WWE TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs 2016 airs this Sunday, December 4, live on WWE Network. The final Smackdown-exclusive pay-per-view of the year is headlined by a tables, ladders and chairs match for the WWE Championship between the champion, AJ Styles, and the challenger, Dean Ambrose. The show also features a ladder match for the Intercontinental Championship, and a tables match for the Smackdown Women’s Championship.
We’ll be here on Sunday with a complete rundown of the show, an open discussion thread, live results and full coverage on anything important — an Undertaker sighting, for example — coming out of the event. Here’s the complete card, as we know it.
WWE TLC 2016 Card:
1. Tables, Ladders and Chairs Match for the WWE World Championship: AJ Styles (c) vs. Dean Ambrose
2. Tables Match for the Smackdown Women’s Championship: Becky Lynch (c) vs. Alexa Bliss
3. No Disqualification Match: Carmella vs. Nikki Bella
4. Ladder Match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship: The Miz (c) vs. Dolph Ziggler
5. Chairs Match: Kalisto vs. Baron Corbin
6. Smackdown Tag Team Championship Match: Heath Slater and Rhyno (c) vs. Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton
As always, here are our predictions and analysis for the card including who we think will win, and who we think should. Be sure to drop down into the comments section and let us know what you think’s going down.
Smackdown Tag Team Championship Match: Heath Slater and Rhyno (c) vs. Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton
What Should Happen: In my mind, and I’m assuming in everyone else’s, only one of two things can happen here:
1. They jump the gun on Randy Orton’s weird Wyatt Family long con, setting up Orton vs. Wyatt for the Royal Rumble and giving Slater Debater another win in their miracle Smackdown Tag Team Championship run.
2. The New Wyatt Family wins the dimes — they’re so much prettier than the pennies on Raw — and an actual dedicated rebuilding of prestige happens for the group. It’d be a nice change of pace for the Smackdown tag team division to have a heel team on top and the babies under them chasing, and honestly I just want to see a swampbilly cultist and his mentally-unstable snakeman friend take on a pair of fashion cops.
What Will Happen: It’s a tough call, but I’ll go with the Wyatts. As a couple of staff predictions point out, can you believe this would be Bray Wyatt’s first championship of any kind in WWE? Luke Harper’s been NXT Tag Champ and Intercontinental Champion. Hell, David Otunga won the tag titles twice.
Staff Predictions
Scott Heisel – I love Beauty And The Man-Beast with the strength of a thousand cans of aerosol cheese, but their Cinderella story ends this Sunday, with Bray Wyatt finally getting his first taste of WWE gold (er, silver, but you know what I mean).
Bill Hanstock – If you’re gonna really commit to the New Wyatt Family before Orton’s sudden but inevitable betrayal, give them the titles here. It would shockingly (not shockingly) be Bray’s first WWE title of any sort, and having him and Orton rule the tag division for a while is a better way than any they’ve come up with in a while at getting people to take the Wyatts seriously again.
Justin Donaldson – This is oddly the match I am looking forward to the most on the card. I see Randy and Bray taking the belts here. The Smackdown tag division is great but it’s time for a little shakeup. A few months with the new Wyatt Family as champs could do the trick.
Chairs Match: Kalisto vs. Baron Corbin
What Should Happen: The match is just 10 straight minutes of Corbin beating Kalisto to death with a steel chair, and it’s so brutal that Shane McMahon sends Kalisto to Raw to join the cruiserweight division out of fear Corbin will kill the dude if he sees him again.
What Will Happen: My head says Kalisto, but my heart says Baron Corbin. My heart always says Baron Corbin, I don’t know why. I’ve got a soft spot for that flat naveled motherfucker. Anyway, I’m going to guess the match ends with a convoluted move reversed into the End of Days, which seems to be the #1 goal when Baron Corbin faces someone this much smaller than him. Since it’s a chairs match, let’s say it’s an End of Days onto a chair. My constant “send Kalisto to join the cruiserweight division” thing is annoying even to me, but Jesus, will you just do it already? He’s not Rey Mysterio. He’s not going to BE Rey Mysterio, especially if you try to get him into “littlest big man” territory before giving him like 5 Cruiserweight Championships.
