John Cena, Ring Boy: WWE TLC '13 Review

John Cena, ring crew extraordinaire
Photo Credit: WWE.com

In the TH style, always.

Highlights:

• Kofi Kingston took umbrage with The Miz shit-talking him during the pre-show, invaded the set, and instigated a fracas that took Miz off the panel.
• Fandango shoved Dolph Ziggler off the top after a Summer Rae distraction and won with the guillotine leg drop.
• CM Punk took advantage of miscommunication among The Shield and pinned Dean Ambrose after Roman Reigns speared him.
• AJ Lee reversed a Sharpshooter into an inside cradle to retain her Divas Championship against Nattie Neidhart.
• Big E Langston retained the Intercontinental Championship with a Big Ending on Damien Sandow.
• Cody Rhodes and Goldust survived the four-team elimination match for the Tag Team Championships as Rhodes countered a Rey Mysterio casadora into CrossRhodes for the win.
• Brodus Clay was abandoned by both Sweet T and the Funkadactyls, en route to losing to R-Truth via a gamengiri and roll up.
• Kofi Kingston used an exposed turnbuckle and the Trouble in Paradise to defeat The Miz.
• Daniel Bryan's best efforts to take out the Family came up just short, as he fell to Sister Abigail's Kiss from Bray Wyatt.
• Randy Orton sent John Cena crashing from the ladder into a table before ascending, grabbing both titles, and becoming WWE Unified Champion.

General Observations:

