Episode 4 - TLC Results

Well, I just finished watching TLC a few minutes ago, and while it was a decent show overall, nothing really stood out. There was a title change, but it wasn't quite what I'd expected. However, I picked four matches correctly out of the six that were advertised, so I'm taking that as a positive. On to the show itself!

Dolph Ziggler defeated Kofi Kingston and Jack Swagger to retain the Intercontinental Championship in a Triple Threat Ladder Match

Unfortunately, I had this result spoiled for me via Facebook. That's the last time I check Facebook before watching a PPV. What I didn't have spoiled for me, however, was how awul this match was. It was an unimpressive effort by all three men, and the ending was complete bullshit. It's probably best to not schedule three ladder matches in one evening, as it tends to spread the really big spots too thin. Repeating a crazy spot lessens the impact that spot would make if it were only performed once. These three guys got royally screwed in that department. But what really put the cap on this stinker was the finish. Kofi and Jack were atop a ladder, fighting for control of the Intercontinental Championship belt, which was dangling by a ring. Ziggler was sitting off in a corner, nowhere near the action. Suddenly, the belt falls, Dolph scurries on top of it, and is named the winner. The announcers said that Kofi and Jack had simultaneously pulled the belt off the ring it was suspended on, and because they didn't keep control of it, they were not declared the winner, but because Dolph pounced on the title after it had landed on the ground, he WAS declared the winner. What in the bluest of blue hells is up with that? Cole, Striker, and Lawler were trying to draw an analogy to football, where a receiver must have possession of the ball when making contact with the ground, or it is considered incomplete. But the situation with Kofi and Co. is more akin to a fumble. WHICH IS NOT HOW LADDER MATCHES WORK! If a guy pulls the title belt off the ring, he is the champion, whether or not he manages to hold on to it. I remember this situation happening in the past, and the guy who pulled the title belt off the ring was ALWAYS declared the winner. It was never the guy who claimed control of it once the belt fell to the canvas. This is one of the worst endings to a match I've seen in some time. If they wanted Ziggler to retain the title, they should have had him climb the ladder and retrieve the belt like every other winner of a ladder match has done. I nearly turned the PPV off, I was so put off by the end to this match. But I decided that one match is not enough of a reason to stop watching a three-hour show. So I stuck around.

Natalya and Beth Phoenix defeated Michelle McCool and Layla in a Tag Team Tables Match

Now, I'm not trying to bash women's wrestling, but when the women's match on a WWE PPV is better than the opening match, you know the opener was awful. But this was actually a pretty good women's tag team match. Well, there weren't any actual tags, but you get my point. There was plenty of table teasing throughout the match, as there is with every tables match. And some of the bumps Beth took throughout the match were pretty sick. Falling on her head at least twice was pretty gruesome to watch, especially when they replayed them eight thousand times during the course of the match. But I guess they weren't enough to take her out of the match, because she still managed to help Nattie win. I completely marked out when Nattie slapped a double sharpshooter on Michelle and Layla, since I'm pretty sure that's never been done before. I was, however, taken out of the moment when, after the match had finished and the replays were playing, when Michael Cole stated something about Nattie "improvising" to finish the match, which to me sounded like the finish was supposed to have Michelle and Layla fall directly through the table from the turnbuckle, rather than the table somehow staying together and Nattie having to dive across LayCool to finish them off. Even if it was an improvised finish, it had a flow to it, and didn't feel tacked on like certain other endings of matches which will be described below. Overall, a pretty solid match that saw women get thrown through tables for the first time since the Dudley Boyz were around.

Santino Marella and Vladimir Kozlov (c's) defeated Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel by Disqualification to retain the WWE Tag Team Championships

For an unadvertised match, it was decent as well. Though part of me wonders if the interference at the end that was caught by the ref was intentional or accidental, as the match felt like it was just sort of cut off before its natural end. Several endings to matches at TLC felt very unplanned, and in turn ended up looking bad. To me, they looked bad. I don't know how anyone else felt about them. Still, we got all the Santino standards: the split-legged stunner, the kimura toss, the pathetic leg sweep that connected but did absolutely nothing...we also got a legendary headbutt by Kozlov to Slater, who flew a good five feet in the air. I thought that was pretty awesome. The DQ finish was, as stated earlier, a little wonky, and I'm not sure it's how the match was supposed to end, but it did, and Wade Barrett, chair in hand, made sure that the Tag Team Titles mean absolutely nothing in the WWE. Just once, I'd like to see these titles mean something. But that's wishful thinking nowadays. On to more pleasant topics.

