5 Biggest Headlines From WWE Payback 2020
SummerSlam: The Follow-Up!
Running a pay-per-view just seven days after SummerSlam seemed like an odd idea. While there's nothing wrong with following up a major card with something resembling mass closure, usually you'd wait about four weeks to unload the big time story payoffs. Stranger, Payback's card largely consisted of matches that weren't tied in with SummerSlam in any way, so it didn't exactly have that "sequel" feel to it. If anything, Payback felt more like a supplementary piece to SummerSlam, like you could almost seamlessly combine the two events into one ten or eleven match supercard.
But quibbles aside, Payback overachieved against its one week build. The early part of the event didn't exactly inspire much (King Corbin vs. Matt Riddle could be best be described as "glacially moseying"), but once they hit the killer ending to the Women's Tag Team title match, business picked up considerably. A few vivid and surprising moments went well with the "expected, but ultimately good" moments to create a respectable B-show of what felt like mostly TV-level matches.
Here are the five biggest headlines from WWE Payback.
5. The Mysterios Get Some Revenge On Seth Rollins
In what was probably the best match of the night from an excitement standpoint (as well as an athletic one), the Mysterios got a measure of revenge (Payback, even) on Seth Rollins, and Dominik scored his first ever pinfall victory, pinning Murphy following a miscue.
Rollins and Murphy had Rey set up for a buckle bomb/enzuigiri combo, but Mysterio managed to hurrachanrana Rollins into the path of Murphy's "educated foot". Dominik then took Murphy out with a 619/frog splash one-two combo, and Rollins silently expressed annoyance at Murphy afterward.
Written by Justin Henry
In addition to writing lists and commentaries for Cultaholic, Justin is also a features writer and interviewer for Fighting Spirit Magazine, and is co-author of the WWE-related book Titan Screwed: Lost Smiles, Stunners, and Screwjobs.
