Ahead of the upcoming WWE TLC pay-per-view, SiriusXM’s Busted Open Radio co-host Bully Ray recently commented on the 20th anniversary of the first-ever TLC match.
Whilst the ‘triangle’ ladder match from WrestleMania 2000 was essentially a TLC bout? SummerSlam 2000 saw the first official Tables, Ladders and Chairs match between The Dudley Boys, Edge & Christian and The Hardy Boyz.
Bully Ray on TLC Matches
“You don’t have time to think” Bully Ray began on the podcast. “Like when you’re taking a bump like I took off of the ladder that night? Or the bump that Matt [Hardy] took backwards off the ladder? The more you think, the worse it’s going to be.”
“You’ll get in your own head” Bully Ray continued, “you just want to grip it and rip it and go out there.”
Bully Ray would then discuss the extreme difficulty in putting together a TLC match, especially with 5 other performers in the bout. “A TLC match is probably the most difficult match to pull off in all of pro wrestling. And the reason is all six guys have to know the match backwards and forwards. Every step, every way. Because if one guy goes down? If something happens, if something goes wrong? Even the smallest of things? It’s going to be a dramatic chain reaction.”
Ray elaborated further, saying “everybody has to be able to fill in, everybody has to be able to improvise. You need to know where everybody is. When you come up with a match sometimes? You maybe only know the finish, and then sometimes you only know a couple spots. Some guys know the entire match. This particular match? Everybody has to know backwards and forwards, and everybody has to recite the match backwards and forwards. [Just so] all the other guys know that you got it.”
Have you seen the original TLC match? Have any others ever topped it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments
