After missing out on WWE Extreme Rules, We are right back into the thick of things with WWE Payback.
The pre show match was a Hair vs Mask match featuring Hornswaggle vs El Torrito. This match featured on the WWE Network exclusively so unfortunately I couldn’t watch it. However El Torrito ended victorious meaning Hornswaggle was the victim of a head shaving live on the network. Rivalry of the year shaping up here?
United States Championship: Sheamus vs Cesaro
I had this one down for Cesaro. I thought the reason he got the US title was that he attained it prior to the UK tour and it seemed suspicious that Paige & Barrett also had belts before the tour, so chuck another European with a title.
Anyways the match itself was entertaining. Paul Heyman ever present at ringside spurring Cesaro on. There was real great spots and big hits. Cesaro finally did his swing and we did see some European uppercuts again. However after Cesaro’s swing move Sheamus quickly rolled up Cesaro unexpectedly and stole the win to retain his title. Already have a feeling this PPV could be bad after the one result.
Tag Match: Rhodes Brothers vs Rybaxl
Well this was an unwelcome surprise on the roster. Hadn’t heard this was on the card till it actually happened. I really need to pay attention to PPV’s more, but filler matches like this really put me off. In the end I was just browsing the internet on my phone while this was on. Rybaxl won and this resulted in a dramatic split up of the Rhodes brothers as after the match Cody told Goldust that he should find a better partner. What a twist [/sarcasm] (and no one in the crowd seemed to care).
Singles Match: Rusev vs Big E
Prior to the match I wasn’t really looking forward to this. I had always assumed Rusev would win as they are in the process of bigging him up as some monster. And he did just that. The entrances were pretty hilarious as Rusev came down waving the flag of Russia. Big E Countered this by coming down waving the star spangled banner, and his leatard was rather patriotic too. It felt like Rocky. The match itself was really entertaining with some excellent spots.Big E diving through the ropes onto Rusev being a highlight. Rusev connected in the ring with a massive kick which left Big E dazed. He then went on to make Big E tap out in an impressive manner. Good match, best of the night so far.
Singles Match: Bo Dallas vs Kofi Kingston – No Contest / No Winner
So here’s another filler match that no one wanted. Kofi entered the arena to next to no applause. Bo follwed with around the same volume. He did his speal about Bo-leaving, but was interupted by the Big Red Machine Kane… What the hell? Kane comes down and proceeds to attack Kofi. Bo Dallas leaves the ring and hides watching on. Kane tombstones Kofi and then leaves. Litreally there is no point to this? What is going on. Bo Dallas then enters the ring to give more of his “Bo-Leave” gimmick to what looked like an unconcious Kofi. Weird part of the night and completely pointless.
Intercontinental Title: Rob Van Dam vs Bad News Barrett
We’re in 2014, and still have RVD featuring in title matches. Sure… anyways again another entertaining match in which in fairness RVD put on a great match. There was no way that BNB was losing this, but there were moments that the 2 counts seemed rather close in RVD’s favour and given the result of the US title earlier I was starting to thing perhaps WWE were dumb enough to give the title to RVD.
A great spot out side the ring with RVD high flying off the ring onto BNB. BNB went to bullhammer RVD out of the ring, but RVD ducked and Barrett made contact with the ring pole outside. Again another worry started to kick in as how was Barrett to finish if his arms injured. No worries though as back in the ring he grinded through the pain to deliver his finisher and pick up the 3 count over RVD. Again another match that went alot better than I’d thought. Credit due to RVD, he can still stay in a match even in 2014.
Next up there was a segment where Stephanie McMahon demaned that Daniel Bryan return the WWE World Heavyweight Championship over and start again to earn it when he’s not injured, or she would fire his wife from the comapny. Bryan and Brie make their way to the ring with a good YES chant around the arena. Let’s not forget here that WWE Payback is a PPV. However thus far it had just felt like an episode of RAW, and this part only made that feeling stronger. It was like watching any episode of Monday RAW. As this was in Chicago of course you were going to get chants of CM Punk, and on cue this happened, Steph however made an incredible save and said “See Daniel, the crowd want you to quit just like CM Punk”. Give her that, she was quick on that. Daniel Bryan about to hand the titles over to save his wifes job, but Brie stops him and approaches the boss. She yells at Steph that rather than Bryan hand the title over, or her getting fired she would quit. This is then follwed up by one hell of a slap across the face of Steph. The crowd loved this.