• Right at the beginning of the pre-show, Miz brought up the Royal Rumble and how important it would turn out to be after unification. Hmm...
• Kofi Kingston emerged to get Miz to stop his shit talking the hard way. I really do hope this turns out to make Kingston a heel, but not in the "hey, we're Cryme Tyme and embody every single negative black stereotype" way that crusty old white promoters seem to like.
• Not a minute into the Fandango/Dolph Ziggler match, and Ziggles went to the max on his bump scale by going HIGH over the top right to the floor. The scene then cut to commercial, which had to have been a record for quickest mid-match hook during the pre-show.
• Hm, the pay-per-view was in its beginning stages and a limousine just happened to roll up? WWE is becoming more and more like WCW by the passing day. Then again, Vince McMahon actually shows up to more WWE events now than Hulk Hogan did as Champion back then...
• The Authority came out for a pre-show promo, and Stephanie McMahon herself uttered the words "Professional wrestling." Pretty sure I almost had an aneurysm at that point.
• Ricardo Rodriguez was pulling duty on the Spanish announce team tonight. Given how garbage the English three-man booth has been for the longest time, I wished I had pressed the SAP button right then and there.
• Someone brought a Colt Cabana fathead to the show, and they were sitting facing the hard camera all night. Luv u, fans.
• CM Punk started the handicap match against The Shield with Dean Ambrose. After a few exchanges, Punk yelled "I already beat you twice, give someone else a chance." Cold, Punk, especially since in one of those matches, you shoved your shitty tights in his face.
• During an exchange on the outside, Roman Reigns was sizing up Punk for a spear into the announce table, but Punk oled it and sent Reigns flying. At that point, I was wishing with all my heart that Reigns would've shoot-caught JBL not looking and put his ass into Doc Sampson's office for the rest of the night.
• Punk and Seth Rollins actually popped me pretty big when the former blocked the latter's punch and went into a flurry of his own. I totally thought they were going to do an overdone strike-trade. Defense should count for something.
• Ambrose had Punk on the top turnbuckle and hooked his arms. I totally thought he was going to at least try a Pepsi Plunge, which would've been exquisite trolling.
• At the tail end of the AJ Lee promo backstage, Tamina Snuka gave Renee Young the dirtiest of dirty looks. I'm all for intimidation, and yes, I know this is all staged, but if anyone lays a finger on Young, I will flip my lid.
• For as much regression as Natalya Neidhart has undergone this year, she looked pretty crisp and with it during the Divas Championship match. Lee made her look stellar bumping, especially on that barricade toss, but I'll take what I can get.
• Neidhart sidestepped a charging Lee on a corner run, and the Champ went FULL ZIGGLER into the buckles, one of the most impressive, non-Cena/Orton bumps of the evening. Even more impressive, she actually was with it enough to segue right into a guillotine choke counter right afterwards.
• The inside cradle counter to the Sharpshooter would have been a load more effective if every women's match in WWE didn't end in a goddamn rollup.
• Damien Sandow came out and heeled on Texan slang before the match. Just put a rocket up his ass and let him spar with Punk or Cena on the mic, please.
• I dub the big splash Big E Langston does to an opponent's back the Shadows over HOSS.
• Vince McMahon and Randy Orton shared a backstage segment and shook hands. PORTENTOUS OMEN?
• I totally dig the Real Americans' new ring entrance where they charge down the aisle and toss their black Gadsden flags into the ring. I dreaded this teaming when they first got together, but man, they have gelled something fierce in all facets.
• Curtis Axel showed me a bit of the athleticism when he straight hurdled over Goldust like he was an Olympic runner. For all his faults, I still think he can pull it together, at least in the ring.
• Goldust as the face-in-peril was magic, especially when in exclusive domain of the Real Americans, whose tag team offense is probably the best I've seen in WWE in years. I especially got a pop when Goldust tried crawling between Antonio Cesaro's legs to get to Cody Rhodes.
• I dug the Cesaro Swing on Goldust a lot, but part of me felt unfulfilled that he didn't swing The Big Show as well.
• Goldust continues to reinvent himself which is why I dig him so much as an in-ring wrestler. He's become an excellent spot monkey, which when you consider he's taller than anyone else in that role, is super impressive. In this match alone, he busted out a hurricanrana, a counter springboard back elbow, and an out-of-nowhere Yoshi Tonic, and each singular move fit within the context of the match.
• The entire finishing sequence between Rhode and Rey Mysterio was magical, even if some of the exchanges felt a bit sloppy. I gave them points for ambition, and the segue into the Cross Rhodes was just sublime.
• I wonder if WWE's marketing department has given up on making ideas of their own. I'm not complaining; their strategy of "giving the talent cocaine and telling them to ad-lib" has been entertaining to say the least, as referenced by the Brawling Buddies backstage segment.
• Brodus Clay hit a Banzai Drop on R-Truth, and it WASN'T the finish? Oh man, no way in hell that move should be a transition move. NO WAY.
• They've pulled off Clay's heel turn well so far, and having his entourage walk out on him felt like a watershed moment.
• Apparently, the Kingston/Miz match set up by the pre-show confrontation was no disqualification. Despite having all the plunder JUST SITTING there at ringside, neither guy thought to use any during the match.
• The announcing was just as bad, as Jerry Lawler chastised Miz for undressing the top turnbuckle, even though the match was no disqualification. Thank God I had company over to drown out the three-man cacophony. I wish WWE offered a "no-commentary" option for events, because I want those jackasses turned off while still being able to hear crowd reactions, in-ring banter, and the SFX.
• Kingston, however, was on point most of the match, playing both sides of the fence with aplomb. He was fierce and aggressive on offense, like a heel, but when it came time to sell the leg, he did so pretty well.
• I will never get tired of Daniel Bryan hooking up the legs in the surfboard and then segueing into a nosehook on the front end.
• "WE COULDA BEEN FRIENDS, BRYAN. I COULDA HELPED YOU." Right after saying that to Bryan, Bray Wyatt fluidly swing around and went into his freaky reverse crab walk that drew a "THIS IS CREEPY!" chant from the crowd.
• The move of the night may have been Wyatt recklessly throwing Bryan down to the mat from the suplex position. No fucks were given at all.
• Wyatt extended his hand, and then Bryan kicked it away in the most brazen act of defiance of the night. Again, Bryan knows how to manipulate a crowd.
• Bryan had so much fire clearing out Luke Harper and Erick Rowan in the final flourish of the match that I almost mistook him for Prince Zuko.
• Three minutes into the main event, and I was already sold on this match being the best one Randy Orton and John Cena had against each other in the last five years.
• Even though it made him the DUMBEST MAN IN WRESTLING (© @wrestlefeed), seeing Cena hit the Five Knuckle Shuffle from the ladder was a cool visual.
• Orton knocking the ladder from underneath Cena and smacking him with the chair like a hardcore pinata may have been my favorite spot of the night until, well...
• I can't tell you how much I loved seeing Cena undo the bottom turnbuckle to escape the handcuffs. Dylan Hales pointed out to me over Facebook chat that the announcers blew a golden opportunity to put over that Cena learned that strategy from his days in the UPW ring crew. Again, why are those three assholes out there?
• That bump Cena took from the ladder to the table looked sickening on first glance, but the replay showed him landing shoulder to the canvas first. I hope that first landing absorbed most of the shock, because if not, then Cena might be on Concussion Street.
• Orton waiting that extra second before snagging the belts was perfect for his unwarranted, bratty character.
• No swerve? I'll take it!

