WWE TLC 2011 Preview

It’s the last PPV of the year and will WWE end the year on a high? Only 6 matches that have been announced, so let’s look at the card.

Randy Orton will take on Wade Barrett in a tables match and there’s a possibility that this might open the show. I know people might complain that a former World Champion shouldn’t open the PPV, but he did that with CM Punk at Extreme Rules and they both ended up winning Championships. This is quite a tough one as I can see both guys winning. However, I don’t see Orton losing two PPV matches in a row, so I think that he will win.

Predicted winner: Randy Orton

Zack Ryder, thanks to a petition and some help from John Cena, gets another chance for the United States Championship against Dolph Ziggler. If you’ve seen Ryder’s show Z! True Long Island Story, you would have seen this feud develop over the last few months. I’ve enjoyed Ziggler’s reign as US Champion; however, I think it’s time for Ryder to stop introducing himself as the Internet Champion and say “the United States Champion” instead.

Predicted winner: Zack Ryder

The Intercontinental Championship is on the line as Booker T takes on Cody Rhodes. While Booker’s commentary has been...interesting, I do prefer him as a wrestler and he might be the best person to help Rhodes push onto the main event scene. I can see this feud going past the Royal Rumble. Therefore, I think that Rhodes will retain.

Predicted winner: Cody Rhodes

In a “sledgehammer on a pole (kinda) match”, Kevin Nash will take on his former friend (and COO) Triple H. Even though, he’s one of my favourite wrestlers, I can see Triple H losing. After a bit of thought, Triple H has been out for a while thanks to Nash and I think he will get revenge at the PPV.

Predicted Winner: Triple H

Big Show vs Mark Henry III is the match for the World Heavyweight Championship. I’m not really looking forward to this one but with it being a chairs match, we are at least guaranteed a winner. I think that Henry will retain and then go on to induct a new person into the Hall of Pain.

Predicted Winner: Mark Henry

The WWE Championship is on the line in a triple threat TLC match with CM Punk defending against Alberto Del Rio and The Miz. It’s good to see The Miz back in the WWE title picture and Del Rio is always a joy to watch. However, I believe that CM Punk will remain the champion for the foreseeable future. Therefore, I’m going for Punk to win.

Predicted Winner: CM Punk

So there you have it. It’s a bit weird not having a PPV with John Cena in it so I expect that he will be involved at some point. Otherwise, it looks to be a decent show. I hope you enjoy it and a review of the show will be up during the week.

CM Punk: We’re Still Talking about Him

The summer period is sometimes a time when the WWE would experiment with new things with the Nexus being a recent example. This year, we have had one of the most exciting storylines in recent memory with the feud between CM Punk and John Cena. The main thing that I have liked with the main storylines on RAW over the summer is that they seem to have gone in a really good direction involving so many people and it seemed so organic the way that they have gone with it. It has now slightly branched out with the feud developing between Cena and Del Rio having its origins in this storyline.

Now that Punk is focusing on what happened to him at Summerslam, I have been seeing people talk about the fact, while Punk has been talking about change, it hasn’t really happened. The personification of this has been John Cena, who has been involved in every PPV main event this year, and is at Night of Champions will be involved in his 7^th consecutive WWE Championship match as champion or challenger on PPV.

While I agree with some of that, Cena is not the main storyline on RAW despite the fact that it involves the WWE Championship. RAW has started over the last few weeks with the aftermath from what happened at Summerslam between Triple H, CM Punk and Kevin Nash. That has been the main storyline and they are still articles being published about Punk all over the internet.

Night of Champions on Sunday is the only event of the year where all the championships in the company are on the line. However, the main talking point of the event is not any of the title matches, it’s CM Punk vs Triple H, which has no title on the line. That shows to me how highly the WWE regard CM Punk in that he can be in a storyline that has no championship to fight over with two of the best storytellers in wrestling. Yes, CM Punk is not involved in the WWE title picture for now but he doesn’t need to be to be what everyone is talking about and that shows what a good wrestler he is.

