10 Ups And 8 Downs From WWE TLC 2018

6. Trying Too Hard For Drama

natalaya tlc
WWE.com

It’s understandable that WWE was going for maximum drama in the feud between Ruby Riott and Natalya, with the Riott Squad’s bashing of Nattie’s father at center stage.

Naturally, that meant that the trio had to get their comeuppance, and Nattie was going to do it while paying homage to Jim Neidhart. But in the process of trying to reach a poetic close to the rivalry, they took away from the match itself.

The match grinded to a halt with Natalya retrieving a table with Ruby’s likeness on it – a rebuttal the Riott Squad’s table with The Anvil emblazoned on it. Then Nattie had to put on her father’s old Hart Foundation jacket and compete in it.

Making it worse, the finish – Natalya powerbombing Ruby off the top rope through the table – took forever to set up and execute. It all might have looked good on paper, but in the ring, it didn’t work.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.