Styles earned his shot at the title by besting Keith Lee and Riddle in a Triple-Threat match. Dating back to his WWE Title win at WrestleMania 36, McIntyre has said in several interviews that he’s always wanted to work with AJ Styles but their paths never crossed.
There are currently five matches scheduled for TLC on 12/20 and here’s the lineup for the event:
* WWE Championship — TLC Match: Drew McIntyre (c) vs. AJ Styles (w/ Omos)
* WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships: Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler (c) vs. Asuka & Lana
* Randy Orton vs. ‘The Fiend’ Bray Wyatt
* WWE Universal Championship — TLC Match: Roman Reigns (c) (w/ Paul Heyman) vs. Kevin Owens
* SmackDown Women’s Championship: Sasha Banks (c) vs. Carmella
This will be WWE’s first pay-per-view inside of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida which will be the new home of the company’s ThunderDome setup for the foreseeable future.
Yup. They can’t help themselves. This is what happens when you employ writers who don’t understand pro-wrestling and an industry that has slowly eliminated the skill of working.
You end up with people who don’t have the skills to be able to book a match properly by creating a compelling reason to want to see the match and instead default to booking gimmick matches to try to disguise the fact that most modern “performers” can’t actually work.
Just look at the mess they called Wargames. Wargames should have a roof and shouldn’t need obviously fake “weapons” like bins made out of aluminium foil that look obviously and embarrassingly fake. But if they booked a real Wargames match then they couldn’t fit in the obligatory move from the top of the cage “spot” that inexplicably some people still seem to think is impressive, as opposed to a tired cliche and just downright sad that performers feel the need to shorten their career just to appease said fans desire to chant “this is awesome”.
Look back at the real Wargames matches from 1987 through to 1992. No bullshit, just real heat.
Gimmick match PPVs have always been a stupid idea. It doesn’t take into account where any feuds are. Also devalues the match type and makes the PPV less interesting. They’re not achieving anything. Hell In The Cell is the worst culprit but TLC isn’t that far behind.
I wouldn’t blame the writers. It’s the directives from the top that decide the PPVs and cards. That’s been the issue for over a decade in the WWE.
The best bookers and writers in the world would find it a challenge to bounce from gimmick PPV to gimmick PPV within weeks, and trying to keep it compelling.
To be fair, this year’s Hell In A Cell matches you could say deserved to have this stipulation.
Drew VS Randy was a long programme and Sasha VS Bayley had a long storyline. Even Roman VS Jey had a story going into it and it wasn’t the 1st match either.
It’s the previous years Hell In A Cell PPV’s that had the issues regarding the matchups.
Sasha and Bailey’s programme took a long time to build to the turn but they they blew the payoff in the space of a few weeks to shoehorn in a Hell in a Cell match purely because the Hell in a Cell card was in the calendar.
That was the definition of poor booking, as it was a gimmick that needed a match rather than the match needing a gimmick. Booked correctly, they could have stretched it to Wrestlemania and had the Hell in a Cell as the final match.
Why are we still naming PPVs after matches? The Royal Rumble and Money in the Bank are fine with the matches being annual and they aren’t about a feud but the reward.
Then there’s Hell in a Cell, Extreme Rules, TLC, Elimination Chamber and War Games. These are matches that should be used to build a rivalry to it’s climax not obligated because its that time of the year. When you have to add an I quit match to a HIAC it’s because the HIAC isn’t special enough anymore. It shouldn’t be, “Oh, it’s War Games season.”
AJ and Drew could have a great singles match, which would make sense since there’s no feud, no history, just a champ and a guy that won a tournament.
They should get rid of MITB all together. Devalues the title and gives WWE a reason (in their eyes) not to actually bother building a wrestler up to a serious level before making them a world champion.
I think it’s a two sided coin. They’ve had guys that winning the MITB was the platform they needed to bring them to the next level. Other cases where the guy that won it wasn’t going to ever be a top guy. ie. Otis, Corbin, Sandow. Then you have guys that won it to as a step in a separate storyline, like Kane and Brock.
I don’t think Vince/creative even likes the Money In the Bank concept anymore. Now they’ve done almost everything there is to do with it, they blow off at least one of the briefcases every year with a cash-in that night, a match announced ahead of time, or a “failed cash-in” that is basically a segment rather than a match.
MITB was a cool idea back before every single avenue was explored. They should have retired it after Rollins at WM31. I don’t think you’re ever going to see them top that.
As I’ve said elsewhere… MITB should be used (if they insist on doing it) as the summer equivalent of the Royal Rumble, setting up the Summer Slam Championship match.
Although rarely utilized properly as such, they had the right idea with King of the Ring being a set-up (the couple of times they did it). MITB should be the same idea.
I think there is 1 thing left that they can do, that I’ve always wanted to see them do. I think someone that they are going to get behind should win the briefcase and then announce the next night on Raw, that they are going to cash it in for a title match at Wrestlemania and you spend from June or whenever it is, until Wrestlemania, building that guy up. Have them challenge former world champions and beat them and then eventually beat the champion at Mania.
A heel winner the following year could then also make the same proclamation that they are going to cash it in at WrestleMania to lull the champ into a false sense of security and then attack them randomly to cash it in.
There was one recent year (2017 or 2018?) where they should’ve had a heel KO win and then put him ringside with the briefcase every time the champion was out there.
Probably couldn’t do that for a year (because your champ can’t exclusively have matches where he is never “in peril”). But definitely for a few solid months of entertainment with Owens on commentary and faking cash-ins.