10 Sweetest Examples Of WWE Payback
2. The Rhodes Less Travelled
With the unholy alliance of Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, and their figurehead Randy Orton into The Authority at SummerSlam 2013, there was a lot of weight being thrown around the WWE.
They’d screwed over Daniel Bryan, picked on Dolph Ziggler and abused the Big Show, and the latest in line was Cody Rhodes.
Placed in a match with the WWE Champion, Rhodes was told that he’d be fired if he didn’t win - and he just about came up short. The following week, Cody’s brother Dustin - aka Goldust - came back to fight for his brother’s job, but he too couldn’t quite come out on top.
At every stage, Orton, Stephanie or Triple H would stick the knife in, savouring the humiliation being heaped on the Rhodes boys. It got worse: when their legendary father, ‘the American Dream’ Dusty Rhodes called the Authority out over the matter, he was belittled, intimidated and assaulted.
His boys retaliated, and a match was made between the Rhodes brothers and two-thirds of The Shield for the Battleground pay-per-view: if they won, they’d get their jobs back… but if they lost, the Dream would be fired from his position as NXT General Manager.
It was the first time that Cody Rhodes and Goldust had ever partnered together and at Battleground, they came up trumps. The Dream fended off interference from Dean Ambrose, and Cody hit the Cross Rhodes on Seth Rollins for the win.
The family that fought together, stayed together, and the brothers earned their jobs back. In a highly charged emotional victory celebration, the locker room emptying out to congratulate them on stage.