6 Ups And 8 Downs From WWE Payback 2016

Ups

6. Channeling His Inner Punk

ryback payback
WWE.com

You have got to give Ryback credit for not being afraid to invoke the Second City Saint in his hometown. Talk about courting danger.

Knowing that he was playing the big, bullying heel, Ryback made himself public enemy #1 in Chicago Sunday by walking out and immediately dropping to a knee and doing the same imaginary drawing in the sand and looking at his watch that CM Punk used to do before every match. The only thing the Big Guy didn€™t do was yell, €œIt€™s clobberin€™ time!€

When you consider that Punk spewed a ton of venom at Ryback in a podcast nearly two years ago for being an unsafe worker (and alleging that he was on steroids), Ryback openly mimicking (and somewhat mocking) the Straight Edge Superstar in his hometown was a pretty bold move. It guaranteed that he was going to get booed, and that worked pretty well for his character and the match itself.

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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.