A - Excellent
B - Good
C - Mediocre
D - Avoid
Release Date: 25th March 2013
Available From: www.wwedvd.co.uk
Price:
DVD £12.99
Blu-ray £13.99
Format Reviewed: DVD
(Also Available on Blu-ray)
What It’s About:
WWE's Tables, Ladders and Chairs 2012 event from the Barclays Centre in Brooklyn, New York on December 16th, 2012. WWE's final pay per view offering of 2012, featuring an explosive six man TLC Match between The Shield, Team Hell No and Ryback and Dolph Ziggler defending the World Heavyweight Championship Money in the Bank Contract against John Cena.
Strengths:
The best match by a mile on the card is the six man Tables, Ladder and Chairs scrap, pitting The Shield against Team Hell No and the increasingly annoying Ryback. This match has to rank in the top five matches of the year. Featuring several first class moments including a double suplex on Daniel Bryan from the top of a table balanced on the top rope, a devastating spear through the barricade on Kane and a killer fall by Seth Rollins from the top of the ladder through stacked tables, although think how much more impressive this would have looked had Ryback Shell Shocked Rollins through the table from the top of the ladder, there wasn’t one move that didn’t look good. Daniel Bryan sold like a trooper and is so over that it’s feasible that he could win the WWE or World Heavyweight Championship again without any build up. Whilst it’s clear this should have been the main event of TLC 2012, that very small gripe cannot detract from the fact that this match had a huge hand in helping make the Shield stars. Rollins, Ambrose and Reigns did something that no wrestler this year has been able to do and that’s make Kane and Ryback shine, despite the fact Ryback no sold the lasting effects of most big moves. For those who have seen it, then it has limitless replay value and for those still waiting to see it then you’re for a treat. WWE booked this to perfection and the fact that the deciding pinfall was made on Bryan makes the Shield’s victory even bigger. Everyone here deserved a standing ovation, including Kane and Ryback.
The Chairs Match for the World Heavyweight Championship failed to match Sheamus and Big Show’s Hell in a Cell effort and has to be the weakest of the pairs pay per view outings. However that doesn’t mean that it isn’t still watchable. The body slam on Big Show is imposing and the White Noise through the double chairs was gleaming. Even though the pace of the match stalls to almost a complete halt for no reason in the middle, the duo manage to pull the audience back towards the end with some really notable near falls, well timed counters and the ever striking XL steel chair. The end sequence though falls into some doubt when you realise that throughout the match, Sheamus kicked out of a chokeslam and punch from Big Show, his two most powerful and supposed devastating moves, yet was finally felled by one shot to the back from the XL chair. The ending of the match would have been much better had the XL chair been left out of the match and the pair traded finishers with chair in hand. Had Sheamus tried to hit the Brogue Kick with the chair on the end of his foot, only for Show to block it, grab the chair, throw it at Sheamus and then hit the punch into the chair, that would have a last minute flurry we could have believed in. When you get to the end of this encounter though you’ll get the feeling that next year, WWE needs to come up with something fresh for the Chairs Match. The stipulation on its own isn’t enough as looks like a glorified No Holds Barred match. Maybe adding a proviso that the chair has to be used in the deciding fall after a wrestler has hit his finisher with the weapon would go a long way to evolving the match type.
The Tag Team Tables Match fought between Sin Cara and Rey Mysterio vs Team Rhodes Scholars, isn’t a classic tables match by any means and there’s a lot of distraction to pad out the time. When the match hits its stride though it is very good. WWE could have done with dusting off the old crowd noise machine for Sin Cara’s entrance as the attending audience were flat for the former Mexican star, the polar opposite of Team Rhodes Scholars entrance which the audience popped big time for. One more short mention of the entrances. The last thing I noticed as the competitors were making their way to the ring is that there is still a lot of hatred around the WWE Universe for Rey Mysterio. It seems people are bored of seeing him or still haven’t forgiven him for riding the coattails of Eddie Guerrero’s death, to the World Heavyweight Championship at Wrestlemania 22. Either way, if Mysterio is sticking around then I believe it’s time for a heel turn. Credit has to go to Sin Cara as he and Daniel Bryan were seemingly the only wrestlers on the card to sell an injury, although you may not notice as the announcers did everything they could to both detract from the match and the wrestlers taking part. Jerry Lawler just won’t relent from making fun of Cody Rhodes facial hair and the announce team seemed more bothered about how to pronounce ‘Borat’ than calling the action. A huge deal of disrespect was show to all four men when Michael Cole was instructed to read out tweets during the encounter. The latest evidence of WWE’s obsession with social networking. The finale of the match deserves some credit though, Cara’s backwards fall from the top rope through a waiting table looks sublime. Had this been a year ago you feel Cara may have over shot the table and landed in the aisle.