John Morrison defeated Sheamus to become the #1 Contender for the WWE Championship

In my estimation, this was the match of the night. Morrison's seeling of a knee injury was probably his best performance of the year, and the fact that neither man would give up the advantage to the other was really quite impressive. I will give Sheamus some credit: he can be carried to a good match, unlike certain other high-profile names who shall not be named just yet but will be when the Ranties roll around in a week or so. There were plenty of ladder spots, including the now-infamous "guy falls through a ladder that was propped up between the ring apron and a barricade/announce table" spot that's now in every PPV that has a ladder match. Sheamus became Mr. No-Sell for most of the match, but thankfully, those parts don't stick out in my mind as much as the better parts of the match, namely Morrison's selling the knee injury. Also, I rather liked the finish, with Morrison, clinging to a ladder, using momentum from the ropes he was standing on to catapult himself towards Sheamus and kick the Irish Milkshake right in the face. It was pretty sweet, and Sheamus sold that like a champ (unlike the rest of the match, but I digress). And Morrison FINALLY earned a WWE Championship match, which I'd been calling for for about the past 18 months. And his opponent could not be more fitting.

The Miz defeated Randy Orton in a Tables Match to retain the WWE Championship

Remember a little while ago when I said that several finishes to matches felt unplanned? This was another example. But if it was planned, it was brilliant. Orton and Miz went back and forth for ten or twelve minutes, when one of them knocked out the referee by accident. While the ref was out, Miz was tossed outside and Orton powerbombed Alex Riley through a table. Miz reentered the ring, hit the Skull-Crushing Finale on Orton, had a stroke of genius, draped Orton's lifeless body to the remains of the table that Orton had just put Riley through, tossed Riley out of the way, awoke the ref, and showed him Orton's lifeless body laying across the debris of the broken table. The ref awarded the win to Miz, and Miz was heading out when the replays showed the action leading to the finish of the match, which the ref saw since the same footage was plastered across the JumboTron at the arena entrance. He restarted the match, and Orton (who had time to recover from Miz's finisher) began an assaunt on Miz, only to have Miz toss Riley into Orton, who fell through another table and lost the match again. I'll give Creative credit for a great finish (if it was, in fact, the planned finish). And once again, Miz required outside help to win a match. I have a feeling that that's going to happen every time he has a title match, much the same as Randy Orton's title run last year. I'm just hoping that John Morrison takes the title from Miz when Morrison gets his title shot, whenever that will be.

Edge defeated Kane, Rey Mysterio, and Alberto Del Rio in a Fatal Four Way TLC Match to become the NEW World Heavyweight Championship

Honestly, I should have seen this coming. I don't know why Mysterio and Del Rio were tossed in there besides keeping Kane and Edge from hurting themselves too much. Del Rio looked like he messed up his wrist pretty badly thanks to some badly taken bumps involving ladders. And the last bump he took (falling from the top of a ladder placed inside the ring all the way down to two tables placed on the floor) looked particularly painful. I'll give these guys credit: they had a pretty good match overall. Probably the second-best match of the night behind the Morrison/Sheamus ladder match. Kane obviously took very few big bumps, as he's probably nearing the end of his career, and Edge only took a couple himself.

After looking at my pick for this match, I realized how silly it was, especially since I'd expected this match to end the night. Having the night end with Alberto Del Rio winning the World Heavyweight Championship would have been a rather whimper of an end to a night filled with violence. This match, however, did not end the show, so my point is moot. However, this was the first match I'd picked incorrectly, so I did feel a twinge of sadness at that. And it didn't get any better from there (as far as picks went).

John Cena defeated Wade Barrett in a Chairs Match

This match could essentially be described as a "Who can no-sell more?" type of match. Both guys took numerous painful-sounding chair shots and acted as though nothing had happened. When Cena put Barrett in a plush chair with wheels and shoved him down the entrance ramp head-first into the steel steps, I thought Barrett would be out for a couple of minutes. Yet less than 30 seconds later, he's hitting Cena with even more steel chairs. While the healing factor of these two were, at times, comical, the ending was at least pretty good. Cena used a Sabu legdrop (that's where you hold a chair under your legs and hit a legdrop from the top rope onto an opponent) and an FU onto six chairs to pick up the win. But that wasn't all. Cena beat Barrett up the entrance ramp and off to the side, trapped Barrett under a loading dolly, and pulled a large chain of chairs down onto the dolly. While it didn't look particularly painful for Barrett, it did look spectacular and made a hell of a noise. Also, I must say that a couple of Cena's chair shots to Barrett sounded remarkably painful for Barrett. Still, it was kind of silly seeing these guys taking bumps that would normally end a match and kicking out of a pin anyway. It was like ECW all over again, only in a better-lit arena.

So that was TLC. And this week, Raw and Smackdown are back to back, with Smackdown airing live this Tuesday. I guess that means I have nothing to do Friday night. Hell, that will give me more time to work on my two awards episodes I'll be posting next week sometime. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of Rantables. I encourage you to leave feedback, positive or negative. Also, starting with the next episode, there will be a new feature that I hope you will all enjoy. Until next time!