c) v. Asuka v. Charlotte Flair – Tables, Ladders, & Chairs Match for SD Women’s Championship
Winner: Asuka
This is the perfect opportunity to finally give Asuka that championship belt that’s wrongfully alluded her. As much as she deserves it, the (Becky) fans could turn on Asuka. In the event of this happening, I have a backup plan for WWE TLC.
In all of NXT and WWE, Asuka has never been a real heel. Now is the time. When Becky and Asuka have their rematch in January, Asuka should purposefully “re-injure” Becky’s face. A report will come out soon after saying that Becky will be out for weeks. She ends up being a surprise entrant in the Rumble. She’s walking down to the ring wearing a face mask and fighting off doctors trying to hold her back. Becky ends up winning the whole thing (eliminating Nia in the process). Boom, Becky vs. Ronda at Mania.
Meanwhile on Smackdown, Asuka is a heel. During the Spring, she has a few title matches with her old friend, Naomi. When that’s settled, Asuka vs. Charlotte at WrestleMania is reborn with the roles reversed this time around.
Next time on “Writing the Book”: Wrestle Kingdom 13!
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Opinion
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About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY – Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
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About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
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Opinion
AJ’s Top 3 Favorite SummerSlams
AJ is back with his annual opinion article, and this time the SummerSlam buzz got him wondering about his personal Top 3.
It’s been a while since I have done any form of writing and SummerSlam is this Saturday. Of all the SummerSlams I’ve seen over the years; which ones are my favorites? While it’s not a revolutionary idea, I figured everyone loves to debate favorites of well, anything. Don’t worry though because this isn’t just going to be pure recency bias. I’ve watched the majority of them so with the ones I put on the list, it hit me more in some way shape or form whether it was story, a really good match or it just felt like a solid event.
At least this proves WWE is trending in a good direction for me, when it gets the ol’ brain juices flowing just because a show is around the corner!
#3: 2022 (Ol’ Brock Lesnar Has A Farm)
Starting off the show, we get Bianca looking for a rematch against Becky from last years SummerSlam and it was better than the 21 second affair that everyone claims was a squash. This time Bianca holds her own and beats the Man in a fairly decent match, good way to get the event started. Next up is the heat seeking missile, Logan Paul against the former heat seeking missile because, well he wasn’t cut out for it and wasn’t a guy in everyone’s eyes, The Miz. After they had their blow off at Mania with Logan coming out on top which… isn’t awful, I just don’t like Logan Paul because he has that dude bro aura and swagger to make him more hateable than any other person on the card. Which I suppose is his gimmick…so…kudos?
First Championship match is for the US Championship and it’s as expected that in Theory, he should never beat someone to the caliber of Bobby Lashley which is no surprise. Dominik and Rey still back when Dom wanted the good fight against the Judgement Day before joining them later. The former Colts players, which they hammered it dahn in this match up showed that the canal swimming, trash talkin’, podcastin’, current RAW Color Commentatin’ goofball we all love, Pat McAfee came out on top again Bum Ass Corbin.
Usos putting the Street Profits on lockdown in the penitentiary since I believe this was peak Bloodline with the belt collecting and running all of WWE. Liv beat Ronda Rousey which isn’t astonishing but it’s not something people had on their bingo cards for anything with WWE so it was a nice little shock factor. The most memorable part of the night is obviously the Main Event, Lesnar brings the tractor, Roman catching the Microphone and Brock stands on top of the vehicle. Damn good match that showed off what they do in the ring since Roman caught his stride as the main bad guy and Brock… liked people after all of this? That is still a weird statement in my head. Brock being a good guy people person. If Liv wasn’t on bingo cards for wrestling, that is not on bingo cards in any aspect of life really.
That is more of the event that had solid matches and story going for it. No weird double count out, multiple people involved, 5 tag matches on the card. Things made sense and weren’t convoluted, had shocking moments that were great to see like Liv actually getting a title defense and there were the results we all expected at the time like Theory losing in 4 minutes to Bobby Lashley.
#2: 2009 (Are You Ready for The Return?)
This event wasn’t that strong. It was strong with the star power involved in 2009 with guys like Rey Mysterio as Intercontinental Champion, Orton and Cena for the WWE Championship as it was becoming as stale as month old chips and CM Punk was facing Jeff Hardy before he ultimately returned to TNA at the beginning of 2010 after this PPV. For me, it’s not so much of the show itself, it was more of the memories because the Balai as our friends Chris Platt and Rey Cash like to call my brother and I, we were just coming back into wrestling and we were TNA Fans. We didn’t watch WWE that much really, it was just what came on after another channel had old ROH shows before they moved to three hours and swallowed the 8pm Eastern Slot. No, the reason why this has so many memories for me is three main reasons. First, Orton and Cena. They have had their rivalry since the beginning it seems, being each others foils like Hogan and Piper before them and there had to be a stipulation where if Randy was Counted Out or DQ’d, he’d lose the championship regardless. This was prime Viper Randy and the obvious joke we had of Super Cena where he very rarely lost, unless it was SummerSlam surprisingly enough.
Number two reason was CM Punk and Jeff Hardy. Hardys known for the Ladder and TLC matches in the past and this being the penultimate match for this feud and it was a banger of a match. If you didn’t know Punk before, it was a great introduction to his wrestling. I used to like Punk a lot because of this match because he could talk, wrestle… and not insanely personal with things in wrestling. In all seriousness, this was a great match. Ultimate risks, high reward for Punk grabbing the World Heavyweight Championship and he was given his next feud because of the final boss of SmackDown at that time. Thanks, Teddy Long.
