Dean Ambrose's TLC Celebration Shines a Light on WWE's Issues

I like Dean Ambrose. I always have. From the moment he first began showing his personality in The Shield and afterward, when the group split up, I saw something in him that I really liked. I wasn't the only one of course, as he quickly became one of WWE's most popular acts.

But the way the crowd popped when he beat Kevin Owens at TLC to win the Intercontinental Championship was just sad. It wasn't sad because of anything he had done, rather the company itself.

This was a good feud between two talented guys but that's all it was. It did not get an overabundance of air time to get over and neither man was given more spotlight than usual to get themselves over. The match was not heavily anticipated as a major WWE showdown and it was not even the semi-main event.

Yet Dean celebrated like he won his first WWE World Heavyweight Championship and the fans responded in exactly the same way.

This is not just about a popular guy that fans want to see win, this is an ongoing narrative between the fans and WWE, one that is painfully apparent to everyone watching. The crowd wants something big, they want something exciting and they want it right now.

Shawn Michaels winning the big one for the first time in 1996, Daniel Bryan becoming Mister Money in the Bank in 2011, CM Punk beating John Cena for the WWE Championship in front of his Chicago hometown; these are the moments that fans want.

WWE is in very short supply of those moments now and that's the problem.

The company just has not done enough to build its current roster. One win here and there is not enough to properly elevate anyone and at this point, virtually no one in the locker room seems to be heading toward anything substantial.

WWE is using its talent like characters on the weekly grind of a TV show instead of workers whose careers need constant monitoring so everyone has a clear direction. This cannot operate on autopilot; WWE creative must be involved and the guys in the ring must always have a destination they're moving toward.

The problem is that's not happening. Everything feels like it's at a standstill and everyone there is in a state of limbo. WWE is waiting on the return of John Cena of course so maybe that's the reason for the excruciatingly obvious level of inactivity that fans are seeing right now.

So if fans can't get those moments of drama that they so desperately crave, they will take what they can get. This is why they reacted the way they did when Ambrose won at TLC and this is probably why he reacted the way he did as well. "Make it a moment," Dean was likely told and that's exactly what he did.

Ambrose is over to a point but there has been little to no effort made to truly get him over in any meaningful way. He's very good and he's very popular but the crowd has not been properly setup to respond to him the way they did; they wanted him to win and he did. For a very brief moment, they had a moment and they treated it as such.

WWE has the capacity to create those moments again, they have the talent to do it with yet they just won't and it's beyond sad. This is about much more than just Dean Ambrose and it always will be until WWE decides to focus and build stars once again.

Ambrose can be part of the solution but WWE must first decide to fix the problem.