WWE TLC match card preview: AJ Lee vs. Natalya

Divas Championship

Natalya vs. AJ Lee (c)

She's had the champ for almost six months, and is approaching the top of the list of longest Divas title reigns in the belt's five year history. But after fending off the cast of E!'s reality show Total Divas in everything from championship to elimination matches, can AJ fight off another challenge against the Diva with one of the best pedigrees in the business?

The Road to TLC

Since taking the title from on-again-off-again friend Kaitlyn, Lee has been a fighting champion. Through rematches with the Hybrid Diva, a mixed-gender feud against former boyfriend Dolph Ziggler, challenges from both Bella twins and even placing the title on the line in developmental on NXT, AJ has proven that she might be small, she might be a little "off", but she is not someone to take lightly in the ring.

A string of losses to Natalya and the rest of the Total Divas cast may have driven the champ to a different approach, though. Since surviving a fatal fourway at Night of Champions that included Natty, AJ has sent her bodyguard Tamina Snuka or the groups of "True Divas" she's assembled from time-to-time to fight her battles for her. While those battles rage, the Pint-Sized Powder Keg has clutched at her precious and skipped off into denial that she and the title could ever be separated.

The blonde former champ has seen it all from her days in Stu Hart's Dungeon to discussing relationship issues with fitness models on cable television. She's certainly no stranger to competing or to facing AJ. In addition to the fourway on pay-per-view (PPV) in September, Natty tapped to the Black Widow on Smackdown during the summer and pinned the champ clean on Raw earlier this month to earn this shot.

What's at stake?

That title is everything to AJ - just ask her, she'll tell you. Or show you her neck. Just don't ask to hold the belt she sometimes calls her child.

Natalya has been the good company girl, exposing her personal life for the reality show cameras and heading down to Florida to work with the NXT trainees whenever asked. After almost two years without the Divas title around her waist, a seasoned veteran like Neidhart has to be itching for another chance to call herself champion.

And while Lee may not want to hear it, that could be the best thing for the division, as well. Creative doesn't seem to know how to present AJ or the Total Divas. Is the champ a heel because she's crazy, or a face because young girls love her? Are The Bellas and The Funkadactyls faces just because they're on E!? A desperate AJ hellbent on recovering her "child" from the possession of a veteran who is using the belt to ensure that she's taken seriously would be...

well, it would be an actual story. Which is better than what the women of WWE get on a regular basis right now.

Stick with Cageside Seats for all the news, results and fallout from the Divas championship match and everything else on the card for TLC!