Backstage: Byron Saxton Interviews Seth Rollins
Backstage, Seth Rollins is interviewed by Byron Saxton. Joey Mercury and Jamie Noble is with Rollins as usual. Saxton talks about how if Rollins wins, John Cena is no longer the number one contender to the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Rollins says when he wins, he wants to dedicate the match to two people — Triple H and Stephanie McMahon. He talks about how Sting cost The Authority their jobs at the Survivor Series. He says since Sting is nowhere to be found, John Cena is going to pay for it tonight.
Stairs Match
– Big Show vs. Erick Rowan
After the Rollins interview, we shoot to the announce table where the trio breaks down the first-ever “Stairs Match.” They run down some stats on the stairs, such as their weight and resistance, etc. From there, Big Show’s theme hits and out he comes. After that, Erick Rowan’s theme hits and out he comes.
Rowan attacks Show straight from the bell, nailing him with the steps outside of the ring. He continues beating on Show outside of the ring until Show finally drops him with a big boot.
Show unzips Rowan’s gear so he can deliver a big chop to his base chest. Show throws Rowan over the barricade and into the crowd. Show puts one of the steel stairs onto the announce table. This causes Cole, Lawler and JBL to freak out. Show asks them if they’re nervous and they say yes. He picks the steps up and puts them in the ring.
Finally, Show and Rowan are in the ring at the same time for the first time in the match. There’s two sets of stairs in the ring. Show picks one of them up and blasts Rowan with them across his back. Now Show sets up one of the sets of stairs in the corner, wedging it between the top and middle rope.
Show beats up on Rowan slowly for a while. Finally, Rowan fights back and ends up hitting a big bodyslam on Show onto the stairs in the ring. He un-wedges the other set of stairs from the ropes in the corner. Show, laying on one-half of the stairs, watches as Rowan climbs the middle rope with the other half of the stairs. He goes to jump and slam them on him, but Show moves just in time. Rowan ends up getting nailed with the stairs, as they bounced back when Show moved, making Rowan pretty much hit himself with the stairs.
The action is back on the floor now, where Show spears Rowan through a bunch of sets of stairs that were stacked up on top of each other. Both guys are down now as we see some replays of that.
Back in the ring, Show hits a big chokeslam on Rowan on the bottom half of a set of stairs. Show waits for Rowan to get up to one knee before blasting him with a knockout punch. He covers him but stops. He grabs a set of stairs and uses those to cover Rowan. 1-2-3. Show wins.
Winner: Big Show
Tables Match (#1 Contendership On The Line)
– Seth Rollins vs. John Cena
The video package for the “Tables Match” with the number one contendership on the line between John Cena and Seth Rollins airs. This match is up next here at the WWE TLC pay-per-view.
As soon as the video package concludes, instead of Rollins or Cena, out comes Paul Heyman — to no music. He makes his way to ringside where he joins Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler and JBL on commentary for this match.
From there, Seth Rollins’ theme hits. Out he comes, accompanied by Joey Mercury, Jamie Noble and a Money in the Bank briefcase. After Rollins’ entrance, John Cena’s theme hits and out he comes to the ring for this “Tables Match.”
The bell sounds and the “let’s go Cena / Cena sucks” dueling chants immediately break out as Cena and Rollins close in on each other. By the way, it looks like Paul Heyman is not joining the crew on commentary for this match. Instead, he’s just standing at ringside.
Noble and Mercury are already providing distractions, less than a minute into this match, to benefit Rollins. Cena gets a little bit of momentum and once again, Noble and Mercury get involved, leading to Rollins taking over the offense again.
Rollins goes under the ring and grabs a table. While he’s doing so, however, Cena rushes outside of the ring and knocks him down. Cena throws the table into the ring. As he does, Noble and Mercury grab onto it. They and Cena play tug-of-war with the table until Cena lets go of it, resulting in Noble and Mercury crashing onto the floor. Regardless, they distracted Cena long enough for Rollins to blast him from behind.
The “let’s go Cena / Cena sucks” dueling chants break out again as Rollins wedges the table in between the top and middle rope. Cena picks up Rollins for a power bomb, but this time Noble and Mercury blatantly get involved, hitting the ring and taking out Cena right in front of the referee’s eyes. The announcers remind us that anything is legal in this match.