Match of the Night: John Cena vs. Randy Orton, WWE and World Heavyweight Championship Unification TLC Match - Cena and Orton wore each other out in 2009 so much that I wouldn't have minded if they never had wrestled each other for fifty years afterwards. Four years later, they were once again across a ring from each other with all kinds of plunder in play, and they produced one of the best main events in a WWE year where the bar was considerably raised for what a main event match had to be, both on pay-per-view and free television.

The match started out like a classic, ECW-style brawl with plunder coming into play early and often, but it quickly took on some of the different strains that one might have seen in a WWF ring during the Attitude Era with how ridiculous some of the exchanges and comebacks went. Strange that fifteen years after the fact, WWE has finally perfected the schmozzy, ridiculously overbooked main event they wanted to in said Attitude Era. I guess all they needed was a savvy roster, and it was the two guys who came of age and even got overexposed in the last decade who got them there for the third time this year.

Orton did his part by bumping huge, which in the past was not an attribute one could hang on his mantel. In fact, he took nearly every big bump until the very end, when Cena took two risky bumps. First, he hung from the double belts after Orton knocked the ladder from underneath him and then played him like a giant, hustle-loyalty-and-respect-filled pinata. Second, the final bump of the match, Orton knocked Cena from off the ladder, and Cena landed FACE FIRST on a table set up in the corner. Brutal.

But where this match was won for me was when Orton called back to a prior match and handcuffed Cena to the bottom rope. Instead, Cena, drawing back to his UPW ring crew days (h/t to Dylan Hales for that reference), undid the bottom turnbuckle and dragged the ropes with him to climb the ladder. That kind of ring savvy is worth more than most anything a wrestler could do in a match, and it set apart the main event from any other match on what turned out to be a loaded event.

Overall Thoughts: From top to bottom, TLC was jam-packed with great wrestling action. If I'm a paying customer, then I couldn't ask for anything more (although technically, this PPV was gifted to me, so yeah). Of the nine matches I was presented, only three of them were average or worse, and one of them was the pre-show match. I can't hate a show with so much going on in the ring, especially one that presented two three-on-one handicap matches that were among some of the best that they've ever produced.

Speaking of those matches, I felt a lot of dread both internally and among my friends and peers on social media going into those affairs. WWE has had a spotty record at best with handicap matches, and having two on pay-per-view seemed like a bad idea at the time. However, each match managed to tell its own unique story and made sense. CM Punk defeating The Shield worked for me because it was a superstar in waiting taking advantage of a group undergoing an apparent death spiral to shrewdly get to the finish line. Daniel Bryan actually looked more a world-beater against the more cohesive Wyatt Family, but because they were all together now (ALL TOGETHER NOW), his efforts were futile. From a booking standpoint, everything felt like it was in the correct place, which is rich, savory gravy on top of the intelligently and excellently worked meat portions of the match.

But for a match that was done to death in 2009, one that captured my imagination as much as a Dallas Cowboys vs. Dallas Cowboys mirror match Super Bowl would have, the main event was intriguing and satisfying despite the fact that Orton won without any incident or any shenanigans. Sometimes, laying all the cards on the table in an actual wrestling match works in lieu of having a post-match swerve or some kind of interference to come into play, especially when the competitors are the best big match worker in recent WWE history in Cena and a guy who has really found his niche as a dickbag spoiled brat heel in Orton.

WWE really hit on a vein starting with this past RAW going into TLC, but even if this past week is just one, self-contained stretch of programming, it has been one of the best of an unusually good year. When the main portion of the pay-per-view has eight matches that all had well-developed stories behind them, with most of them delivering in the ring? Well, I think that formula for success would win out each time.