Before it aired I said that
Payback seemed like a predictable show. I felt that the majority of the matches
on the card had obvious outcomes and WWE had left themselves with few
opportunities to surprise us. I was proven right. With one notable exception every
outcome on the card was either obvious or so inconsequential that nobody could
be expected to care about it.
That didn’t make it a bad show.
Actually I rather enjoyed it.
The evening kicked off with a
spirited pre-show battle between Sheamus and Damien Sandow. ‘The Duke of
Decency’ was permitted to look far more competitive than I’d expected but he
still lost. Had the match taken place on the main show more people may have
been convinced that Sandow would score the upset. Putting them on the pre-show
made the outcome pretty clear.
The pay-per-view proper opened
with a well-made but overly long video recapping the lead disputes for the
show. It could have achieved the same result in half the time.
Payback’s opening match was for
the Intercontinental title. Miz, the lone babyface in the triple threat, was
met with boos when he entered the arena. Curtis Axel received a handful of
cheers that quickly turned to half-hearted boos before the audience fell
silent. Wade Barrett was met with almost total silence. It was disheartening to
see and hear such a lack of interest in three men that should be over with fans.
It’s WWE’s fault for not doing enough with them.
The match was very enjoyable,
although it did feature some gargantuan gaps where one of the three men was
written out to let the others clash without them. The audience took a while to
warm to it but when they did they stayed interested. I think they would have
appreciated Fandango’s involvement. They seemed like that sort of crowd.
The victory eventually went to
Axel. He got a convincing near fall several minutes before the finish with a
Perfectplex but it was ultimately a far more unique move that got him the gold:
he pinned Barrett as he was trapped in ‘The Awesome One’s’ figure four leg
lock. Perhaps that will make Miz stop using the hold. I doubt it though.
The audience reacted loudly to
Axel winning his first singles title (he’s been a tag champ before, alongside
the mighty David Otunga). That lifted my spirits regarding WWE’s star making
process.
A video was shown reminding us
that Mark Henry will return on RAW. It featured him squashing enhancement
talent and roaring his catchphrases. The guy’s been gone a month. Does he
really require a return video?
Backstage Vince McMahon
congratulated Paul Heyman and Curtis Axel on the Intercontinental title match,
moments after Heyman told Axel that it was the greatest IC strap match ever.
That was clearly rubbish. Triple H was there too, blocking Axel’s path like a
school bully with an ASBO. After Heyman and his charge left Vince asked ‘The
Game’ how he felt about his upcoming match with Curtis Axel. ‘The Cerebral
Assasin’ said he’s not feeling it one bit.
Match two was the Divas title
match. Kaitlyn got a decent reaction but AJ got a better one. That was to be
expected. AJ has been presented as the company’s top female star for around
eighteen months now. Kaitlyn and her championship have been presented as
afterthoughts for years.
The match was good. It wasn’t
on the level of TNA’s Knockouts division or something from SHIMMER but it was
certainly far better than anything we’ve seen from the WWE Divas in a long
while. The crowd were silent for most of the bout but that was probably because
years of booking have taught viewers to treat the Divas matches as breaks. In
fairness WWE did try to combat that by placing the match early on the show,
where the crowd could still be expected to be hot.
AJ won the championship clean
with her Black Widow submission hold. Kaitlyn held out for a while but couldn’t
make her way out of the hold and had to submit. A point that I’m sure will be
revisited in the storyline is that Kaitlyn had the match won after a spear but
chose to pull AJ up and mock her instead of going for a pin. Plot-wise it’s
that mistake that’s credited with costing her the match.
AJ Lee finally gets the Divas title win she's deserved since last year
Following the loss Kaitlyn moped
in the ring. The crowd chanted “You just tapped” at her. She left the ring
crying. That caused boos. Layla (yeah, I know, random right?) appeared in the
aisle to console her. That only enflamed the boos. This treatment did Kaitlyn
no favours at all. Presenting her as a whiney sore loser is not going to
encourage fans to warm to her.
Josh Mathews was then shown in
his luxury skybox. He’d presented the pay-per-view’s pre-show from there
alongside Big Show, R-Truth and Cody Rhodes. They were all still with him, and
had a spirited discussion about the two matches they’d just seen. Truth got on
with the heels fine, despite being a face. There also appeared to be no bad
blood between Cody and Show, even though they humiliated each other last year.
Bill watts would not have approved of
this.
The three wrestlers essentially
said nothing but were entertaining nevertheless. I think these expert panels of
WWE wrestlers would be a great show in their own right.
"That United States
championship is one of the most important championships in sports
entertainment" said JBL in the early moments of the Dean Ambrose v Kane
match. It’s arguably WWE’s most worthless title, so I have no idea what ‘The
Wrestling God’ was wittering on about. Maybe a Wikipedia entry said it’s a prestigious
belt, that’s where JBL seems to get all his information from.
