The Best And Worst Of WWE TLC: Tables, Ladders And Chairs 2015

Pre-show notes: If you missed the show, you can watch it here on WWE Network. You can find past editions of The Best and Worst of TLC on its tag page.

With Spandex is on Twitter, so follow it. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter.

Your shares, likes, comments and Internet Things are appreciated. If you see a share button while you’re reading, click it. It helps. They look like this:

And now, the Best and Worst of WWE TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs 2015.

Best: Let’s Peak Early

I can’t imagine anyone but the most purposeful, contrarian “you guys hated Rusev vs. Ryback because SMARKS” guy could think anything but the opening ladder match for the Tag Team Championship was the best part of the show. It starts with The New Day announcing their hypothetical Wheaties box cover, peaks at Kalisto going upside down way too high in the air and ends with a thrown trombone. It’s like Lucha Underground happening in the middle of a demolition derby where all the cars are driven by circus clowns.

It was a hell of a match, though. To enjoy WWE ladder matches, there are two major things you have to ignore:

1. The thing where guys just kinda hang out and set up the next spot instead of, you know, setting up a ladder and trying to climb it to win the match. The stuff here is nowhere near as bad as in the elimination tables match — more on that when we get there — but sometimes you’re like, “hey Sin Cara, maybe stay in the ring with your partner instead of running and flipping to the outside to hurt some guys who are already lying on the ground under furniture?”

2. WWE’s insistence that “sandwiching” someone with a ladder hurts them more than it hurts you. This is a huge nitpick so don’t take it as a fussy criticism, but man, I can’t buy it. A guy’s lying on the ground. You put a ladder on him. You jump from a high place and slam your body into the ladder. That’s going to hurt you WAY more than it hurts your opponent, because they’re just having a flat surface smushed into them. You are jumping upside down and landing with your head onto metal edges.

The only reason I bring up the sandwiching thing is because the spots in this match were like 90% “I’m holding a ladder OH NO SOMEONE HIT THE LADDER AND NOW I’M DEAD.” Just tons and tons of guys holding ladders and slowly walking toward the apron so someone in the ring can run at them.

That said, the damn Lucha Dragons deserve a raise for this. Kofi, too. Those guys were just dead-set on hurting themselves as egregiously as possible, as often as possible, and just wrecking the rest of the show in the process. For real, when Kalisto hit that Salida del Sol off the top of a ladder and used his taint to cut through a second ladder like a hot knife through butter, the show should’ve just ended. They should’ve cut to Michael Cole saying, “good night, everybody!” and bailed. One of the reasons the crowd was so murmur-fussy the rest of the night is because they legit saw one of the coolest gimmick match spots in WWE history in the opener. How are you going to give a shit about Jack Swagger doing an ankle lock with a chair hanging on a dude’s leg when you’ve seen CHAOTIC LUCHA MURDER?

You can’t blame them. This is f*cking absurd:

Forget Alberto Del Rio and his dead eyes, you need to hitch a minimum of five rockets to Kalisto’s miniature ass and shoot him to the moon. Upside down. That’s your new Hispanic star. That guy should’ve been the new Rey Mysterio six months ago. Let Cesaro be some kind of gamma radiated Dean Malenko and set the damn world on fire. Sin Cara can be the new Super Calo, whatever.

Amazing work here, even if it kinda-sorta started our 3-hour buffet with a giant f*cking pile of ice cream.

Worst: Ryback Is SMRT

Not to number everything, but the Ryback vs. Rusev match had two stories:

1. Lana has twice tricked Ryback into thinking he’s hurt her, but it turns out she’s faking to give Rusev and advantage, and

2. Lana and Rusev are in love, which everyone at WWE thinks is creepy and weird, and apparently The Ryback hates love.

They more or less have a cool down match after the Sharknado of an opener, and it’s not bad, but it feels very much like something we’d see on Raw. Because, uh, we’ve seen it on Raw. That’s the vibe of TLC as a whole, honestly. You might read some acerbic hot takes about it today, but it wasn’t a bad show … it was just every show, and we’ve seen so many versions of the same thing at this point that even mild missteps seem like rantable offenses. And this is coming from me, the guy who complained for a paragraph about the logistics of ladder sandwiching.

Lana has fooled Ryback twice, right? What do you think the payoff is? Ryback wising up and not falling for it again? You’d think so, but nope, the payoff is Ryback thinking he’s hurt her again, getting distracted and it costing him. That’s it. The payoff is that the babyface is a f*cking idiot.

I like Rusev actually acting like a heel — I hate those “the heel is in the right” sections of my reports as much as the next guy, believe it or not, and wish I never had to write them — but that’s really my biggest compliment for the match. The heel won in a boring way we’ve already seen multiple times, the face is dumber than a bag of Stings and the followup could (and probably will) be a Raw rematch. And a Smackdown rematch. And a Raw rematch of the Smackdown rematch rematch.

Also:

I knew I shouldn’t have illegally streamed this on XVideos.