The fans actually break out in “let’s go Rollins” chants. Cena hits two shoulder tackles on Rollins and then dumps him. He does the “you can’t see me” gesture and then hits him with the Five Knuckle Shuffle. As he hoists Rollins up for an Attitude Adjustment follow-up, Noble and Mercury again blatantly hit the ring to stop him. Cena is now fighting Noble and Mercury in the aisle. He grabs part of the steel ring barricade (not the padded kind) from the top of the ramp and blasts Noble and Mercury with it, and then Rollins. He lays it down and suplexes Noble onto it. Rollins jumps Cena from behind immediately after that. Mercury helps with the beat down, slamming Cena onto the TLC set in the aisle.
Noble and Rollins grab a table long-ways and go to blast Cena with it. Cena moves, however, and they ram it into the ring post where it breaks in half. A big chunk of it nearly caught Cena in the face/eye, that was a close call. Anyways, Rollins jumps back on Cena from behind after another quick distraction. This match is pretty much exactly — to a tee — what everyone expected, with the blatant, consistent interference from Noble and Mercury. One would assume either Randy Orton or Roman Reigns eventually hit the ring for the finish. We’ll see what happens.
“Let’s go Cena” and “Cena sucks” rings throughout the arena in Cleveland as the action finally returns to the ring. The two trade punches until Rollins counters a suplex attempt by Cena. Both guys are back up and now Cena back-body-drops Rollins over the top and out to the floor. Cena grabs another table from under the ring and slides it into the ring. He goes out after Rollins but walks right into a shot from Rollins, who has the MITB briefcase and blasts Cena with it. Back in the ring, Rollins beats Cena with the briefcase over and over and over again.
Cena hoists Rollins up for an Attitude Adjustment. Cena accidentally knocks the ref down with it. He goes to put Rollins through the table set up in the ring with an A.A., but Rollins avoids it. Rollins nails Cena and lays him face-first on the table. He climbs to the second rope for a Curb Stomp through the table, but Cena avoids it. Cena gets Rollins on his shoulders and goes for an A.A. through the table from the second rope. He puts him through the table, but the ref didn’t see it. Meanwhile, Noble and Mercury quickly clean up the “evidence,” clearing the ring of all of the broken table bits. They set up a new, fresh table in the middle of the ring, so to the ref it looks like nothing happened.
Now Noble and Mercury pick Cena up, Shield style and go to feed him to Rollins. Cena fights free, however, and now has both Noble and Mercury, one stacked on top of the other, across his shoulders. He hits an A.A. with both guys at the same time. That was pretty cool. Rollins runs into the ring now and Cena picks him up for an A.A. as well. Rollins slides out the back door. We’re near two tables, one in front of the other, so it’s a double table style set up, on the floor. Both guys are on the apron outside of the ropes. They knock each other down and each guy both goes through the two tables. The ref saw that and calls for the bell. Since both guys went through the tables together, the announcers ponder who just won.
We see a bunch of slow-motion replays to try and find out who went through the table first. It’s pretty clear — even in slo-mo — that both guys went through the tables at the exact same time. A bunch of refs are out at the ring now. This ref raises Cena’s hand, that ref raises Rollins. Same thing we’ve seen a hundred times in the past. The third ref pulls both guys hands down and starts talking to someone at ringside. Lilian Garcia says the ref cannot determine who went through the table first, therefore he is restarting the match.
With that said, Rollins immediately attacks Cena from behind. He knocks him out of the ring and then dives and splashes onto him on the floor. Cena knocks Rollins onto the announce table, where he takes out Michael Cole and JBL, leaving Lawler alone on commentary. The table didn’t break, however, so the match continues. Cena grabs another table from under the ring and throws it in the ring. Lawler is still alone on commentary after that last spot.
The dueling Cena chants break out again in Cleveland as Cena sets the table up in the ring. JBL re-joins Lawler on commentary now. Out of nowhere, Big Show makes his way down to the ring. He enters the ring and starts blasting Cena with punches.
Big Show signals for the chokeslam until out of nowhere, Roman Reigns’ theme song hits. Through the crowd comes the 2014 Superstar of the Year award winner. He enters the ring and starts firing away at Big Show. He nails him with a Superman punch and then spears him through a table. He then blasts Rollins with a Superman punch. Cena immediately follows that up by hitting Rollins with an A.A. through a table. The ref saw it and calls for the bell. Reigns walks off as Cena celebrates.
Winner: John Cena