Fun Nat fact for the day, I am a closet Profession Wrestling fan for most my life. Obviously, I'm busting the closet open right now. My chap Reuben got me watching wrestling somehow back in the mid-late 90's I want to say. I actually wasn't all that familiar with D-X, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Mankind. For me, it was about World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and the New World Order (NWO). Hogan, Nash, Hall, Savage, Sting, Page, Booker T/Harlem Heat, Flair, Lugar, Jericho, Mysterio Jr., Dean Malinko, etc. You get the idea. Just get on the WWE network and you can get a good history lesson on that. But I want to talk about 2017, the year I got back in to wrestling. I started back actively watching regularly around December of last year. I did see some things here and there like Finn Balor making his Raw ring debut and Kevin Owens being handed the Universal Championship, but I did watch WWE programming on a regular basis until right after Shane O Mac went coast to coast to get speared by Roman Reigns and legit knocked out from the impact while Randy Orton broke character to go to McMahon children watching ringside to comfort them. I don't know why that was the spark but it did it for me. May have watched the December PPV but Royal Rumble was my entree back and the first 'PPV' I ordered since WrestleMania X-Seven (really odd way to say Seventeen, or VII.... Whatever...). I've hit every PPV since and there have been some great shows, and a lot of terrible shows. Last night's TLC PPV was something special though and I wanted to voice some of my excitement, even if it's just to the internet wall.
The Red Brand of Raw was looking to put on in my opinion what was looking to be a good card for this months show. The match up of Asuka and Emma wasn't too much of one to get excited over a good contest, but just let alone the hype of Asuka who is still undefeated among her time at NXT and now Raw was enough to pull in people for this bout. I admit I didn't closely watch this match, mostly because we had been binge watching her collection on the WWE Network about her time in NXT. You knew she was going to come out, give that smile, kick Emmas "now trending" face in, and win. No one questioned that, and everyone dismissed Emma as crazy for her hashtags and ambition. Good on her though. Fun side fact: Emma did start the Womans Revolution, not as a pioneer of the division, but as being one of the four involved in a short match between her along Paige against the Bella twins that was so short fans started demanding more female competition to showcase their tallents, with #GiveWomenAChance trending and catching the company's attention. Sources got lost so sorry on that... Will edit if I find the source articles I got that from and give credit where credit due. (I'm not overly concerned with that right now because... well... I don't expect many people to read this.)
I don't want to spend a lot of time talking about the lead up to TLC story wise because that could take up too much time and distract even more from the purpose of this entry. In a nutshell though, the Shield had reunited and because Dean Ambrose got carried away with his mouth, it turned into a 5 on 3 handicap TLC match to headline the show (facing The Miz, Sheamus and Cesaro, Braun Strowman, and the suprising return of Kane). Fans were hyped to see the hounds of justice return and take on everyone, and there was no doubt they could and would. Finn Balor and Bray Wyatt have been feuding for months with Bray facing the Demon, the Man, and now was presenting Sister Abigail. Big sis has been a part of Brays character for ages, and I've read a few rumors about how Abby would manifest herself into the WWE Universe. I honestly didn't expect it to be an alter ego of Bray much like the Demon is one for Finn. With Sissy introduced to the world through promos, cheap visual effects, and Finn introducing a new Demon through similar means, ya know, I was actually highly anticipating this match. I wanted to see what S.A. would be like in the ring and in person. Bray is totally under utilized in the company right now. He no longer has the Wyatt family around, he's been removed from the title picture, so it was nice to see them reinventing Bray in a way that still fits Bray and not Husky Harris.
So, introduction to buildup, and now the main event. Mumps! An outbreak of a viral infection some are saying has been confirmed as mumps has taken the WWE by storm and possibly single handedly made the show even better than it would have been with the story. Mumps took out the Rotunda clan, including Bray Wyatt, brother Bo Dallas, and girlfriend announcer Jojo. Also infected and reported late in the week was headliner Roman B.D. Reigns. Was he car pooling with the real life Wyatt family? Why was he the 4th to be infected? Well, regardless we out the two headliners for Sunday. And really, it was a bad week for the superstars of WWE, with Kevin Owens having to leave the South America tour early for family matters and AJ Styles getting a stomach bug. But I have to applaud the company and the people who stepped up for the sake of the fans. And I really think that's what made this weekend so special is they under unfortunate circumstances, they pulled out something for the fans. Still in South America, The Game, Trips McH, laced up his boots and headed south to fill some of the roster void for SmackDowns live shows, which we can see from twitter following provided a hilarious moment that will be remembered with Hunter dancing and twerking with the New Day in ring, then hitting Kofi Kingston with a pedigree whilst barely even breaking a stride dancing his way up the ramp while Big E and Woody Woods mourned the lost of their fallen former Jamaican brother. The big news though was still the void for the televised events.