Their match was not as dynamic
as the one they had on RAW. Ambrose worked over ‘The Big Red Machine’s’ leg
before they rumbled out to ringside and Kane got dropped with a DDT. Ambrose
won by count out.
That was followed by a
surprise: a video informing us that Rob Van Dam will return to WWE at Money in
the Bank. The crowd loved that. They would be chanting RVD throughout most of
the evening’s remaining matches.
I was struck by how old most of
the clips were. It brought home how long it’s been since Van Dam was full time
with WWE. He’s slowed down considerably since then. If you’ve not seen much of
him in TNA you may be disappointed with the weight RVD’s put on and the slower
speed he works at these days. Presumably he’ll be in a ladder match competing
for a briefcase at MITB. I doubt he’ll win, but he might.
Match four was Dolph Ziggler’s
defence of the World Heavyweight championship against Alberto Del Rio. Ricardo
was great at working the crowd for ADR. Without him it would be have been quiet
as the challenger made his entrance. Ziggler didn’t have that problem. The
crowd went nuts for him.
The enthusiasm for ‘The Heel’
continued throughout the ring introductions and into the match itself. The
crowd let rip with a “Let’s go Ziggler!” chant in the early going, cheering his
offence and reacting with either disinterest or hostility to Del Rio’s.
Big E got ejected fairly early
after being tricked into a shoving match with ‘The Essence of Excellence’. The
point of that was to write Langston out of proceedings, which was a necessity
as Ziggler would be on sell duty for the evening. Having Langston out there not
interfering would have looked odd so it made sense for him to go backstage.
ADR targeted ‘The Show Off’s’
head. We were reminded several times by Cole and JBL (Lawler is excused from
advancing stories because he’s no good at it) that Ziggler had suffered a
concussion that kept him from competing for over a month. The story quickly
became clear: Alberto Del Rio was being absolutely ruthless and exploiting an
obvious weakness while Ziggler battled on refusing to give up.
The longer it went on the more
obvious it became that we were seeing a double turn taking place. Fans were
encouraged to root for Ziggler as he spent the entire match selling and telling
medical staff that he was fine to continue. Del Rio exhibited some of his old
cockiness and arrogance as he booted Ziggler in the head over and over again.
How can you not feel for Dolph Ziggler?
When Ziggler made a surprise
comeback with a kick to the knee and a Zig Zag I thought he’d win on a fluke
rollup. It wasn’t to be. Del Rio was up to his feet first and floored a
kneeling ‘Show Off’ with a superkick to win the match and the championship.
Del Rio posed and swaggered
about in the ring like a heel as Ziggler lay on the mat looking dejected. The
new champion left ringside first. Ziggler got a standing ovation and heard his
name chanted by the crowd. When Del Rio was shown up at the entrance holding
his prize aloft he was met with blistering heat.
It was an incredibly successful
double turn.
Up in his luxury skybox Josh
Mathews asked Show, Rhodes and Truth about what they’d just seen. They talked
about ADR being like a shark, commenting that you could see ruthlessness in his
eyes during the match. I think the three of them should write poetry. I bet it
would be sublime.
They were interrupted by Del
Rio re-entering the arena with a microphone. He asked Chicago to give it up for
the new World Heavyweight champion. He said he’d proved why he deserved to be
the champ and asked not just the people of Chicago but the people of the entire
world to lend him their support, because he competes for the fans. After the
performance he’d entered, he told us, he felt like he had earned the championship.
It felt like an impromptu promo
to capitalise on the reaction he'd had. If it was it was the right call. Del
Rio was almost drowned out by boos. It established him as the bad guy.
Chris Jericho got a nothing
reception when he entered for his match with CM Punk. The crowd were neither
rooting for him nor booing him as the foe of their beloved Punk. They chanted
for Punk as soon as Jericho's music shut off. ‘The Second City Saint’ got a
loud reaction when he finally entered (still to the strains of Cult of
Personality) alongside Paul Heyman. The crowd were really into him. Or maybe
they just approved of his new Wolverine-esque mutton chops.
I was not impressed with their
display. The first half was fine, if a little slow, but they tried to pack far
too much in to the latter half and went overboard on finishers. Punk hit the
GTS at least three times (he hit the move twice to end the match for some
reason), ‘Y2J’ locked in the Walls of Jericho three or four times, Punk milked
a Macho Elbow for ages, and the Codebreaker was used at least one time too
many. These two guys need to stop believing their own hype about having classic
matches, pace things better, and make better use of their finishers.
One of the many times the Walls of Jericho was applied during the match
The match included a rather
confusing moment where Heyman appeared to distract Punk by climbing up the
stairs onto the apron. Neither Heyman or Punk made it clear with their body
language or facial expressions what was supposed to be happening and the
commentary team failed to elaborate (meaning they failed in one of their key roles).
It was presumably meant to hint at a break up of Heyman and Punk. It did a
lousy job.
