There’s a lot of mystery heading into WWE’s TLC pay-per-view this Sunday. There’s some confusion about the Universal title picture, there’s talent being underutilized, and the product has flashes of excitement, but shades of staleness.
It’s time to let our hair down and get a little fantastical, a little weird. For this very special roundtable post I invited some trusted (and funny) minds of wrestling to answer some playful questions about TLC. The roundtable includes new With Spandex hire Brian O’Connell, the very-good-at-Twitter Paolo Sambrano, and extra talented graphic designer (and creator of the Raw Breakdown Project) Kate Foray.
Let’s say you have to add a fourth member of The Shield that will do a run-in on Sunday night. If you choose to keep the Shield intact, then you will never get to watch wrestling again and also pizza will taste like candy corn forever. Who is it and why?
Brian O’Connell: Chris Goddamn Hero because CM Punk knows how to create a faction. Hero strapping on the black SWAT gear will be the best gear he has ever had in his life and we book him like a cross between Big Boss Man, Gregg Allman and Dog The Bounty Hunter.
Kate Foray: FIRST OFF, CANDY CORN IS DELICIOUS.
American Badass Undertaker. Because he appreciates Roman retiring Taker, and he wants to fight Braun Strowman in an actual lumberjack match.
Also, remember how great that entrance was?
Paolo Sambrano: Strap a flak jacket and wake (or) break Matt Hardy; Kane isn’t the only 90’s act that can beef against current talent. All this only for a Woken/Broken Matt Hardy to turn on The Shield, because the seven deities had premonitions about the Series of Survival. Barring that, Kurt Angle as Colonel Sanders with nobody acknowledging it is Kurt Angle as Colonel Sanders. What else does a paramilitary outfit need, dare I say crave, but someone with someone who has experience commanding troops and frying chicken in a Kentucky style?
Chris Trew: Anyone but Randy Orton, which is what would probably happen if a fourth member was ever considered. I’d rather eat candy corn every day for the rest of my life than see Orton boss around Seth Rollins in a swat team vest.
Remember that time Tables, Ladders, and Chairs had Stairs too? If you had to add one thing to this year’s event what would you add and why?
Brian O’Connell: I miss straps. I mean like the real, old fashioned, leather, feel-it-in-the-cheap-seats STRAPS. Not any of this extra-long Ace bandage shit. Hell In A Cell is supposed to be the big blowoff, but you have to really hate a dude to wanted to be tied to them with one of those things. I want Charlotte doing Flair chops with a leather strap and having the crowd slowly stop “wooing” because it’s getting just too real. I want that so badly.
Kate Foray: The Smackdown fist. It gets completely destroyed, and it’s a total call out to Smackdown Live leading into Survivor Series.
Paolo Sambrano: Given what went down with the The Bar/Ambrose Rollins backstage during this week’s Raw, Kurt Angle not declaring that the TLC main event became a Tables, Ladders, Chairs and Licensed Hanna Barbera products match (A TLCLHBP, if you will) is a travesty of community college marketing class proportions.
Chris Trew: Call me crazy but I would add a Universal title match. Or an Intercontinental Championship match. Or a tag team title match. I’m insane, I know. Tables, Ladders, Chairs, and Matches With Stakes.
Asuka is debuting this Sunday and nobody is giving Emma a chance. What’s the craziest thing you’d be willing to bet on Asuka winning the match?
Brian O’Connell: My precious.
Kate Foray: I learned a VERY important lesson from attending WrestleMania XXX: ANYTHING can happen in wrestling, and guarantees are not always guarantees. So my superstitious self is totally not answering this question. Sorry.
Paolo Sambrano: I will send my copy of The Last Dragon soundtrack on vinyl signed by Taimak to Rusev if Asuka does not kick Emma’s head into lower stratosphere this Sunday.
Chris Trew: If Emma beats Asuka then I think we should rename this website With Emma. I do not have the authority to do that but I will dedicate my life to figuring out how to make that happen if Emma wins (Emma is not winning).