Kofi Kingston’s WWE Intercontinental Championship defence against Wade Barrett take so long to get going it feels that it will never achieve its potential. And it doesn’t. At points in this match you could be forgiven for thinking that we’re in 1984 again. The match does however pick up the pace towards the finale with some prominent manoeuvres even though the result is the wrong one. Had Barrett pinned Kingston to take the Intercontinental Championship here, it would have had a much bigger effect on Barrett’s career than winning it weeks later on Raw. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something about Wade Barrett that doesn’t do it for me. Other English wrestlers, such as William Regal and the British Bulldog have always gelled well with me, but for some reason Wade Barrett doesn’t. For me at least, it seems like he phones in a lot of his performances and is either trying too hard to wrestle the WWE way or trying too hard to be American.
Dolph Ziggler’s interview before his main event Ladder Match with John Cena is passionate and rings true on almost every level. Going into a tirade, Ziggler speaks nothing but the truth and I suspect is airing some frustrations not only of his but of the whole locker room and the audience. Dolph is one hundred percent correct when he states that is he loses to John Cena, then Cena gets what Ziggler worked so hard for, even though Cena lost his Money in the Bank cash in match on Raw’s 1000th episode. When you realise that WWE have given John Cena another chance, though the result is predetermined, at something he lost in July, then you realise that Vince McMahon’s speech in 2011 about no body, including John Cena being bigger than WWE is utter crap. It’s booking decisions like these that show that John Cena is bigger than WWE.
The commentary is once again a double edged sword. When it’s good, it’s very good. When its bad, then its utterly abysmal. Jerry Lawler is at the centre of both good and bad at TLC. The better of his work includes a pot shot at a well known phone company; “I used to be part of a band. T-Mobile. We kept breaking up!”
I was and still am in two minds about the main event Ladder Match for Dolph Ziggler’s World Heavyweight Championship Contract Money in the Bank briefcase. The action ranges from some very worthwhile moves to sheer calamity. What else do you expect from a John Cena match? You can read more about this in the ‘Weaknesses’ section, however the overall match settles in the strengths category for one reason and one reason only. Dolph Ziggler. The future World Heavyweight Champion puts on a master class and enters a career performance of a lifetime, the kind that rivals Shawn Michaels unforgettable effort at Survivor Series 2003. For everything Cena does wrong, Ziggler does something right. Dolph Ziggler fought his heart out here and for that, he deserves a huge pat on the back. The crowd were hot for Dolph and staunchly behind him and it looked like Ziggler was a little emotional because of it.
The DVD extra is once again too short to care about, but does paint Dolph Ziggler as a passionate wrestler who really does care about the business he’s in. It does strike the viewer on several occasions that Ziggler is much more passionate that Cena has ever been, except when Cena is trying to win over a hostile crowd. WWE should have also added the Divas Battle Royal from the pre show to both DVD and Blu-ray.