It's Not Over Yet

Last Monday on RAW, Triple H managed to find out, via security footage that the Staples Center people had forgot about, who had texted Kevin Nash on Triple H’s phone with orders to “stick the winner for me”. That person was...Kevin Nash. Yeah, Kevin Nash texted himself to beat up the winner of the CM Punk /Cena match. Does that make sense? Of course it doesn’t. I find it bizarre that, after Triple H gave him tickets to Summerslam, that Nash decided to “make the WWE cool again” by carrying out this plan. Therefore, Triple H fired him and CM Punk wished him luck with his future endeavours.  Kevin Nash’s firing was also reported on wwe.com.

However, two things make me think that we have not seen the last of Nash. The first is that John Laurinatis is still supporting Nash by the fact that they left the arena together. There is still the possibility that Laurinatis will find some way to keep him and Nash in the picture.

The second thing is you didn’t see the security footage and the whole crowd are basing it on Triple H’s word. While I agree that Triple H has been a good guy as the COO so far, let’s not forget that this is the cerebral assassin that we are talking about here. This could be a ploy between Triple H and Nash to get at Punk for all the things that Punk has done to him. For those people that think that Nash’s firing was real because it was reported on their website; don’t forget that Punk’s suspension was reported on their website as well. The WWE are using their website to help build their storylines as they are doing with the Legion Divas of Doom.

This has made Triple H’s match with Punk at Night of Champions all the more interesting and it seems to have more hype to it than all the other matches on the card. A lot of people are thinking that, with Triple H’s COO position on the line, Punk will lose. However, the last two PPV matches involving Punk have had stipulations added to it that make you think that WWE are going the safe route with Punk losing and he won. I think Triple H will still win, not because of the stipulation of his job, but because I can see Nash coming in to help him.

Wasn’t it Supposed to be CM Punk vs Kevin Nash?

The events of last week’s RAW determined the main event of Night of Champions with Alberto Del Rio defending the WWE Championship against John Cena. Cena defeated CM Punk to become the No.1 contender. However, the way that Cena wasn’t exactly a clean win with Cena taking advantage of CM Punk being distracted by Kevin Nash to get the AA.

With Nash costing Punk the WWE Championship and then the chance to become the No. 1 contender, you can understand that Punk wanted to get revenge. Unfortunately, Nash was not (in storyline) a WWE employee until it was revealed on RAW that John Laurinatis gave Nash a contract. Punk was thinking “problem solved” and it seemed a match between Punk and Nash was on the cards.

At least that’s what we thought. At the end of RAW, Triple H said that he would face Punk at Night of Champions instead. Wait, what?! As a big Triple H fan, I was looking forward to seeing him wrestle again although I didn’t think that I would see that for another month or two. However, I was struggling to see how we had gone from Punk vs Nash to Punk vs HHH.

Luckily, instead of waiting til Friday to see Smackdown, we only had to wait 24 hours instead at the contract signing between Punk and Triple H, which hoped to explain things. Triple H explained that he made the decision after speaking to the board of directors. Then he goes to explain that he’s not happy with the way Punk has been acting towards himself, his family and the comapny. That seems fair especially since Triple H could have told Punk to get out when he gave him the contract before Summerslam. It seems to go down to the basic fact that Triple H, after all he’s done to try and make it work, is feeling a bit unappreciated by Punk, a fact that the crowd seem to understand judging by the reaction.

There are rumours going round that Nash might not be ready for a full-on wrestling match. That may be true since he hasn’t properly wrestled for almost a year (the Royal Rumble doesn’t really count) and he’s 52 and will be wrestling against a man 20 years younger.

When it was going to be Nash vs Punk, it was obvious that we would cheer Punk and boo Nash. Now it’s different. I think that Triple H is one of those few people (Ric Flair is another) that, it doesn’t matter if he’s a good guy or bad guy; you’re not really going to boo him.

What about Nash, you wonder? Well, he will be a X-factor in this match. I have no doubt that he will try to interfere but will he be stopped by Triple H, or will he let it happen in order to get the win? Only time will tell but I, for one, will be really looking forward to this match.