WWE TLC 2019: Roman Reigns should face Baron Corbin in a stipulation match

Roman Reigns and Baron Corbin have always had bad blood between them and WWE TLC 2019 could be the right way to finish the year and finally end this rivalry.

Baron Corbin gets under everyone’s skin. I often teeter between calling him a “great heel” and a boring idiot, but there’s no debating his ability to be annoying. He and Roman Reigns clashed heads often in the build to Survivor Series despite being teammates, and The Big Dog essentially eliminated WWE SmackDown’s resident malcontent before going on to be the sole survivor of the match.

Reigns had a vintage performance at Survivor Series, outlasting brother-in-arms Seth Rollins from Raw and future superstar Keith Lee from NXT. The win sets Reigns up nicely for a monstrous 2020, and he’s a great early candidate to main event WrestleMania for the fifth time in his wrestling career.

Before he does that and begins his road to the Royal Rumble, where he’s a favorite to win the match again, he needs to finish up a feud at WWE TLC 2019 with Corbin.

There’s no way Corbin takes what Roman did to him on Sunday at Survivor Series lying down. But honestly, he had that coming. Corbin was the one who kept antagonizing Reigns with either his ridiculous “King” gimmick or his hilariously bad dog-related promo that I’d rather not rehash again.

Corbin won King of the Ring and retired Kurt Angle at WrestleMania as a way of being built into one of WWE’s top heels, and the former Money in the Bank cash-in loser has indeed reached these heights in storyline. I’m not sure most wrestling fans respect Corbin, but I guess the whole point is that he’s a manipulator with a bloated ego who deserves contempt – and not the respect that a heel like Shayna Baszler would obtain.

And Reigns will put him in his place at TLC once and for all after Corbin asks for a fight that he is simply incapable of finishing.

Corbin has always been second-rate to Reigns. Even when Reigns was busy feuding with Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania 34, he was smacking the laugh out of Corbin’s mouth. Reigns is the hero and star Corbin has always aspired to be, taking shortcuts and wearing costumes to give himself the feeling of being the best.

A Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match seems too over-the-top for a non-title feud between Corbin and Reigns, but this match definitely deserves a stipulation. It should be a big, momentum-boosting win for Reigns that lifts him in 2020 when Royal Rumble Season unofficially begins, and it should be a follow-up to his Survivor Series victory that emphatically states his return to the top.

The only way to do that is through an all-out brawl in a brutal stipulation match. Reigns is one of the best brawlers in wrestling and always delivers in big matches. And when Corbin gets to have a match with a top guy like Reigns who can match him in the size/agility departments, he usually shines, too. So a stipulation match could be a memorable TLC bout between these two, in addition to carrying a larger symbolic meaning for Reigns.