5 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE Payback 2020

2. That Could Be A Signature Win

Keith Lee Randy Orton
WWE.com

After all the grumbling about his crappy new entrance theme and ring attire, Keith Lee’s main roster debut week ended with a hellacious bang that’s damn tough to top.

Lee had his first singles WWE PPV match against Randy Orton, and he didn’t disappoint. The Limitless One hit some of his signature spots, but it was what happened when Orton when for an RKO that caused jaws to drop.

The match was chugging along pretty well, with Lee matching Orton, but then Randy hit his Draping DDT and set up for the kill. He went for an RKO, and Lee countered into the Spirit Bomb – for the win.

It was a legit shocker for multiple reasons: Lee beat Orton, clean, in the center of the ring with a big impact move, not a rollup, small package or backslide, which is how WWE loves to have wrestlers get these “surprise” victories. Also, the match really felt like it was just hitting third gear, not at the climax. You figured Lee would power out of the RKO and they’d go another 5-10 minutes. Instead, Lee powerbombed Orton into jelly for the win.

Now, let’s hope and pray that WWE doesn’t 50/50 this to death or royally screw it up, because this was the kind of win that could launch a superstar if played correctly.

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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.