WWE Payback 2017 is now a part of history. While not a terrible show by any means, there were still some very questionable booking decisions and a few surprise moments, some more welcome than others. Here are 10 questions from WWE Payback that most need answering
#1 Is Jericho the G.O.A.T?
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In an industry like Professional Wrestling, it’s often very tempting to throw around phrases like ‘best of all time’. After Rick Flair’s retirement at Wrestlemania 24, people were pegging that particular moniker on him straight away. Two years later when HBK was retired at the hands of The Undertaker, Shawn seemed to take Flair’s place almost immediately. This year at Mania we saw Undertaker himself wrestling his final bout, and the same accolades came flooding in.
Of course, it is all a matter of perspective, and this is by no means a rhetorical question. But looking back over the career of Y2J it’s difficult not to include him in the conversation. His most recent run, first as the comical heel character then as a sympathetic babyface has shown us all just how good Jericho is. Even in his early days at WCW, he was being spoken about in a different light to the rest.
Jericho’s performance at Payback reminded us that on his best day he is probably the most versatile individual on the roster. Just a few months ago, he was a believable heel, stabbing AJ Styles in the back. He is now the most over babyface in the company. Surely, this is enough to put him up there with the greats.
#2 Will Jericho be better for SmackDown than Kevin Owens?
Probably the upset of the night came during the bout between former best friends, Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho. Most of us assumed that KO was destined for SmackDown long term, considering the feud between him and AJ Styles looked like it had already started. To our surprise, it is Jericho who won back his US title and will be joining the Tuesday night team this coming week. The question is, was this a good move on WWE’s part?
Fans were understandably excited about the prospect of Owens joining the likes of Styles, Sami Zayn and Nakamura on SmackDown. The matches between the four of them could prove legendary. However, it is not as if SmackDown will be getting just anybody. Chris Jericho is still every bit as capable of putting on 5-star matches, and probably has the edge on KO in terms of mic skills as well. What really puts Jericho ahead of the Face of America, however, is his experience.
Nakamura, Styles and Zayn have all been around a long time, but are still rookies when it comes to the WWE. KO doesn’t exactly have the ability to mentor any of them at this point in his career, as he is still trying to make a name for himself as a WWE guy. Jericho can take the other superstars on SmackDown under his wing and get the most out of an impressive-looking roster. Let’s hope he sticks around long enough to face Nakamura at least once, because you know that’s a match-up you want to see.
#3 Will a heel turn do anything for Cesaro?
Much less of a surprise was the heel turn we witnessed at the end of the Raw Tag Team Title match between Sheamus and Cesaro and the Hardy Boyz. There has been little bits of animosity building between the teams over the last few weeks on Raw, and if anyone were going to turn heel here, it would have to be Sheamus and Cesaro.
The only worry for Cesaro fans is that this seems like a bit of a demotion. People love to cheer for Cesaro, and most think he deserves better than the tag team title scene. It’s hard to see how a heel turn is going to help him reach any higher on the card than he currently is. Instead, the next few months will see him in that awkward limbo phase where he’s trying his best to come across as a villain but just gets cheered wherever he goes.
At the moment fans will probably be more behind the Hardys, and Sheamus will be able to soak up most of the heel heat. But when this feud is done, there aren’t going to be many on the roster that are more liked than the Swiss Superman. It all just feels a little unnecessary, but let’s hope I’m wrong.
Also read: Best and Worst of WWE Payback 2017
#4 How long will Alexa hold the Raw Women’s Title?
You can’t exactly fault the in-ring action coming out of the Raw Women’s division. 2016/17 was a real turning point for female wrestling, with superstars like Charlotte, Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch and Bayley going at it.
One thing fans were unhappy about is the fact that for most of the year the title itself was getting the ‘hot potato’ treatment, with a new winner almost every month. Even when Bayley won the big one against Charlotte before Wrestlemania, it felt a bit too rushed, as if the feud hadn’t been able to mature enough. There was never that period of stability where one woman could hold the belt and see off several competitors.
Now than Alexa Bliss is the Raw women’s champion, one would hope she is at the beginning of a long, consistent reign. The WWE are obviously very keen on Alexa right now, having made her the first woman to hold both women’s titles. Bayley will no doubt get her rematch, possibly at the next PPV, and then it’ll be time for Sasha and Nia Jax to challenge. The worst thing they could do now is to just throw the belt around one of the other women before Alexa has been able to build her character around it.
#5 Why didn’t Samoa Joe just get the win?
The ending to the Samoa Joe Vs Seth Rollins match felt too much like the bad habits of WWE on display. Somewhere along the way, the WWE appeared to have forgotten that the best way to build a feud is to have the heel go over a few times before the babyface finally gets his revenge. This kind of booking allows feuds to continue with an actual purpose.
If people want to see Seth Rollins get his own back on Joe for injuring his knee, why did he have to achieve it at the first time of asking? No doubt there will be at least another match between these two, but if Seth has already got payback, what’s the point?
You could tell WWE were trying their best to keep Joe looking strong as it was a bit of a fluke win in the end. But if they were this concerned about how Joe would come across, surely the easier course of action would have been to have him go over. A loss at this point wasn’t exactly going to hurt Rollins, especially considering he’s still riding the wave of beating HHH at mania. Sometimes the WWE just doesn’t learn.
Also read: 5 Botches, slip-ups and outrageous moments from WWE Payback 2017
#6 Is the House of Horrors match the worst thing the WWE has ever done?
As much as we all love Vince McMahon and his company, even the most ardent fans will admit the WWE puts out some awful material from time to time. Payback 2017 might have seen the worst of them all, however, with Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt meeting in a House of Horrors match.
