10 Facts & Trivia Most Fans Missed From WWE TLC 2019

TLC 2019 is in the books, and with it WWE PPVs have officially come to a close for not only this year, but this decade. The event was far from bad, featuring several good to great matches, including an under-hyped match from Aleister Black and Buddy Murphy that quite arguably stole the show. TLC wasn’t without its flaws, either, though, including a pair of TLC matches that, while not horrendous, failed to live up to their considerable potential.

The show had a number of details that could go overlooked. This article takes a careful look back at ten things most fans missed from TLC 2019.

10 10. Back To Back Women’s Main Events In More Ways Than One

For the first time in WWE history, consecutive PPVs featured women’s main events. Survivor Series closed on a Triple Threat Match between Shayna Baszler, Becky Lynch, and Bayley. From there, TLC wrapped up on a Women’s Tag Team Championship collision between The Kabuki Warriors and uneasy partners Lynch and Charlotte Flair.

In addition to marking consecutive PPV main events for the women’s division, one month after the other, this show also marked back to back years when TLC was headlined by women, as Lynch, Flair, and Asuka closed out TLC 2018 as well.

9 9. Roman Reigns Returns To The Title-less TLC Format

One of the foundational elements of TLC when it first took shape in 2000, and for over a decade to follow, was that the match was essentially a Ladder Match with extra plunder.

The standard rule of competitors vying for a prize hanging over the ring broke down in 2012. The Shield had their debut match opposite Ryback and Team Hell No, and with no titles on the line. Thus the match shifted to include not only Ladder Match rules, but also no disqualification matches that could end on a pin or submission. While most TLC Matches from there would continue to follow the Ladder Match format, Shield alum Dean Ambrose would battle Bray Wyatt in another match for no prize at TLC 2014, and a reunited Shield would square off with a contingent of heels led by The Miz in 2017.

Fittingly, former Shield members would continue the tradition of breaking the standard rules, as Roman Reigns’s TLC Match with Baron Corbin wouldn't have a prize overhead.

8 8. WWE Teases The Viking Raiders Vs. AOP

The Viking Raiders put their Raw Tag Team Championship on the line at TLC in an open challenge. WWE quietly teased that The Authors of Pain might answer the call in showing a highlight video of their collusion with Seth Rollins directly before Erik and Ivar came to the ring.

Maybe the placement was incidental, and WWE was merely putting space between matches and weaving the main event level of angle from Raw into the PPV. Nonetheless, featuring a tag team directly before another put out an open challenge planted at least a subliminal seed that The Viking Raiders vs. The Authors of Pain might happen. These two impressive big man teams may well collide in 2020.

7 7. Asuka Breaks A Tie With Becky Lynch

Women have only had a small handful of opportunities to main event WWE PPVs. While Becky Lynch may be billed as the top star in the division now, and Charlotte Flair may be more consistently featured, Asuka interestingly moved to the front of the pack in terms of winning these high profile matches.

Asuka won the 2018 women’s Royal Rumble that closed that show, as well as the main event Ladder Match at TLC 2018 to become the first woman to win two PPV main events. Lynch matched her record after winning at WrestleMania 35 and teamed with Seth Rollins at Extreme Rules 2019. However, it was Asuka who would pull ahead to become the first woman with three PPV main event victories when the Kabuki Warriors won at TLC.

6 6. A Clash Of Former TLC Main Eventers

While Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, and Asuka reprising their issues from a year earlier in the main event may have caught more attention, they weren’t the only past TLC main eventers to clash at this year’s event. The Miz had main evented TLC 2011, joining Alberto Del Rio in challenging CM Punk for the WWE Championship in a TLC Match. Three years after that, Bray Wyatt had faced off with Dean Ambrose in the last match of TLC 2014.

So, Wyatt and The Miz represented top stars from TLCs earlier in the decade, clashing themselves on this, the eleventh edition of TLC that launches a new decade in this annual event’s history.

5 5. The Fans Save Their Chicken

The Raw Tag Team Championship match ended in anticlimactic fashion with a double count out, suggesting the feud between The Viking Raiders and The OC will continue. Notably, the match wound up feeling more than a little concerned with promoting KFC, as prize winning fans ate chicken at ringside for this match, then had their table taken for a power bomb spot.

Careful observers might note that, while the fans did lose most of their sides in the post-match melee, the men grabbed their buckets of chicken when the action got close, and just before The OC took their table. Maybe it was a quick reaction, though the precaution may also suggest that they had a heads up as to what was going to happen.

4 4. Daniel Bryan Looks Like A Heel

Daniel Bryan made his return at TLC after disappearing following an attack by The Fiend. He wore a hood at first before debuting his new look, with close-cropped hair.

What’s old is new, as Bryan has dawned a similar look in the past. Most recently, Bryan had a look like this during his first heel run in WWE that gave way to his pairing with Kane as Team Hell No. While his beard became a defining part of his look, Bryan also started to grow out his hair at that time. All in all, Bryan, post-Fiend-induced transformation, looks a lot like the latter days of Bryan’s first heel run with the company.

3 3. Asuka Exorcises Her Demons

While WWE hasn’t exactly foregrounded this narrative, the company has quietly told the story of Charlotte Flair being Asuka’s ultimate foil—the one mountain she can’t climb, the one competitor who consistently has an answer for her. At WrestleMania 34, Flair ended Asuka’s vaunted undefeated streak that stretched across her NXT run and several months on the main roster. From there, The Queen made The Empress tap to steal her SmackDown Women’s Championship in the build to WrestleMania 35.

Asuka, at last, got meaningful revenge with her and Kairi Sane’s TLC victory. The moment of Asuka power bombing Flair through a table at ringside may have been the best encapsulation of her finally getting the better of The Queen.

2 2. Becky Lynch Main Events Her Fourth PPV For The Year

2019 may go down as the year when women main eventing PPVs became less exceptional, more the norm. That includes being the first year when women’s matches closed four separate PPVs (not to mention that, unlike the previous year with Evolution, none of the shows closed with women by default for being all-female events).

Little less noteworthy, Becky Lynch was involved in all four main event matches, starting at WrestleMania 35, carrying on to her mixed tag team match at Extreme Rules, continuing to the women’s Triple Threat at Survivor Series, and closing with the women’s TLC Match. Though she ended up batting .500 in terms of wins and losses, the degree to which WWE consistently featured Lynch reaffirms her position as one of, if not the single biggest full-time star in the company.

1 1. A Royal Rumble Preview

The late stages of TLC saw a brawl break out backstage featuring Roman Reigns and Baron Corbin, but coming to feature quite a few other Superstars. The battle raged on after the main event, for a closing image of Reigns spearing Corbin out of the stands, onto a crowd of other brawling men.

Some of this presentation was about redeeming Reigns from his loss and perhaps sending the fans home happy after the heels won the main event. The large scale battle also had Royal Rumble undertones, though, as it felt like an informal commercial for the next main roster PPV.

Next: WWE TLC: The 10 Most Brutal Bumps In History