8 WWE Payback Results Predictions
Payback, with no added interest.
Amid MahalMania, in which the vast majority of the internet wrestling sodality have been swiping left and right on Jinder in equal measure, many have forgotten that there is actually a Raw PPV this Sunday night. If that isn't a big tick in favour of 'the Maharajah', I don't know what is. Guy's the talk of the industry.
Another school of thought is that it isn't just the remarkable, inexorable rise of Mahal which has diverted attention away from Raw's Payback, but rather the show's completely tepid build, which has failed to generate even the smallest scintilla of excitement. Hey, not every brand can have a Jinder Mahal.
But they can at least try to make a virtue of what they've got. With (relatively) fresh ingredients in the form of Samoa Joe, The Miz, The Hardyz, and, er, Apollo Crews, WWE could have cooked up something a little more appetising for Sunday's show. Instead - and admittedly, the PPV name does rather adumbrate this - we've been served a plate of WrestleMania leftovers, whilst not quite rotten at least starting to get a bit whiffy.
Of eight matches, five are rematches from the past two pay-per-views. It's a bit like releasing a greatest hits album after two LPs, albeit one which only takes the B-side into consideration.
They say madness is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. Things are a little different when one can directly choose the results, so hopefully we'll have a few surprises on Sunday night. If we didn't, now that would be madness.
8. The Club Drub Amore And Big Cass
Payback's pre-show is reserved for the typical throwaway tag-team tussle as Enzo Amore & Big Cass come face to face with The Club for approximately the 7000th time since the turn of the year. Without being too disrespectful to the performers involved, if this contest was nixed and WWE just made up a result, few would notice. Some might rejoice.
The outcome, then, is entirely immaterial. It's hard to believe The Club were tag-team champions going into WrestleMania. In fact, once the triumphant Hardyz held their new belts aloft in Orlando, it was hard to remember Gallows and Anderson had even been in the match. They were there to lose, and lose they did. Since then, they've fallen back to their customary preliminary position, so could probably use a win here. After all, there's another beardy duo knocking on the door of the Raw tag-division (though why they'd want in is a mystery, it's really a sort of halfway house).
Either way, it really doesn't matter: as ever, this match is nothing more than filler designed to disguise two hours of chicken and mobile app advertisements. Literally anything is less pointless than this. Throw cushions. Moss. Ironically, Richard Osman. Anything.