Every Women’s Wrestling Match in WWE TLC History
By JB Alexander
Credit: WWE.com
LayCool VS Beth Phoenix & Natalya in a Tables Match (2010)
To start with, any set of female performers having a tables match this deep into the family-friendly years of the Divas era was a major happening. LayCool had been running things for a long time as the most hated act in the Divas division, and Beth Phoenix and Natalya were capable heroines. The match was harder-hitting than you would expect from the Divas in 2010 and filled with close calls. It got a decent amount of time, too, and the audience ate it up.
The bright table with the silly, over-exaggerated likenesses of Michelle McCool and Layla El painted across it was off-putting in a way that made me think Vince McMahon probably figured we needed to offset this feminine violence with something colorful and lighthearted, but these four ladies tore it down with Natalya – who was in the midst of her criminally solo reign with the butterfly belt – launching herself off the turnbuckle to crush LayCool through the hot pink monstrosity.
Credit: WWE.com
Beth Phoenix VS Kelly Kelly for the Divas Title (2011)
Fast forward one year and suddenly Beth Phoenix and Natalya are the heels, and Beth is now the Divas Champion. The wildly popular Kelly Kelly, who would go on to become Beth’s greatest rival, would challenge the champion at the 2011 TLC in a poorly-hyped match that was almost as bad as it gets for women at the event.
Kelly will never be criticized for not trying but she could just never hang with the awesome Glamazon in the ring, and this match was particularly awkward at times. It was a boring encounter with a weird finish that saw Beth pin Kelly after some sort of reverse electric chair drop. It could have served as the women’s division’s poorest representation at TLC if it hadn’t been outdone for that honor the next year.