Weaknesses:
We have to begin this section with the commentary. WWE have done so well with this in previous months and as stated before, bringing back JBL was a touch of genius. But at TLC, the commentary team of JBL, Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler seem to have an off day. I’ve mentioned that it was a double edged sword, but that sword is heavily swayed to the downside. Lowlights include; Jerry Lawler’s explanation on how wrestling works “The shield are going to be in the ring, facing their opponents eyes to eye!” Thanks for that Jerry, I mean how would we have known what was going to happen had Lawler not have informed us of this?; The King puts himself on show again during the WWE Divas Championship match when he inexplicably verbalises “Eve is the most talented in ring Diva we have at the moment!” Eve is a very game girl and for that she has to be applauded. As far as her being the best in ring diva, then Lawler is so far off of the mark that it’s going to cost a hefty plane ticket price for him to get back there; one of the worst moments in Lawler’s commentary career though comes when he openly declares that he had to get a calculator out in order to count the number of chair shots Sheamus gave Big Show at Survivor Series. A calculator? Was there a sum to be done? What was wrong with just counting along with the shots?; JBL pitches in at the conclusion of the Chairs match for the World Heavyweight Championship with “I don’t think he’s going to be conscious for a while!” just as Sheamus was pulling himself up on the ropes, yes you guessed it, fully conscious. There is more which you can read in the part below about the main event, but the fact that WWE allows this kind of rubbish to go out on air when they’re meant to be feeding the announcers lines and facts is both pathetic and indefensible.
The United States Championship Match, featuring yet another clash between Antonio Cesaro and the worthless R-Truth is both useless and worse than their match the previous month at Survivor Series. Putting aside the enthusiasm zapping rest holds, WWE have to know by now that R-Truth in 2012 / 2013 is one of the most uncharismatic performers they have on their roster. It beats even me, why WWE thought we’d want to see this match once, let alone twice. If WWE haven’t already worked it out, then no one cares about R-Truth and no one cares about the United States Championship because of matches like this. Pitting the Champion against irrelevant opponents will have that effect.
The Miz TV segment doesn’t belong on pay per view and only serves to set up the six man tag team match later on the card. WWE could have just as easily featured this on the pre-show and saved us the bother of watching it all together. The time this took, as well as the resultant match could have been allocated to another match and actually made a difference in both the result and the image of the encounter. Undoubtedly, the angle is highly amusing when the Miz is on the mic but depreciates when 3MB take over proceedings. Slater, Mahal and McIntyre are overly dull and just like R-Truth irrelevant in WWE. Created solely to take the piss out of Chris Jericho and his band, ‘Fozzy’, WWE should have canned this act before it got screen. Its an embarrassment to WWE when Slater takes to lambasting the Spanish announce team for not being American and his comment; “In this country, we speak American” is so ridiculous that it defies belief WWE gave Slater permission to deliver it. Especially when Mahal and McIntyre were with Slater on delivery of the line. Someone should have told both WWE and Slater that 1) Mahal wears a turban and speaks with an accent that isn’t American and McIntyre is Scottish, his accent isn’t American either and 2) the language is actually called English. No one ever says to someone who speaks a foreign language, “Do you Speak American?” A completely brainless angle.
C.M Punk’s promo from the sky box, on crutches, isn’t as bad as people have said it was but considering Punk’s injury and the immense amount of time he gave WWE leading to the injury, the company should have at least allowed him a night off.
Eve vs Naomi for the WWE Divas Championship lends a hand in killing off the Divas Division. It’s short, sloppy and Naomi’s offence in the ring is both timid and looks awful. This is far from what is required in WWE. Should the company wish to get their Divas Division up and running again then its time hire some real wrestlers. There really is nothing else I can say about this match. Except it should either have been dropped or WWE should have chosen someone other than Naomi to win the pre-show Divas Battle Royal. On the plus side though, Eve looked like the professional.
The thrown together six man tag team match featuring Alberto Del Rio, the Miz and the Brooklyn Brawler against 3MB is one for the fast forward button. Although the Brawler, real name Steve Lombardi, receives a heroes welcome, 3MB are used as whipping boys. The Miz and Del Rio are completely wasted in this match and should have been found bigger parts on the card. Incredibly, time has not changed the Brawler, he’s still as crap today as he was twenty years ago. I would just like to point out though something I have noticed but kept quiet on before. Alberto Del Rio’s cars have a license plate that bares his WWE created logo and not a legal number plate. WWE try their hardest to makes us believe the cars belong to Del Rio and not a hire company from whatever city WWE are in. Well, if they were Del Rio’s cars then do WWE really expect us to believe that he’d have a WWE created logo on the front?
