5 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE Payback 2020

Reigns turns to the Dark Side, Corbin bores, wacky tag partners win titles.

Roman Reigns Paul Heyman
WWE.com

Oh WWE, you brought us a second PPV in a row, and then managed to roll over the low bar you set for yourself.

No one could have had high expectations for a show that came one week after SummerSlam and recycled matches we saw on Raw and SmackDown in the past two weeks, as well as a couple title matches that were thrown together at the last minute. The action was decent, but not great by any stretch.

However, people already are talking about the main event, as well as a pretty noteworthy victory for the latest NXT call-up. But that doesn’t mean fans are going to be going back to watch Payback anytime soon. It wasn’t a can’t-miss show by any stretch, just a glorified Raw/SmackDown supershow with an imploding ring. No one is going to fondly recall the PPV, though a couple moments might get some replays.

And that is the real tragedy here: even with everything working against it, Payback could have been a decent PPV with better wrestling, and another week of build to make the storylines work better, maybe not just have two Raw matches end in DQs and get rebooked for PPV. Still, there was enough happening here to merit some conversation, so let’s dive in.

Let’s get to it…

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.