Answering the call was AJ Styles, fresh off a plane and all better tummy to fill in for Wyatt and General Manager, Hall of Famer, and Olympic Hero Kurt Angle for Reigns. I will not lie to you that learning the news the night before the show got me more buzzed than any promo could have. It left me with some doubts that Kurt would actually wrestle and could be written out somehow. I had speculations that the same could have done for any member of team Miz before the match as well, via backstage assault from remaining Shei (no ld since only 2/3 were present). I dremt about wrestling that night, even if it was the Rock returning, laying the smacket downith on the Miz and winning his IC title somehow. Dreams are dreams though and why would they make sense?
Styles/Balor was a surprise "dream match" people have been wanting to see. I am not owned by WWE so I can go ahead and call it how it is.... People were hyped to see the first two leaders of the notorious Bullet Club in action. We knew we were going to see an amazing technical display of skill as the two are some of the most talented and entertaining performers in the business. I will continue to say, I don't think I have ever seen AJ put on a bad match. I was anxious about what else the WWE would give us with the Bullet Club alumni in the ring, because you know they knew we all knew. I mean, you could visibly see a guy a few rows in wearing a "Cease and Desist" shirt, along with countless Bullet Club shirts. How much would Too Sweet nation be represented? Would they even? I mean, guys like the young bucks are still there friends. The Clubs invasion of Raw was toting a megaphone trying to rescue Gallows, Anderson, and Balor (not Styles as he is a Smack Down guy and would not have been in the building). I overall was impressed with the match and definitely lived up to my expectation of being the best wrestling performance of the night, and it was very much an emotional one at that. The crowd was loud before the match even got started with the "this is awesome" chants, and not long after that could clearly hear the "too sweet *woot woot*" chants. Amazing performance for such short notice. IF the match was planned and prepared for, I have no doubt that this would have been match of the year for WWE. I feel like Styles vs Cena still holds that spot, but dang it was good. Capping it off was something that has been teased ever since the club has had a presence in the company. You can see Styles, Gallows, and Anderson "too sweeting" each other at any given opportunity but never seen Balor connect one with them, getting a tease at last years Summer Slam, and once with the tag team in a battle royal you could see Finns hand start to cramp ever so slightly. Seeing the two after the match made me break down and yell at my wife to not look at me.... There was dust ok?
Earlier in the night, Kurt Angle was handed a tactile vest to more look in Shield fashion. Seeing him enter the ring in unity with the hounds was kinda funny to be honest. He looked very out of place. When he popped out behind the two with a big smile, he looked more like someone about to wrestle his first match ever. You could tell this wasn't going to be the single unit shield that works as one.... obviously.... but it became painfully clear just how much that would be the case as the match got started with the trio surrounding the ring as they do chairs in hands. Angle just looked... timid, not really sure of what he should do out there. Perhaps that was Kurt Angle, the GM at first, and it took being driven and broken through a table to bring us Angle of old, holder of the three I's. I didn't care much about Integrity or Intelligence, but I wanted to see some of that Angle INTENSITY. We got a bit of that as he brought back the triple suplexes and an ankle lock, but it wasn't that same fire. I couldn't fully expect to expect that, BUT I WANTED IT. I did feel some of that intensity when he made his return to the ring after being helped out by medics. Once his music hit and he dropped Sheamus on his back on the ramp followed by an a couple Olympic Slams, there was some fire. One moment right after that, when he stared into the ring, I saw intensity in his eyes. It was magical for me. That kick out he made from the skull crushing finally was great as well and didn't appear very fake like some other kick outs. Finally, Angle doing Angle and not afraid to have some fun, laying his best "oooowaaaa" Reigns cry to deliver the Olympic Shield Bomb and pinnig the Miz for the 3 count. I honestly expected the match would end with a tap out to the ankle lock delivered to Miz, but it worked.
I honestly hoped to finish this blog post before the first episode of Raw after the event leading into Survivor Series, but that didn't happen all too much. So, really, this post may just sound like a hot mess of nonsense by now. Oh well.
What I may expect going forward?
-Shield is going to be quite fond of Kurt Angle from now on (For some reason I keep spelling it Sheild through the entire post)
-I wouldn't be surprised to see Kurt Angle wrestle at Survivor Series now, leading team Raw with Shane McMahon leading Smackdown Live (Bonus pop points if they clear Daniel Bryan in time for the bout in GM v GM)
-Balor/Styles II at Wrestlemania.
-Sister Abigail story pick back up after Survivor Series
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