In the beginning, hopes were relatively high; this looked like it was going to be WWE’s version of the Final Deletion match between Matt and Jeff Hardy over on TNA. It was nice to see a match happen outside of the area, and there were parts of the bout that reminded me of the Boiler Room Brawl between Mankind and Undertaker in 1996. However, as the match progressed, we soon came to realise that today’s WWE just can’t be trusted to try anything too different, especially when it comes to the Wyatt family.
First of all, Bray Wyatt managed to escape from his own house after burying Orton under his fridge (what even is professional wrestling?). Bray then gets in the limo parked outside and tells the driver to go to the area. Was this Bray’s great revenge on Orton after having his house burnt down and losing the WWE Championship? After all, Orton has put him through, the best way to re-establish your dominance and credibility isn’t to get to the ring before your opponent so you can win by ‘forfeit’.
And then to make matters worse, the match finishes because of interference from Jinder Mahal. If the point of this match was to showcase Bray’s ability to scare his opponents and play mind games with them, why did it take Randy Orton’s future Opponent for the WWE Title to help Bray win? This made no sense and meant that the whole concept of the House of Horrors match was basically meaningless.
#7 How did Orton get to the arena at the same time as Bray?
Just for fun, we can collectively speculate as to how Randy Orton managed to free himself from the fridge and arrive at the arena in time to meet Bray Wyatt in the ring. Let us not forget that Bray jumped into the car in order to reach the ring and, and as far as we can tell, the only vehicle option available to Orton was a tractor.
Either Orton decided to take the only means available to him and race back to the arena on Bray’s tractor (It must have been a relatively speedy tractor if so)! or else the second option was that it was Orton himself driving the car that took Bray to the arena in the first place. This would have meant Orton somehow sneaking past Bray, throwing the original driver out of the car without Wyatt noticing and driving the whole way back to the ring disguising himself under a chauffer’s hat.
This is probably a case of me overthinking something again, but if nothing else, it does highlight how weak the story telling was here, and how little the creative team seem to care about making Bray Wyatt a genuinely compelling character.
#8 Did Strowman’s victory disrespect The Undertaker’s legacy?
One of the many issues with ending Undertaker’s streak at Wrestlemania 30 was that the winner, Brock Lesnar, couldn’t lose a match clean for quite some time. Having somebody beat Lesnar a few months after becoming the ‘1 in 21-1’ would have made breaking the streak look like an everyday occurrence. The WWE, to their credit, turned Lesnar into an unstoppable monster that made you genuinely believe nobody could beat him.
Roman’s victory over Taker this year at Mania didn’t carry the same amount of weight and importance, but Reigns did still become only the second man to beat Taker at Mania in 25 years of asking. This should have perhaps given Reigns a similar amount of prestige, helping to portray him as an unstoppable monster. Instead, the WWE seem to be trying their best to evoke sympathy for the big dog, having him beaten down by Braun Strowman on Raw a few weeks ago and now losing to him at Payback.
For a man who has just retired the Phenom, it all feels a bit too soon to have him losing clean at a throwaway PPV, especially to somebody unproven like Strowman. True, it might have made the fans feel good temporarily, but in the long run, I think this will prove itself to be a bit of a mistake.
#9 Are Wrestling fans too severe on Roman Reigns?
If WWE is indeed trying to help Reigns get over as a babyface by evoking sympathy out of the WWE universe, it clearly didn’t work last night. Roman received the typical boos during the match, and after it, when Braun decided to beat him some more. ‘Thank you, Strowman’ chants were echoing around the area to close off the night, meaning Vince must have been sitting back there thinking, what the hell do I need to do to win these people over?
When you remove all of the kayfabe from the situation, the whole thing starts to look a bit ugly. Here is a man in Roman Reigns who was handpicked to be the next top guy in the WWE. Through no fault of his own, he was given the sorts of opportunities a particular section of the audience thought others deserved more.
At the end of the day, this is a man’s livelihood we’re talking about. It looks like Reigns will never get to be the next John Cena because the fans just won’t accept him, or they have just gotten so used to booing the guy that they don’t know any different.
Coupled with the fact that the man’s brother recently died, and you have to ask yourself what is wrong with people? Couldn’t the boos have been put to one side just for tonight? Couldn’t Roman’s real life heartache have given him at least one match worth of respect and adulation?
#10 Did Payback need Brock Lesnar?
One thing is for certain when it comes to WWE, some people are subject to its rules, and others are not. Lesnar is someone with a questionable history when it comes to the wellness policy, but he hasn’t received the same amount of warning as guys like Orton or Roman Reigns. He appears to hold the enviable status of being above Vince’s judgement altogether.
Another rule that doesn’t seem to apply to Lesnar is the 30-day period in which the belt must be defended. After this time is up, the champion is supposed to relinquish their championship and therefore make it vacant.
Lesnar, of course, was nowhere to be seen last night, and fans are just asked to accept this as a fact of life. But was Lesnar’s absence a good or a bad thing for Payback 2017?
On the one hand, you can always benefit from having the star power of somebody like Brock Lesnar on the top of the billing. His match at Mania felt like a one-off showcase between two ageing part timers anyway, and it’s probably time fans were given something new and fresh when it comes to the Universal Title. Having somebody like Balor regain his Universal title from Lesnar to close out the show might have been the ending we all needed and wanted.
However, there is something to be said for making Lesnar that unique attraction you don’t always see every month, Now that Taker has seemingly retired, WWE need that kind of star to show up now and again and cause a big shock appearance.
Back in the day, it was seen as a real privilege to watch the champion defend his belt, and having a PPV every month does over saturate it somewhat. Maybe keeping the Universal Title off television isn’t the worst thing the WWE could do right now. Either way, there’s no guarantee we’ll be seeing it anytime soon.
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