Staff Predictions
Scott Heisel – Corbin is gonna wail on Kalisto so badly here that you’d think he was Alberto Del Rio. (The idea of Corbin setting up the double stomp in the corner literally has me in a giggle fit right now.) Yet somehow, Kalisto will steal the win, probably through a steel chair-assisted Salida Del Sol.
Bill Hanstock – WWE really likes Kalisto beating a guy bigger than him, but usually not in their first big showdown. I’ll take Kane’s favorite nephew, Barry C.
Justin Donaldson – Kalisto is going to win but the announce team will make it clear that he couldn’t have done it without the use of the chair. Corbin beats him up after the match.
Ladder Match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship: The Miz (c) vs. Dolph Ziggler
What Should Happen: I want Miz to win this just for the image of him holding the Intercontinental Championship at the top of a ladder, so they can use it in the Miz vs. Daniel Bryan WrestleMania 33 video package I’m pretending will exist.
What Will Happen: It’s going to be weird to me if they had Miz take the title from Ziggler right before the match with Sami Zayn so they could do heel-face instead of a face-face match everyone would’ve rather seen, only to switch it back on the next show. And by “weird,” I mean predictable. I’m going to pick Ziggler with the win here, and us going, “well, that’s not what *I* would’ve done,” before shrugging our shoulders and enjoying the next cycle.
Staff Predictions
Scott Heisel – Miz retains after interference from the Spirit Squad, Maryse and, I dunno, someone in a Pupper Clucker’s Chicken suit. Dolph sits in the corner of the ring with his head in his hands looking really confused about what just happened, then goes on Talking Smack later that night to hit on Renee Young some more.
Bill Hanstock – These two have had really inspired matches against each other for months, so sure, put them in a ladder match together. I would give Ziggler the title here, because “scrappy secondary champion” is probably his ceiling at this point, whereas you can use Miz anywhere on the card and for any purpose. He’s been WWE’s secret best wrestler for a while now, so use that to your advantage.
Justin Donaldson – This is tough to predict because The Miz really should keep the belt but at the same time AJ is definitely winning so are they really going to have two heel champs retain in both ladder matches? There is no reason for Ziggler to win the belt back but I guess that’s what’s going to happen.
No Disqualification Match: Carmella vs. Nikki Bella
What Should Happen: A no disqualification match means this is the best ever chance for Nikki and a pregnant Brie Bella to perform the least believable Twin Magic in history and somehow get away with it.
What Will Happen: I’m picking Alexa Bliss to surprise folks and win the Smackdown Women’s Championship, because I’m also picking Nikki to finally end her rivalry with Carmella here and step up to be the next champion, probably at the Royal Rumble. I think everyone knows Nikki’s going to be champion again, so using Alexa as a transitional heel champ between Becky Lynch and Nikki is a solid idea. Carmella gets got here, with authority.
Staff Predictions
Scott Heisel – Did you see Carmella’s face after Smackdown this week? Holy hell, Nikki caught her more than once with some stiff shots. After the bar being raised by Sasha and Charlotte earlier this week, I fully expect these two to bring it, and — bold prediction time — I think this will be the match that steals the show. Nikki won at No Mercy, so I predict Carmella eeks out a victory here, if only to establish her as a serious threat to the rest of the division.
Bill Hanstock – They gotta blow this feud off sometime, so it may as well be at TLC. Nikki finally gets the duke when Carmella can’t bend the rules more than Nikki can. Maybe Nikki, I don’t know, TKOs her onto some chairs or something.
Justin Donaldson – Nikki takes this one. She’ll do a flying shoulderblock, another flying shoulderblock, clothesline-duck-into side-release spinout powerbomb, Five Knuckle Shuffle, Attitude Adjustment, then make Carmela tap in the STF.
Tables Match for the Smackdown Women’s Championship: Becky Lynch (c) vs. Alexa Bliss
What Should Happen: I predicted Nikki Bella getting a strong win over Carmella to set her up as the next babyface title challenger, so you’ll need Alexa Bliss to do something shitty here and more or less steal the belt from an unsuspecting Becky Lynch. I think that’s what’s going to happen. It’s a means to an end, and we get a lot of really fun means in the middle.