The main and final reason though why this match gave me the memories flowing back is more of the fact that one of my closest and longest termed friends of 23 years, also loves wrestling. Back when we were younger, he’d do MoCap videos on YouTube with his figures. We’d have friends come over for parties at his house and we’d do the one thing WWE always told us not to do and that was try it at home. He was always stronger than me, I was always more charismatic. He had the power aspect and did things with brute force, I could talk my way out of trouble with parents if we did something wrong. There was always one thing that our respective mother’s always called us though… it’s on the tip of my tongue… oh right, ‘Degenerates’.
As soon as we were called that, we kind of parodied the DX line. I was limber enough to do the HBK pose and do a Superkick before it became the new DDT and he would just Spinebuster people and knew how to do the water spit. So what do you think was the main reason we even ordered this PPV for his 13th Birthday? I think the two guys we were pretending to be were set to return on a tank and toss out some glow sticks. The return of DX, Shawn Michaels coming back after Mania with Triple H to deal with the Legacy problem was an amazing return for them and made everything so much fun.
So we have the solid card and this one has a personal story… what’s my number one SummerSlam? Is it personal? Well yes but not going into that. Is it a good card? To me, it was a phenomenal card! Is it memorable? Seeing how wrestling fans still mention at least three matches to this day.
#1: 2005 (Octopus in the Washer, Lover’s Quarrel and Where the F%#$ is Vickie?)
Quite possibly some of the best matches I’ve seen and one that was just the most hilarious moments of overselling in wrestling history, I know why I love this SummerSlam but it’s also a really good card at the same time. Redacted beats Orlando Jordan in 25 seconds for the US Title and they made jokes about it like, he can make a coffee faster than he beat Orlando and stuff like that, it’s pretty funny. Angle getting sick of Eugene’s antics for his Gold Medal was also a great bit they had play up, the Year long feud of Randy Orton and Undertaker was still going on where Orton comes out on top this time around to get the win back from Mania, Jericho returning for the match with Cena in a whole promotional thing for each other’s groups, Fozzy for Jericho and the Chain Gang doing Bad, Bad Man for Cena leading up to a match for the WWE Championship. JBL won a 20 man battle royal on SmackDown to win the Championship…… Opportunity to face the newest member of SmackDown, Batista but the three main matches that a lot of people talk about to this day; Edge vs Matt Hardy, Rey vs Eddie for Dominik and Hogan vs HBK in the Main Event.
I have reasons to enjoy the Hardy/Edge match but it looked like a real fight, it really made us believe that Matt Hardy was going to kill Edge because real names were dropped during this tirade from Hardy. It wasn’t Edge and Lita, it was Adam and Amy. Matt was so dead set on beating the hell out of Edge that they made a situation into gold and it was a great moment for this match to happen, I believe it was also an Unsanctioned Match too which added the intensity until matt got concussed and knocked senseless that it looked like he couldn’t fight for anything but the build up was what made it seem like a marque match. It made it feel real, it made it feel awesome and it made it feel personal.
Eddie kept tormenting Rey Mysterio about Dominik not being Rey’s but Eddie’s for the summer. That’s all you heard from Eddie being the weasel he was is hanging out with Dominik, making the world believe it’s his son and what not (Let’s not do a fast forward to today where he has the mullet, mustache and everything like Eddie) but they settle this in a Ladder Match where the top of it is a document for the custody of Dominik and my god, this match is better than it should have been. I expect nothing else from Eddie because the man hated having a bad match, Dom got involved and stopped Eddie, Vickie was late and stopped Eddie. The whole match was good it was just very weird with the premise but was a great match. I wonder if Rey regrets his decision to win the match now…
Octopus in a Washing Machine… those five words have resonated with Shawn Michaels’ performance in this match, forever. It was supposed to be an amazing match up between Hogan and Michaels, Icon vs Icon it said and suddenly Hogan’s back gives out, can’t do a trilogy of matches so we can only do the one and then pull out of everything after. This match was set up to be a classic and instead turned into the most unbelievable sell fest ever. A Hogan big boot caused Shawn to tumble 3 or 4 times, getting crotched on the ropes had HBK bouncing higher than he should have, being tossed out of the ring made it look like Shawn never broke his back in 1998 from how much he flopped and flipped around like crazy. It’s bad… or maybe even good that a lot of current wrestlers watched this match that went, “I can sell like that, I want to be a wrestler” and did. So good or bad, I don’t know but for some reason this PPV has always had a place in my heart for how memorable it was.
Those are my top three SummerSlams so far but who knows, 2024 has potential to maybe bump something or at least get me to consider a shift. Should be fun to see how the show plays out! What are some of your favorite SummerSlams?
About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
TUESDAY - Musical Chairs (music) / Hockey Talk (NHL)
WEDNESDAY - The Greg DeMarco Show (wrestling)
THURSDAY - Keeping the news ridiculous... The Oddity / Chairshot NFL (NFL)
FRIDAY - DWI Podcast (Drunk Wrestling Intellect)
SATURDAY - The Mindless Wrestling Podcast
SUNDAY - The Front and Center Sports Podcast
CHAIRSHOT RADIO NETWORK PODCAST SPECIALS
Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)
TheChairshot.com PRESENTS...IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends
Patrick O'Dowd's 5X5
Classic POD is WAR
Chairshot Radio Network Your home for the hardest hitting podcasts... Sports, Entertainment and Sports Entertainment!
Powered by RedCircle
Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!