And onto the main event we go. Again. I had to break this up into two sections because for all the good there was in the match, WWE did their very best to mess it up right from the beginning. Everyone who saw the build up to the match will have tried their best to forget the burial Ziggler received on the mic from Vince McMahon. Escape though is impossible as WWE do everything they can with the highlight package to screw Dolph Ziggler out of any heat or momentum he had. If I didn’t know any better then I’d say that WWE almost wanted Dolph to fail in the long run. If so, then they’re going the right way about it. The rest of the entries for the ‘Dumb Shit To Say’ category happened here and came from Vince McMahon’s mouthpiece, Michael Cole. Cole comes across as the biggest John Cena mark in wrestling history. Cole states “This is what bothers Ziggler! This is what irks Dolph Ziggler. The response the WWE Universe gives John Cena!” Cole’s timing couldn’t have been worse. As he was saying this, Cena was receiving the loudest jeers he’s had since Wrestlemania 28. Cole childish reactions for Cena are WWE’s attempt to get us, those who hold nothing but contempt for the goofball, to fall in love with him. Their attempts are always going to be in vain. If anything it makes us hate him more. WWE had Cole then continuously point out how Cena supposedly deserved Dolph Ziggler’s World Heavyweight Championship shot, at one point Cole was one sentence away from saying “Because he’s John Cena!” WWE may have had Cole try to get across Cena supposedly deserved and earned the match and shot but failed to add that Cena needs to start getting other talent over like all good main event plays should be able to do. I am convinced that Cena’s selling is getting worse and worse by the week. Here he takes a ladder to the chest and simply jumps back up and runs into the ring like nothing has happened. The moron stood up when Ziggler had applied the sleeper hold every other superstar has sold as deadly, and climbed the ladder with Ziggler on his back. Only when he got to the top did he decide to sell the move and limply fell, with Ziggler still astride, through a waiting table and gashed Zigglers leg. What made it even more insulting was that Ziggler had the decency to sell Cena’s moves. John Cena then botched a hurricanrana which the announcers called like he’s just won the WWE Championship. Bizarrely, after the match had finished, Cena was smiles. Either he’s that dumb and stupid that he doesn’t know what he should be doing or he just can’t sell. The ultimate kick in the face for Ziggler though was that WWE gave the credit for the win to A.J, who turned on Cena. WWE should have hyped Ziggler to the full here and given him the credit for the victory, after all he was the one who sold and fought his heart out. If WWE ant an answer as to why new talent isn’t getting over then they need to look at their booking and handling of this match. To advance his career, Ziggler should have won clean, but on the night WWE and John Cena’s ego were too big for that to happen.
DVD Extra:
TLC – 16th December 2012
Matt Striker interviews Dolph Ziggler
Blu-ray Extras:
Monday Night Raw – 17th December 2012
Ric Flair presents the Slammy Award for Superstar of the year
Big Show addresses the WWE Universe
The Miz, Alberto Del Rio and Tommy Dreamer vs 3MB
Ryback vs Antonio Cesaro
‘Mene’ Gene Okerlund, Ricky Steamboat and Jim Ross present the Slammy Award for Match of the year
John Cena vs Dolph Ziggler
Smackdown – 18th December 2012
Miz TV with A.J Lee, Dolph Ziggler and Big E. Langston
C.M Punk addresses the WWE Universe
Conclusion:
Despite its obvious flaws, WWE TLC 2012 was a very good and solid pay per view event, just as TLC 2010 and 2011 were before. It boasted several good matches and one killer bout that any serious wrestling fan must own on DVD or Blu-ray.
TLC 2012 has to rank as one of the better pay per view events of the year and is right up there with Wrestlemania 28, Money in the Bank 2012 and Extreme Rules 2012. For some people’s money it will even trump the trio. It turns out that C.M Punk’s injury was a blessing in disguise, because for as good as Punk is, I don’t believe he could have carried Ryback to a decent match, one on one, even with the TLC rules in effect.
TLC 2012 is undoubtedly a release worth owning and one that belong to the Shield, Kane, Daniel Bryan and Ryback. It’s not often in WWE you’re going to get to hear that or see a match where Ryback comes out looking good. So make the most of it whilst its there.
Rating: A
Onwards and upwards...