Worst: This Is Dumb And You Should Feel Bad

Yo Jack Swagger, how does it hurt Del Rio’s leg more to put a chair around his calf and twist his ankle? You should’ve tried putting a chair on his leg and ankle locking him ON A TABLE. That would’ve been devastating.

This was the “stairs match” of the pay-per-view for me. We knew the point was to blow off MexAmerica without actually having to blow it off (and to do a Tree of Woe double-stomp involving chairs), so … mission accomplished? Del Rio is such a sadness factory right now and I can’t stand it.

Worst: ECW, Still

ECW has never looked this old.

ECW is the Aerosmith of professional wrestling. They had a moment, in context, where they were extremely relevant. That time passed. Nostalgia kicked in and they came back, and they were relevant again. That time passed, too, and they got a roller coaster and now they’re a bunch of weird old men who make terrible music and just sort of embarrass themselves on the reg. But hey, they’re Aerosmith, so people are still gonna show up.

This match was f*cking sad. I don’t know how else to say it. I’m happy the Wyatts won — even if Rowan had to get the “you’re the shitty one” elimination again, for weird emphasis — but I wish they hadn’t beaten this version of these guys.

Tommy Dreamer spends most of the match wandering around ringside looking absolutely inhuman. His skin is weird, he’s wearing enough HD makeup for 8 people and he’s so trimmed and painted he looks like an Eric Warheim character. Seriously, this is Tommy Dreamer.

Dreamer didn’t shit the bed as dramatically as Bubba Ray Dudley, though, who was maybe the worst I’ve ever seen him. Did Bubba have a stroke before the match and forget how to wrestle? Watch when he walks up to Braun Strowman with a trash can and they don’t time the punch counter correctly, so Bubba just stands there holding a trash can against his face until it happens. Watch him hop off the apron with one of the worst attacks you’ll ever see. Just a depressing, humiliating effort all around.

The ECW legacy is those tables that crumble when you touch them. D-Von just kinda brushes against one and it falls apart. Can we please give these guys a Carnival Cruise or something for their service and never bring them back as “extreme” again?

Best-ish: Kevin Owens vs. Dean Ambrose

Seriously, I don’t want to sound like I’m going on some kind of furious rant about this show. It didn’t inspire that in me. A lot of stuff happened, not a lot of stuff felt like it mattered, and then we moved on. Aside from ECW Got Run Over By A Reindeer and the Alberto Del Rio Slummin’ It Tour 2015, the show was … just fine. It was fine.

I’m bummed that Kevin Owens vs. Dean Ambrose didn’t feel bigger, and that the title change just felt like a secondary plot point in a Roman Reigns story. Most of Owens’ post-Cena content has been us waiting for the other shoe to drop and the announce team to just brutally bury him for being slightly overweight and wrestling in a single guy’s pajamas. A heterophobic Tyler Breeze situation, basically. Him being sick for part of the cycle didn’t help, and instead of two of the best talkers and performers on the show getting a program to highlight what brought them to the dance, the story became “Ambrose threw food in Owens’ face once because he’s UNHINGED.” +1 for Owens no-selling that by saying he eats popcorn and drinks soda every day of his life, so it’s fine.

Anyway, they had a match. You’re not going to see it on any Best Of lists, and you probably won’t remember it at all in a few weeks. The finish felt like a falsie. Ambrose countered the pop-up powerbomb into a hurricanrana, and … well, what now? If you’d kept the belt on Owens, you’ve got built in feuds with Cena and Sami Zayn as possibilities. If you give it to Ambrose, there’s a 99% chance he gets it taken away or is forced to defend it in some wacky situation because he’s friends with Reigns. That’s the thing. Ambrose isn’t a standalone character anymore. He’s Roman’s little buddy. He’s there to get fridged for the benefit of The Big Dog. It feels like they only gave him the belt so they could take it away.

That’s pessimistic, I know, but they haven’t given us a lot of reasons for optimism. Do you know where Owens goes from here? Do you now where Ambrose goes? Is the answer to any of those questions something better than, “he feuds with another mid-carder and they trade victories?”

Worst: Again, This Is Just Raw With Ladder Accents

Please consult any other WWE column I’ve written over the past month for the, “alignments in this feud don’t make sense and everyone seems awful” dissection. I don’t think I have it in me to type it out again.

Paige challenged Charlotte for the Divas Championship, and the story has gone from “Charlotte is a strong, independent woman here to make a name for herself but spread the glory of her famous wrestling family, and Paige is a weirdly jaded jerk who figuratively threw Charlotte’s little brother under a bus for dying of a drug overdose” to, “Charlotte cheats and that’s fine because she’s a Flair, and Paige is mad about it but come on, it’s the Flairs.” I liked the first one a lot more, even if it pissed people off.

The Divas division feels like it’s in a holding pattern, waiting for that hard reset at WrestleMania, but it’s felt that way since the Divas Revolution started. The teams didn’t work or make sense, the team breakups were lazy, the followups had no consistency and a ton of female talent is just blowin’ in the wind, waiting for context. Motivation. Something.

