5 Ups And 7 Downs From WWE Payback 2017

3. Strange Booking

seth rollins payback
WWE.com

The contest between Seth Rollins and Samoa Joe felt like an underwhelming bout between two men that should have been a bigger deal.

After all, Joe nearly cost Rollins a second consecutive WrestleMania, while Joe also was a pupil of Triple H’s and was more likely to take liberties with Seth in light of his successes at Mania. Joe worked on Rollins’ knee, while Rollins recovered enough to avoid Joe’s onslaught and squeaked out a win.

What made this odd was the lack of forward direction coming from this. Joe was undefeated in singles matches. Rollins had just beaten Triple H at Mania. So what is supposed to come next for either man? Will Joe go after Balor? Will Rollins pursue a match against Brock Lesnar for the WWE Universal Championship?

Just an off booking decision, all things considered.

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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.