The biggest winners and losers of TLC

What can you say about TLC? It was an all-around weird show in the sense that it was bloated and felt way too long, but still delivered a great experience when it counted.

A well-booked show, the final pay per view of the year got the company started off on the right foot as it heads to the Royal Rumble next month and ultimately, WrestleMania 35 in April.

Who got the most and least out of this pay per view event? Let's take a look below.

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Winner: Buddy Murphy

This match should not have been on the pre-show, and many others on the main card were inferior to it. Nonetheless, the right result was reached. Buddy Murphy won his rematch and is safely atop the 205 hierarchy heading into 2019 and WrestleMania.

It will now be open season on the purple brand to determine his next challenger and there will be a lot of reasons to keep up with the show. Murphy has completed a spectacular year, ending it as champion, as he should.

Murphy was truly one of the major winners of 2018, and this was the perfect way for him to end it.

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Winner: Elias

Though this match was far from special, it ultimately gave us the right result. Elias has far more upside right now than Bobby Lashley does. The popular minstrel can do a lot more than appear in random segments to fill time.

This was the biggest win of Elias' career. It means that he should finally start to move on to bigger things as 2019 begins. It was a long time coming.

Those who walk with Elias should watch the Intercontinental Championship scene with interest, especially after the Royal Rumble, when presumably, Seth Rollins will be out of the hunt for that title.

Losers: The New Day

The result of this match was that the status quo didn't change, as The Bar retained their titles.

It was The New Day who took the pin in the triple threat match for the SmackDown tag team titles which means that they'll be out of the title picture for the immediate future. We're heading for a feud with The Usos and The Bar, which is honestly where things in that division should be headed.

The New Day will certainly challenge for the titles again relatively soon, but it was time for them to leave the title hunt for a little while.

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Loser: Baron Corbin

With Braun Strowman still injured, WWE came up with a creative way to nevertheless get him involved in this match. Since a TLC stipulation has no disqualifications, Braun Strowman simply enlisted the help of the many people that Baron Corbin has wronged on Monday nights.

It was a nice little piece of payback.

That said, it will leave Baron Corbin somewhat directionless. That's almost a shame, because Baron Corbin has very much improved in the role he's been in, first as constable and now as GM. It isn't his fault that the writing for Raw is terrible, or that he's simply the latest in a long line of tiring heel authority figures we've seen over the years.

Winner: Rey Mysterio

Rey Mysterio's close, but still clean, victory over Randy Orton may have put him in the WWE Championship hunt, given what happened later in the night. He's currently the only major male singles babyface on SmackDown that has any momentum.

It's also still possible that Randy Orton isn't done with him, but the absence of a challenger for Daniel Bryan needs to be taken into consideration when assessing these results.

Rey Mysterio would certainly only be a filler opponent for Daniel Bryan, but the match and feud would be novel and make for a fun match. It would be appropriate for the Royal Rumble.

Mysterio doesn't solve the babyface problem that SmackDown has at the moment, but he would be a fun bridge until something more notable happens. It's certainly not a bad place for him to be in so soon after making his return to WWE.

Loser: Nia Jax

Ronda Rousey again performed admirably, carrying Nia Jax to a good match as she had done previously at Money in the Bank back in June. The contrast between Jax's power, however sloppily she executed it, and Ronda Rousey's athleticism was fun to see.

Tamina got involved in the match as was expected, and for a split second, it almost seemed like Ronda Rousey would lose the Raw Women's Championship, but logic ultimately prevailed, with Rousey giving Jax her signature armbar for a quick tapout.

Afterwards, Becky Lynch punched Nia Jax in the face backstage to get some payback from before Survivor Series. She didn't show herself later on in the night, during Lynch's pivotal match.

The result of all of this is that Nia Jax is moving down the card, as she should. Her loss is the Raw women's division's gain, however, and things should be picking up fast.

Loser: AJ Styles

Not that we didn't see this coming, but it will nevertheless be odd to see AJ Styles not in the WWE title picture.

Sure, AJ Styles only lost by a whisker in what was a great match, but a clean loss is still a clean loss. He has no room to claim another rematch at the moment.

That opens the exciting possibility that we'll see AJ Styles enter the Royal Rumble match for the first time since his WWE debut, and while he should always be considered a dark horse, he's not one of the clear-cut favorites to win the most exciting match on the WWE calendar.

We need to see where AJ Styles' fate and contract negotiations take him, but it will be out of the main event for a while, which is a scene he's dominated throughout the entirety of 2018. The NEW Daniel Bryan now reigns supreme.

Winner: Seth Rollins

What a stinker this was. The dead crowd and the placement right before the main event hurt this match, but it still disappointed regardless. For some reason, these two just didn't gel in the ring, even though we've seen notable matches between them on many different occasions. It went on way too long, for starters.

Ultimately, the result was unsurprising. Dean Ambrose walked away with the Intercontinental Championship.

In truth, this loss was the best thing that could have happened to Seth Rollins. With the Intercontinental Championship off of his shoulder, it makes him the clear odds-on favorite to win the Royal Rumble next month and bring some much-needed prestige back to what's supposedly an even higher title.

Meanwhile, Dean Ambrose can move on to other opponents in the mid-card to increase further the interest in a Raw that badly needs it heading into WrestleMania.

Winner: Asuka

The match lived up to the hype. This isn't to say that Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair were losers. Ronda Rousey's involvement in the pivotal moment set up rivalries with them in the months to come.

A triple threat match at WrestleMania now seems like the likeliest outcome, and the Royal Rumble next month is a lot more exciting because Lynch and Flair will both presumably be involved in it.

However, it goes without saying that Asuka was by far the biggest winner of the night. Now having finally captured the SmackDown Women's Championship, she has saved her year from being a burial and found her old self again. The crowd was certainly pleased with the result. Hopefully, Vince McMahon was listening.

It was a win, win, win on all counts. This was the capstone to a great second half of 2018 for the women, and they're heading into the Show of Shows with the most hype. This is what the "revolution" was always supposed to be about!