Charlotte cheats to win, and we’re in the same place we were the last time. Team BAD randomly cosplaying as PCB was fun, but it doesn’t get them anywhere. Becky’s being alienated, which has potential, but unless one of these characters is written to finally say “enough’s enough” and change the status quo without a gaggle of Bellas appearing and crying JEALOUSY, we’re just spitting in the wind.

Best/Worst: Roman Reigns And Sheamus Kill Each Other For Nothing

All I could think during the main event is how great the match would be if we cared about the characters. If we cared about them, the crazy stuff they were doing and all the tables they were going through and sets they were destroying would be AMAZING. The crowd would be into it, they’d react to the ebb and flow of the match and validate these guys violently injuring themselves. As it is, it’s like we’re watching them through a window.

That’s why the crowd came alive for the finish, and for the post-match stuff. We’ve been trained to know that Roman Reigns and Sheamus and characters like them aren’t alive, they’re pawns in a WWE Storytelling Attempt. You know how people will pop for entrances and then be dead silent for matches? Part of that is that they know how WWE works, and know nothing that happens during the early parts of the match matter. Roman’s going to be fine enough to destroy 3-4 top heels in the company after going through a dozen tables and getting hit in the face with ladders, because of course he is. When the finish approaches, that’s when the important stuff happens, and you can say, “okay, where is this going?” There’s a disconnect between the stories being told with the wrestling and the stories being told AROUND it. Even casual fans have picked up those cues.

The post-match stuff with Roman going bonkers worked really well and could go somewhere interesting, but also feels like a decision made 11 months late. If we’d spent 2015 portraying Roman as a killer who will go through anybody to get what he wants — more or less what he was in The Shield — we’d be into it. He’s a great performer. He’s also a garbage can on the microphone. What have they spent 2015 doing? Trying to turn Roman into a chatty, recapping John Cena proxy.

I hate how this comes together. WWE operates similarly on large and small scales. The crowd doesn’t react to what happens during the match because they now the finish and post-match are all that actually affect on-screen stories, right? Fans also know that WrestleMania season is when stuff “matters.” The Royal Rumble, the Road to WrestleMania and Mania. WWE’s built up WrestleMania as this showcase of the immortals, while stuff like TLC is just a longer Smackdown. They’ve trained us to react to the finish and the post-match. The year between Mania and the Rumble is the match. Sometimes they’ll do high spots (SummerSlam, usually), but what happens then isn’t paid off. See how that works?

Plus, outside of my actual point, Roman kinda looks like a baby. A tough, smash-mouth baby, but a baby. Triple H isn’t the cause of most of his problems, but The Authority is the evil heel team so he just kinda pretends they are. They keep giving him title matches, title opportunities, offers to join the team. Reigns gave up an easy opportunity at Survivor Series and lost to the Money in the Bank briefcase, which is “cheap” in no uncertain terms, but not against the rules. Triple H didn’t cheat to give Sheamus that opportunity. He beat up Bryan so Orton could cash-in, but Roman didn’t get that. Triple H didn’t cheat to help Sheamus win this TLC match. The League of Nations interfered, but it’s no DQ. It’s “cheap,” but it’s not cheating. It’s not Triple H’s fault that Roman has the worst friends ever. I don’t think “this guy wants to win but he doesn’t, and he feels like he deserves to anyway!” has ever been a good story. A lot of people disagree with me on that. I don’t want to cheer for that character. Austin got screwed. Bryan got screwed. Roman’s just entitled, and has no perspective on the amount of chances and opportunities he continues to get from the people he blames.

And that’s TLC. A lot happened, and nothing happened. But man, that Salida del Sol was f*cking rad.

Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Night

HEELsteamboat

So lights go out and when they come back up, Bray Wyatt’s standing there and pushes Roman off the ladder saying “anyone but you”, were in a loop, time is a flat circle, someone pull the plug

Beige Lunatics

This is what happens when an Unremarkable Force meets an Insufferable Object.

If this event is TLC, then this crowd is Left Eye.

PhilBallins

The grab their leg followed by the “I didn’t do nothing” look is a move that was perfected in many a Charlotte night club

Designated Piledriver

Paige has to be disappointed that they never booked this as a “submissions on a table” match despite all her efforts to set it up.

Mr. Royal Rumble, TheCensoredMSol

“Let’s find the perfect ring!”
/group leaves Kay Jewelers

HighEnergyForever

If you’re going to chant “E-C-W!” at this, at least add “…on SyFy!”

“We fight together, we fall together, we inflict pain together, but WE DO NOT BLEED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE.”

-ECW2015

Harry Longabaugh

True, Bubba didn’t set the table ablaze like we were all hoping for. …But where did the lighter fluid come from?

TopHeel

Orange is the new Dreamer

Thanks, everybody. See you tonight for Raw, and on Wednesday for optimism.