10 Best WWE TLC Matches EVER - According To Dave Meltzer

A contest that should be the blueprint for this Sunday's main event, The Shield's maiden offering was one of their very very best.

Having arrived a month earlier in secret collusion with Paul Heyman and CM Punk, Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins were known talents away from WWE's bright spotlight but a largely unproven commodity on the main roster, not least as a triumvirate in a generation that has neglected any version of tag wrestling.

Obviously, this six-man war didn't require catch-as-catch-can nor the disciplines of tag ropes and five-counts, but it did deliver a powerful representation of the devastation and destruction the trio would become known for in their short original run.

Placed in the middle of the card but categorically considered the main event, the contest didn't even flirt with pre-stunt pleasantries after Daniel Bryan, Kane and Ryback attempted to take revenge on the group from the off after a month of suffering the collectivist assaults from the group.

The strength-in-numbers psychology dominated the entire match. Breathtakingly simple, the tactic from the group was to always stay a man up on each foe. Deck one guy, then another one. Ideally in threes but at least as a pair. It worked. Everything that went their way did so because of their unity, even in the contest's brutal conclusion.

Though Seth Rollins had plunged through four tables at the hands of Ryback by the stage, Ambrose and Reigns teamed up to decimate Bryan in the ring, hitting an elevated powerbomb through table to polish the 'Yes Man' off.