WWE TLC 2013 Review: Randy Orton becomes the new Unified Champion

Hello everybody and welcome to FanSided’s WWE TLC 2013 review! Tonight has been picking up a lot of hype over the last couple of weeks ever since we found out that the WWE and World Heavyweight Championship were going to be unified in a match between John Cena and Randy Orton.

I’ll be ranking the matches from of course, the worst and the best. I’ll start off with a little analysis then cap off this article with the ranking.

Now the build up for this event started at the end of Survivor Series. With the event ending a couple minutes early, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who was expecting something else to go down after Randy Orton defeated the Big Show. Sure enough, John Cena’s music hit and the World Heavyweight Champion made his way to the ring. 

It was the same night that John Cena made his WWE return and defeated Alberto Del Rio for the World Heavyweight Championship. The idea to Unify the championships was a surprise to me but at the same time, it would be nice to have a bit of change.

The company hasn’t had the championships unified for awhile now, but the only downfall about this is all the talent that will be overlooked. We have guys like CM Punk and Daniel Bryan still in the hunt along with guys coming up in the rankings.

First match up was between CM Punk and the Shield. Both The Wyatt Family and The Shield have had their own issues with both CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, otherwise known as ‘The Best and the Beard’. Attacks were unleashed on both Bryan and Punk before Survivor Series, which eventually set up a tag team match between The Wyatt Family and ‘The Best and the Beard’. It’s been a bit of a relief knowing that the creative team had something figured out for both of these former WWE Champions now that Randy Orton and John Cena were about to have their own little feud for like the 20th time.

Punk came into this match up with the odds stacked against him. He’s not the biggest guy on the roster, but the man can hang with the best of them and has proven to do so in the past. This match was played out pretty well, but it should have been added somewhere in the middle of the card instead of kicking off the event. Of course, these three up and coming Superstars that are apart of The Shield, have been some big time players for not only the television broadcast/house shows for this company, but pay per views as well.

With Dean Ambrose holding the United States championship and Seth Rollins/Roman Reigns holding the Tag Team championships for awhile, they were able to show us exactly what they were made of. Anyways, to the match. CM Punk can work with almost anybody and still put on a five star match. This match had some stuff that we did expect, like Reigns either missing a spear that he would normally hit on a RAW or Smackdown and something that would involve one of the members accidentally hitting their signature on another member.

That person happened to be Roman Reigns. All four men worked well for a three on one handicap match, which eventually led to CM Punk picking up the victory.

For full coverage and GIF’s on this match up, click here.