The evening’s penultimate bout
was the tag team championship match. Defending champions Roman Reigns and Seth
Rollins were booed when they entered the ring. It’s good that they can draw
that sort of reaction from an entrance. The Shield have been one of WWE’s big
success stories of the last few years. Randy Orton and Daniel Bryan were both
met with cheers when they entered the arena. The crowd went crazy for Bryan,
bathing him with “Yes!” chants.
The match was one of the best
of the evening. In a change from the regular format it was ‘The Viper’ who got
isolated in order to set up a hot tag to ‘The World’s Toughest Vegan’. Bryan
came in with a series of drop kicks and charges. The inevitable miscue occurred
when Bryan went for a suicide dive to his foes, only for them to move and leave
Orton to take the move in their place.
Back in the ring Orton dodged a
Reigns spear, leaving Bryan to take the move full force. Reigns was eliminated
with an RKO, but Bryan got pinned after a Black Out from Rollins. The champs
celebrated as Bryan lolled about looking depressed (or maybe angry, the beard
makes it hard to tell). ‘The Apex Predator’ left in disgust.
Justin Roberts spent a
metaphorical eternity explaining the rules for the main event. It really
shouldn’t have taken as long as it did.
The lumberjacks were out first.
All of the company’s big names were excused the duty, with the exception of
Sheamus. I have no idea why he was included in what was clearly a mid-card
role. Perhaps the decision’s been taken to de-push him to teach him some
humility. He’s probably really arrogant backstage. He looks the type.
The first fall was dull. It was
essentially a regular match, neither man’s strength, broken up with
intermittent bouts of ringside brawling. The highlight was watching the
reactions of the lumberjacks to the action. They were more animated than any
member of the audience. Particularly amusing were Miz and Sweet T. The fans
amused themselves with an RVD chant.
‘Big Hungry’ won the fall after
a huge brawl erupted at ringside and Cena stupidly (but impressively) launched
hismelf off the top rope into the fray. Both men got wiped out during the
battle and were eventually tossed back into the ring. Moments later Ryback got
a Shellshock on Cena for the pin.
Was it Cena under the Rey Mysterio mask all along?
The lumberjacks quickly made
their way backstage as Ryback grabbed a table from under the ring. He tried for
a power bomb, which would have won him the championship, but Cena slipped out. ‘The
Franchise’ was speared to the mat moments later.
More tables were introduced
along with the metal ring steps. Ryback unveiled a new move: chucking the steps
around like a psychopath. His aim proved off whenever he lobbed the steps
because, y’know, that would have hurt Cena for
real. Doing things like that only harm the suspension of disbelief, not
that Ryback or Cena care about something as trivial as match quality.
Cena got the fall when he
slipped out of a Shellshock attempt and easily lifted Ry’ up to AA him through
a table. Ryback no sold the AA like a trooper, springing up almost immediately
and throwing Cena outside the ring. There he power bombed him through the
announce desk. The crowd chanted for him to do it again. He didn’t.
The two brawled up to the
ambulance parked at the entrance and proceeded to rip parts off it to belt each
other with. “Talk about a drive-by” quipped Michael Cole as Ryback was Irish
whipped through a car door. In kayfabe terms that could have quite literally
killed Ryback. That Cole, along with JBL and ‘The King’, was cracking jokes
killed the atmosphere of what was a very intense performance from both men.
After Ryback had torn another
piece of the ambulance off and hit Cena with it Cena decided the only logical
thing for him to do would be to climb on top of the vehicle. Ryback grabbed a
crutch and followed him. Cole said two men (one in jorts and one in a singlet)
battling atop an ambulance with a crutch was like something from a Bond movie.
It wasn't. You have to wonder what makes Cole say some of these things.
After a brief tussle over
Ryback’s crutch Cena scooped his opponent up and casually AAed him through the
roof, gaining the win.
Cena went back to the ring to roar at the hard camera and hold his belt. The
siren started playing. Sadly nobody in the crowd reacted as if Scott Steiner
was making a surprise return to become Cena's next challenger. I would’ve
marked out for that.
No, the siren indicated Ryback was being driven out of the arena a defeated,
and presumably still hungry, man. I think it’s safe to say that Ryback doesn’t rule: that was his eighth
straight non-win on pay-per-view. Cena did the you can't see me thing as he
watched the vehicle leave then shook and slapped hands at ringside as the show
went off the air.
The headline bout was a
spirited performance. Cena does his best work in these kinds of matches and
Ryback seems better suited to them as well. I assume their programme is now at
an end. I can’t see how Ryback can justifiably be granted a third match with
Cena after such a convincing loss. I also can’t imagine many people paying to
watch such a match.
Payback was a very good show.
The main event, the tag title match, and the Divas match were all very good,
and the triple threat match was decent despite its flaws. We also got a superb
story told in the WHC title match. If Dolph Ziggler ends up turning face that
could be what this event is best remembered for.
