IF the rumors of them replacing the US belt are true... This would be the time to change it and at the SmackDown ppv have it revealed.
Wait, what? I haven't read any of these rumors, what would they even replace it with? The Smackdown Intercontinental Championship?
Anyway, Payback, I ended up watching all of it. And by "all of it", I mean I skipped through all the bs entrances, hype packages, and commercials for the Network and just watched the matches. And actually, it was really good. At least, the under-card was really good. The main events kinda sucked. But whatever, it's time for the unnecessary lengthy review!
Payback Review
Jericho/Owens II: The Fingering
Payback started off with the longest angle on the card sans maybe Wyatt/Orton kicking off the show in a match that was almost immediately better than their Mania encounter. I'm a little hesitant to out-right declare this match was better, if just for the ridiculous amount of side headlock rest hold spots that halted the matches momentum too much. But even with that one issue, the match was still an entertaining bout, loved Owens reversal to Jericho's Triangle dropkick but most importantly, I loved the story of the finger. Re-matches of Mania matches on the next PPV have been a common occurrence in WWE for ages and while on some level it's lazy writing, it presents opportunities for the wrestlers themselves to continue stories from the matches themselves. The highlight of the Mania encounter was the finger, it was essentially the climax of the match so having the re-match make that one solitary moment an integral part of the finish in the re-match, was incredibly satisfying. I do think the rest time extended itself for too long but not too bad for the longest match on the card.
Match Rating: 7/10
The Side Headlock Spot is Back, Et tu Neville?
It wasn't actually a big problem in the cruiserweight match, which was incredibly entertaining. Much like how Jericho/Owens managed to be better than their Mania encounter, Neville/Aries outdid themselves here too. The story of Aries being on top of his game and forcing the King of the Cruiserweights to struggle, was greatly told and made the finish of the match even better. Granted, a big part of the reason I like the finish is just because I can't recall another moment where a disqualification happened like that, I'm sure it has happened before but it's still a rarity that someone's disqualification came from some tossing the referee mid submission. & Aries suicide dive was awesome.
As a side note to all this, I'm really glad I didn't end up putting in predictions because this match, and the Wyatt one, are the only ones I would've gotten correctly. I thought Braun/Roman was going to end in some sort of no contest, like Braun deserved to win but it was Roman so I doubted he would. I was thinking they'd replicate the Batista/Taker finish from ten years prior, with Braun going for a Running Powerslam off the stage but Roman squirms his way out and spear both of them off. But the predictions didn't have an option for a draw/no contest so I decided not to do it.
Match Rating: 8/10
At Least Something's Broken About the Hardyz
Because Sheamus broke Jeff's tooth. Titles are hard. Anyway, this was easily match of the night, and also easy proof why the Hardyz are the best thing going on Raw today. It's hard to comment much without divulging into just praise but it was a really entertaining match with a lot of great spots. I love Jeff's bump to the outside where he 'missed' the ropes on his way down, I love the Celtic Cross off the second rope, I love how much damage the Hardyz took during the match, and I thought the finish with the Swanton during the cover was brilliant. Match of the night, easy.
Match Rating: 8/10
Iron-Man Was A Playable Character in Tony Hawk's Underground
Continuing the trend of really good matches, Alexa Bliss and Bayley put on the best match I've seen from either of the two ever. Now granted I haven't watched any of Bayley's matches on NXT so I'm sure her encounters with Sasha are as epic as everyone I've talked to claims they are but I'm fairly confident in calling this Alexa Bliss' best match. A big reason for that is for the most part, Alexa just coasts off having such a dominating heel personality throughout her matches. You could watch this match with no context and on mute, and solely through her movements you could tell that she's playing the heel. You can't do that for every match, hell, you'd probably assume Jericho was the heel watching Owens/Jericho in those circumstances, considering Jericho attempted to destroy Owens finger.
This match wasn't much different, a lot of the enjoyment came from seeing Alexa's heelish swagger as waited til the last second to get back in the ring or just generally taunting Bayley throughout the match but it also contained a lot of great spots, an excellent finish sequence, and took the title off of Bayley and gave someone other than Charlotte a history making achievement (I like Charlotte, more than Alexa but come on, the variety's nice).
Match Rating: 8/10
The House of Hilarity
This was really, really funny. For about five or so minutes, it kinda over stayed it's welcome in my opinion but the sheer amount of laughs I had during the stupid B-movie attempts like the spooky self-operating tractor or the room with the baby dolls can not be understated. Like admittedly I got bored whenever they started brawling and by the time the house's colors changed from blue to red the hokeyness had lost it's effect and was no longer funny, but I still cherished those opening moments.
