Ladder match*
Bobby Lashley vs. Elias
* There will be a guitar hung above the ring and whoever retrieves it can use it as a weapon. So it’s kind of like an “on a pole” match. But it’s also a ladder match, meaning ladders can be used as weapons. And ladder matches are typically no DQ, so a lot of things can be used as weapons. They’ll still need to pin or submit their opponent to win, so you don’t even really need to worry about the guitar. We’re kind of confused. That’s why the asterisk.
The Road to TLC
Lashley and Elias haven’t liked each other since Bobby was a babyface and Elias was a heel.
The Drifter still wants us to silence our cell phones, hold our applause and shut our mouths, but we’re allowed to cheer him before that now. And Bobby has gone to the dark side, aligning himself with cruiserweight motor mouth Lio Rush and calling himself “The All Mighty”.
Elias probably didn’t pick the best time to join the side of the angels, as Baron Corbin replaced Kurt Angle as General Manager right around the time he started crooning with the good guys. After a guitar attack on Corbin, Elias was a marked man. Rush & Lashley wisely aligned themselves with the heel authority figure, and some taunting of both Baron and his allies resulted in a no DQ match for Elias.
No DQ matches against gangs of bad guys don’t go well for babyfaces...
Since then, some more guitar shots have been exchanged. Rush even picked up a pinfall win over Elias thanks to one Lashley landed on the Drifter, and reluctant rudo referee Heath Slater looking the other way...
And somehow out of all that, Corbin decided to hang a guitar above the ring this Sunday.
What’s at stake?
It’s not written into the stipulation or anything, but Corbin’s status is tangentially involved. Presumably this will go down before Baron faces Braun Strowman in his own TLC match in San Jose on Sunday night, so he’ll still be in charge and can send Slater or anyone he wants out to help Lashley & Rush deal with Elias.
More practically, though, we’ll probably get a sense of which of these men is more likely to have their own feud on the road to WrestleMania 35 and which is in danger of ending up in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.
Bobby’s run since signing with WWE again last spring can’t be viewed as anything better than mildly disappointing, but he is showing more signs of life with Rush by his side. A victory could be a sign the brass is going to give him a little more time to make an impression on bigger stages.
Elias seems primed for the next step, but his face character is still a work in progress. They might decide to give him some more time to work out the kinks on the undercard. Or if they’re ready to run with him, he could pick up his first PPV win of 2018 on the last event of the year.
We’ll be following along with TLC on the WWE Network on Dec. 16 to find out. Join us?