The Demon vs. Sister Abigail is kind of a nightmare match. You’re tasked with fixing the situation and starting the WrestleMania build with one of these wrestlers. Choose one and fantasy-book their next five months starting with this Sunday.
Brian O’Connell: Please refer to page 1 of this post. I fixed Bray Wyatt weeks ago.
Kate Foray: Sister Abigail kills the Demon.
HOLD ON, go with me here for just a second. Breathe.
Sister Abigail kills the Demon.
Come Monday, Finn Bálor shows up on Raw an absolute mess. Hair askew, leather jacket missing—he’s distraught, and everything has finally hit him all at once: getting injured capturing the Universal title, getting lowered down the card upon his return, and Sister Abigail defeating him is what finally sets him over the edge. He essentially has whatever is the Demon equivalent of a nervous breakdown (maybe he starts trying to turn into the demon mid-promo and it does not work) and he disappears until the Royal Rumble.
He makes his return at No. 17, and makes an insane showing all the way to the final four. But—Seth Rollins makes the win, and obviously makes his claim for the Universal title at WrestleMania against whomever is currently holding the title (Jesus, I hope it’s not Brock Lesnar). Bálor starts attacking Rollins at every Raw, and refuses to stop until he’s included in the title match at WresteMania since he never got his rematch from SummerSlam 2016. Angle, tired of losing security guys, agrees and makes it a triple threat for the Universal Title at WrestleMania.
Paolo Sambrano: A hapless PA tries to explain Mr. Robot to Vince McMahon, who scoffs at the show.
“Why do they need Rami Malek, and the guy from Gleaning the Cube, we have Bray Wyatt and Sister Abigail.”
Sister Abigail turns on Bray Wyatt at TLC. What we get is five months of that KFC commercial where Colonel Sanders argues with himself about Georgia Gold vs Nashville Hot Fried Chicken, but it’s Bray Wyatt/Sister Abigail cutting backstage promos at himself/herself about the nature of existence and identity. It culminate in a fifteen minute match at Wrestlemania where Bray Wyatt fights, gyrates, and shimmies his way for HIS VERY IMMORTAL SOUL against Sister Abigail who threatens to erase Bray Wyatt from existence and take control of his body, securing a foothold in the physical plane. It’ll be WrestleMania 33’s “cockroaches projected on a wrestling canvas,” but for existentialism.
Nothing says showcase of the immortals quite like “one-person show where a white guy plays upwards of 20 different personalities, including but not limited to ‘female Dominican DMV clerk’ and ‘dead sister.'”
Chris Trew: Bray Wyatt loses a casket match on a Halloween Night Network Special and goes down to NXT as himself, “retiring” and becoming a trainer. He gets jealous of his students’ success and starts working matches again (as himself) and we get to witness some sort of “front office” shenanigans angle.
Predict the main event for TLC 2018.
Brian O’Connell: Whew. This is a toughie. It seems like WWE is in such a state of flux right now. Houses are down. Roman is going to be pushed to the moon at WrestleMania and we all know it. October 2018 is going to look much different and yet totally the same as October 2017.
Gun to my head, I’d have to say the main event is probably going to be WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns VS. John Cena for The First Time Ever/Last Time Ever Part 2: Electric Boogaloo, because Vince panics. That’s all I got. There is only one TLC match this year and that is really weird to me. It’s because Brother Nero is hurt, isn’t it? That’s probably it.
Kate Foray: Bullet Club vs the Shield. YEAH I SAID IT.
Paolo Sambrano: House Hardy vs Spirit Squad with Dolph Ziggler.
Chris Trew: Hot Take: TLC won’t exist in 2018. Instead it will be a match that hasn’t been invented yet. War Games takes over Hell in a Cell, Money in the Bank moves back to WrestleMania, and something new takes the place of TLC. Otherwise, Jason Jordan vs. Kurt Angle. Sigh?
