John Pollock & Wai Ting review WWE TLC 2018 headlined by Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte vs. Asuka in the first-ever Women’s TLC match for the SD Women’s Championship. Due to unforeseen circumstances, John had to step away midway through the show. Taking his place to help Wai finish the review were a few of our live listeners from the chat room! Special thanks to Brandon (unfortunately omitted here due to poor streaming quality), Hanzi and Louis.
R-Truth should have requested a vacation in beautiful Saudi Arabia…that with Carmella’s face would have been hilarious.
This B-level PPV felt like a big 4 especially coming off of a horrendous Survivor Series. Kudos to the performers.
I’m glad to hear the callout for a fan favorite booked show. I’m curious if PPV’s like this help justify the heel heavy Raw/SD’s leading up to them. In a way it makes sense but clearly people are sick of heels dominating tv.
Ronda continues to be amazing as she’s been since day one. Her WWE career feels very Kurt Angel. I wish WWE could give all up and comers and ‘weaker’ wrestlers this level of attention and preparation going into their matches rather than just throwing them out there and letting them sink or swim.
Dean vs Seth failed because of horrific storytelling and characterization. Who could possibly care about Dean? This had nothing to do with the placement of the match or the match layout. This could have appeared anywhere on the card and the response wouldn’t have been much different.
AJ vs Bryan highlights the fact there was no feud here IMO. This build was all about showcasing Bryans new character and the fact that he was fighting against someone was just incidental. WWE is storytelling first, match quality second…and that shows here. Not calling this a weak match but these two can easily put on a match of the year candidate and we just haven’t seen anything close to that.
The woman’s match was excellent. I was so completely all in on this match that I didn’t care who won. Any outcome was basically a win/win. The direction WWE took with this completely and utterly works for me. I especially love that Ronda screws over both Charlotte and Becky which just adds to the fact that Wrestlemania could be 3-way or you could just play off each feud individually. They have options in the event of injury here which is nice.
Regarding Asuka:
While I’m glad she has the support of the crowd I think her complete lack of character MUST be addressed ASAP. Asuka is a blank slate. Nothing she wears has any known meaning…everything she says is just catch phrases from her undefeated streak. She’s incredibly dull and that shows because as soon as her undefeated streak ended everything involving her did too. I mentioned this stuff during her undefeated streak as well…that streak was her character and she had zero depth or personality. This title run needs to be WWE’s chance to give her some growth. She can’t just come out for the next two months saying _____ is not ready for Asuka and wrestling good matches. It won’t elevate her and we’ll just end up with a dead character when its time to put the belt on someone else.
Sifting through the parade of qualifying clauses in this statement, this was in fact the first time a women’s title match headlined a dual branded pay-per-view. A women’s title match (Sasha vs. Charlotte) headlined Hell in a Cell 2016 in the first ever main roster pay-per-view headlined by a women’s match, but that was a Raw-only show. In 2018, women’s matches also headlined Evolution (dual-branded, but all women) and the Royal Rumble (not for the title).
I think the even more impressive stat which doesn’t require a qualifier is that the women’s championship match was the first Smackdown match to headline a dual branded ppv since MITB 2017. And the first time a smackdown championship match has been the main event of a dual branded PPV ever!