Last Man Standing Match: John Cena vs Bray Wyatt
This fued has been going on so long, it’s as if the company forgot what the point of it was. Can you remember how at Wrestlemania, Bray Wyatt wanted to unleash John Cena’s inner demon, and Cena overcame diversity and all the odds and DIDNT use any weapons on Bray. Well apparently WWE Can’t remember this either as this match saw John Cena beat the snot out of Bray with weapons.
It was a really awesome match however, it now felt like a PPV. The Wyatt family were ringside and USO’s came out to back Cena. All out havoc commensed. Bray Wyatt put Cena through a table in the ring. Both the members of the Wyatts went through tables, each with an USO with them. John Cena threw the steel stairs at an alarming accuracy at Bray Wyatt out of the ring. It looked very impressive. Bray Wyatt caught Cena with a Sister Abigail outside of the ring. Yeah I complained the fued had been going on for ages, but this match was rather awesome. Unfortunately though it would appear that John Cena is actually worse than Hulk Hogan is and will still not put anyone over. The match went through the crowds and ended with Bray being a victom of the AA into some stage gear. Cena then pushed another box that I assume had stage equipment in onto the broken box Bray was in. And there it is the 10 count and Cena has once again defied all the odds, overcome adversity to pick up an all so important match. Fuck this company!
Divas Title: Paige vs Alica Fox
Piror to this match Alica has had some momentum built up on Raw over the weeks. So I wasn’t sure if this would be the standard squash match for Paige. I had a suspicion that they would pass the belt onto Fox. It was a good display for Fox as she practically dominated Paige. But in the end Paige picked up the victory as Fox tapped out. As like the previous weeks Fox had a bit of a moment and ran out of the arena in a very… funny fashion. Not that exciting, but yay Paige won.
No holds barred six man tag match: Evolution vs The Shield
Given the events of earlier with Bryan, Brie and Steph. One can only assume when Bryan is back his rivalry with HHH will be right back on the cards. And with the rumours that Batista is off again to promote Guardians of the Galaxy, then this would seem like Evolutions final rivalry. It should be noted that Batista probably didn’t get the memo on what to wear as he entered onto the ramp in baby blue attire, it was hilarious. Once again it was an epic match with all 6 men beating each other up at the start. Within minutes they were split up into the crowd battling each other. Eventually the match took to a normal fashion of each team either side of the ring. Dean Ambrose had one hell of a stint in the ring taking lots of punishment.
Roman Reigns found himself the victim of a triple powerbomb through the Spanish announcer table. The other 2 shield members came in for saves, but found themselves being dragged up to the stage area and then picked apart with a chair. Reigns had somehow made it back into the ring while this was happeneing. Evolution came back to the ring and dispatched of him with kendo sticks. Within minutes marks were appearing on Reigns back. No one pinned though which was odd. They dragged Reigns up to the stage area where Rollins and Ambrose were. Ambrose dove out from behind an area and swang random punches in only to be put back down. Rollins then appeared above the stage and dove onto Evolution and Reigns. The action found it’s way back into the ring and Rollins managed to pick up a pin on Batista for the first elimination.
I’d had a feeling it’d go to Reigns and HHH as the final members. But I was wrong as Ambrose delivered his finisher to Orton on a chair and picked up a pin there leaving all the memebers of the Shield and just HHH left. Orton slid a sledge hammer into the ring for the game, and as he was about to use it on Reigns, Rollins had a high spot from the top rope to hit HHH and Reigns followed it up with a spear and took the 3 count. Not the ending I’d expected.
Another good match though, so the PPV defiently picked up with the Wyatts & Shield matches. But still there will be some questions asked to the standard of the PPV when majority of what took place normally happens on WWE RAW.
Here’s hoping money in the bank picks up.
– Murr