What Will Happen: I keep picturing the Sheamus/John Cena WWE Championship tables match finish. If I had an honest prediction, I’d say Becky dominates the match with only a few exceptions, sets up something big out of the corner, and Bliss miraculously pushes her off through the table to win. That way Alexa can become the champion having beaten Becky without really “beating” her, and her by all regards fluke championship win could be played up as the Girlhood Dream Coming True at the end of an iron man match or whatever until Nikki forearms her to death at the Rumble.
Staff Predictions
Scott Heisel – HOT TAKE ALERT: The Tables Match is literally the worst gimmick match the WWE employs on a semi-frequent basis. If you use a chair in a Chairs Match, cool! If you use a a ladder in a Ladder Match, awesome! If you use a table in a Tables Match? THAT’S IT, MATCH OVER, DECLARE A WINNER NOW. Usually this stip is an easy way to have the belt change hands without the champ actually being pinned, but I think Becky retains here, and moves on to feud with a returning Eva Marie, who takes the belt off of her at some point between now and WrestleMania, just so Nikki Bella can win it in front of 70,000 people. (Damn, I’m good at this fantasy booking stuff.)
Bill Hanstock – I would love for Alexa to win this, and giving the game of hot potato the women’s belt is experiencing over at Raw, it wouldn’t be the wildest thing. But I’m sort of getting the feeling that Smackdown is taking the opposite approach and Becky will be hanging onto that bad boy for a good long while. Becky via pun through a table.
Justin Donaldson – Part of me feels like they could use the table stipulation as a way of putting the belt on Bliss without Becky getting pinned but ultimately it’s way too soon for Lynch to lose the belt and too soon for Bliss to win it. I’m going with Becky getting her revenge for being put through a table on Tuesday by returning the favor and keeping the belt.
Tables, Ladders and Chairs Match for the WWE World Championship: AJ Styles (c) vs. Dean Ambrose
What Should Happen: The easiest (and most productive) story for WWE to tell right now is for AJ Styles to walk into the Royal Rumble, the show he debuted on last year, with the WWE Championship. Anything else seems like a total waste, especially when rumors of Styles facing everyone from Shawn Michaels to the Undertaker have surfaced. So whether we get an appearance from slash devote an actual WWE pay-per-view main-event to James Ellsworth’s presence or not, Styles needs to leave TLC as WWE Champion.
What Will Happen: Big spotlight Dean Ambrose gimmick matches are almost always underwhelming. Remember him and Seth Rollins inside Hell in a Cell? Remember him and Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania, where they introduced a wagon full of weapons and Mick Foley’s signature barbed-wire bat and then it was just like 8 minutes of Ambrose getting slammed onto chairs? I’ve got a bad feeling this will be another in that series, although I’ve got faith that the match could buck the trend, even based solely on Styles’ inability to wrestle a match in the last like two years without everyone enjoying it.
I think the safe call is for Styles to retain, if only to get Ambrose in the Royal Rumble for another temporary Shield reunion.
Staff Predictions
Scott Heisel – On the go-home episode of Smackdown this week, AJ Styles accidentally said “better yacht” instead of “better yet.” As I got ready to tweet my surely hilarious thoughts about this goof, he pretty much shoot-murdered James Ellsworth with that Styles Clash off the steel steps. Clearly, I will not be goofing on the Phenomenal One any time soon, lest I want my skull caved in. Sorry, Deano, AJ retains and gets slotted against the Undertaker at the Royal Rumble for the belt.
Bill Hanstock – It doesn’t really seem like there’s any way Dean is taking the title away from AJ at TLC, Ellsworth-based revenge be damned. In fact, I think it’s far more likely Ellsworth inadvertently costs Ambrose the title, and then they move on to trying to get James Dean the tag belts, while AJ moves onto something more fun at the Rumble. Undertaker, anyone?
Justin Donaldson – You know what would be really refreshing? If James Eilsworth stayed as far away from this match as possible. I feel like WWE doesn’t have the restraint to go through with that but he was apparently killed by Styles on Tuesday so who knows. AJ has to take this one. His first WWE title run can’t just be a bunch of losses to a guy who got over for being weird looking.
And that’s your show. As a reminder, be here on Sunday for the news, results and live thread, and leave us a comment to let us know your predictions.
