4. CM Punk Actually Won His 3-on-1 Handicap Match
Going into TLC, conventional wisdom suggested that the wily CM Punk would not be able to overcome the numbers advantage of The Shield a team that had defeated various three and two-man combinations since debuting a little more than a year ago. There was a slight chance of a Punk victory, given recent hints at dissension in the ranks amongst Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, and Roman Reigns, but the odds were stacked incredibly in The Shield's favor. Low and behold, the Chicago Made, Straight Edge Superstar found a way to win it. The match was very smartly worked. Punk did a nice job in the beginning of isolating his opposition in his corner. Reigns missed a Spear on the outside that would have essentially ended it, wildly flinging himself onto and over the announce table and dinging his eye on the side of JBL's chair in the process in a move that would come back to further haunt him later. Punk works effortlessly with Rollins and Ambrose. Most of the match was subsequently a rotation between Punk vs. the slighter members of The Shield. At the end of the day, the story of the match was Punk being smarter than his three opponents, which bodes well as we enter the month of January and start down the Road to WrestleMania. Reigns wound up Spearing Ambrose to allow Punk the 1-2-3. The Best in the World has some swagger back after a string of major PPV losses throughout the first eight months of the year. Since Night of Champions, he has gotten on a kayfabe roll. One would have to think that he will be a leading candidate to win next month's Royal Rumble match and challenge the WWE World Heavyweight Champion at WrestleMania XXX.