Like, the room with the floating baby dolls. At first, I assumed we weren't suppose to see the strings, and were suppose to think that Bray was using Wyatt powers to make them float or something but Orton literally interacts with the dolls & string meaning that this was set-up in a human way. Meaning that Bray Wyatt, in preparation for this match, took a trip to Wal-Mart, bought a bunch of baby dolls, sharpies/make-up (to decorate them in scary ways), and string. Spending his afternoon in that room hanging them up to spook out Orton. Thinking about that was really amusing. Did WWE intend for this to be a comedy, absolutely not but that doesn't change the fact that, at least for a little while, I had fun with it.
Match? Rating: 5/10
This Was Fine But I Don't Care
Rollins vs. Joe should be a match I care about but for whatever reason, it's the only match when they announced it was next that I thought to myself "Ugh, do I really want to watch this?". The match itself turned out to be fine obviously, both are competent workers who told a fine story. I particularly like how Joe slightly altered his moves to better apply damage to the knee (key example the senton) and Seth Rollins two roll-up attempts were neat but I wasn't really engage with the bout in any meaningful way and they did nothing to change that. It felt a bit perfunctory but perhaps if you cared about the match going on then you might've enjoyed it more.
Match Rating: 6/10
Thank Yo---Oh, This House of Horrors Thing Is Still Going On?
So apparently when you skip around to just watch the matches you miss out on pertinent information like the match will be concluding in the arena. This segment was awful. Easily, the worst of the two halves. It begins with Wyatt entering the arena assuming victory but no, Randy Orton teleported to the arena because Orton can do that now, and he took a shower first because he was glistening yet in the House of Horrors before refrigerator drop, his back was covered in dirt. Anyway, Orton Bray Wyatt's himself into the ring and proceeds to do the one thing Bray Wyatt never can, destroy someone in the ring. Orton annihilates Wyatt until the little Singh Siblings interrupt to play with Daddy Orton, and we then witness child abuse. Wyatt capitalizes by doing the one thing Wyatt never fails to do, and that's to fail to capitalize, instead the Eater of Worlds eats an RKO. However instead of covering him, Orton gets up and does that weird mouth tongue thing before the love child of The Great Khali and Muhammad Hassan beat Daddy with Daddy's belt. Finally against all odds, Wyatt wins the match with the Sister Abigial while staring directly into the souls of never hinder tinder Jinder knowing that he only won because of a guy who's won three matches since returning in 2016.
As you could probably tell by that rundown I didn't love this. Outside of James Ellsworth, I can't recall the last time someone looked this weak in victory. Wyatt couldn't even win his own specialty match without an entire stable coming to his rescue. I'm glad Wyatt won but it did it have to be in the least convincing way possible. At the very least, I'm glad Bray only needed one Sister Abigail to defeat Orton but even the finisher doesn't look that strong when you take into consideration that Orton was damaged from having a refrigerator dropped on him.
Rectified Match Rating: 3/10
Thank You Braun Strowman
If you paid any attention to the preamble, you already know I don't think highly of this match. What I do think highly of is the fan reaction to Braun Strowman, it's amazing, and the fact that Braun one. As for the match itself, meh. It accomplished what it needed to do and Roman selling something so thoroughly was nice to see and I liked that Samoa Drop spot but ultimately, this encounter was just kinda boring.
Match Rating: 5/10
Show Rating: 6.4/10
Rankings
PPV's
I. Payback ~ 6.4/10
II. WrestleMania 33 ~ 6.1/10
Matches
I. WWE Title, John Cena vs. AJ Styles (c): Royal Rumble ~ 10/10
II. WWE Title, Bray Wyatt vs. AJ Styles vs. The Miz vs. Dean Ambrose vs. Baron Corbin vs. John Cena (c), Elimination Chamber: Elimination Chamber ~ 9/10
III. Raw Tag Team Titles, Sheamus & Cesaro vs. The Hardy Boyz (c): Payback ~ 8/10
IV. CW Title, Austin Aries vs. Neville (c): Payback ~ 8/10
V. Raw Women's Title, Alexa Bliss vs. Bayley (c): Payback ~ 8/10
VI. Raw Women's Title, Charlotte Flair vs. Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax vs. Bayley (c): WrestleMania 33 ~ 8/10
VII. Universal Title, Brock Lesnar vs. Goldberg (c): WrestleMania 33 ~ 8/10
VIII. AJ Styles vs. Shane McMahon: WrestleMania 33 ~ 8/10
IX. CW Title, Jack Gallagher vs. Neville (c): Fastlane ~ 8/10
X. US Title, Chris Jericho vs. Kevin Owens (c): Payback ~ 7/10
Monthly reminder that my show ratings are not weighted. And believe it or not, this Payback got the highest score of any PPV I ever reviewed on here, but like .1 (replacing Payback from 2013) but still, good show WWE. The reason only Payback & Mania are ranked is simply because those are the only two PPV's I saw fully, and as a note on the match rankings, these were decided right now, meaning that a lot of the match placement could change depending on when I think about it. And also, the match ranking only contains PPV matches.
