5 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE Payback 2020

4. Just A Show

It’s a strange statement to call a PPV where three titles change hands and a recent NXT call-up defeats a 13-time world champion “just a show,” but it’s hard to consider Payback a memorable, meaningful PPV.

Yes, stuff happened there, but the matches were average at best. Two of the title changes were predictable as hell (United States and Universal Championships). Two of the matches were essentially restarts from Raw last week, and another was a SmackDown rematch from two episodes ago. There was next-to-zero build for this show, which came a week after SummerSlam, so everything just felt like a retread or a continuation, not a culmination.

Sure, the buzz will be about Keith Lee defeating Randy Orton, and Roman Reigns completing his heel turn, and that might be all WWE was after here. But couldn’t they have accomplished the same thing and spiked ratings a bit in the process? Why did we need a PPV here?

So while a couple elements of the show might live on, don’t expect anyone to talk fondly about Payback 2020 after the next few weeks.