5 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE Payback 2020

by Scott Carlson

1. Just In Case It Wasn’t Clear

Paul Heyman Roman Reigns
WWE.com

No, Paul Heyman isn’t turning face. Roman Reigns has finally turned to the Dark Side.

Reigns sat out the first three-quarters of the Universal Championship match Sunday night, letting The Fiend and Braun Strowman beat the hell out of each other before coming out, signing the contract and essentially stealing the title by beating his already battered opponents down with a chair and spearing Braun for the win.

The move was extremely heelish, solidifying that Roman is not going to be kissing babies and winking at the camera anytime soon. Also, WWE struck at the right time, not wasting time with a lengthy arc to get back into the title picture. Reigns came back last week, elbowed his way into the championship match, and then figured out the most effective way to snatch the title.

Of course, we still need to know why, but if you were going for something news/noteworthy that might get some eyes on the WWE product at this point, this would do it. For that reason, we’ll make this an easy “up.”

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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.