6 Ups And 8 Downs From WWE Payback 2016

3. Where Was THIS Match At Mania?

Kalisto Ryback
WWE.com

On the WrestleMania kickoff show, Kalisto and Ryback battled in a United States Championship match that was OK by most standards: inoffensive, but nothing terribly memorable. So when a rematch was announced for the Payback kickoff show, it€™s understandable if fans groaned and decided to skip it.

If you did, you should seriously seek out the match on the WWE Network and watch it. Almost as if they were offended at being relegated to the kickoff show again, Kalisto and Ryback turned things up and had fans rocking along with the match, perfectly pitting Kalisto€™s speed against Ryback€™s strength.

Kalisto countered Ryback€™s power moves with some high-flying action, but the Big Guy grounded the luchador a few times with brute strength. In the end, Kalisto got the win to defend his U.S. title, but you€™ve got to give credit to both guys for putting in a solid effort. If nothing else, they showed that they deserved to be on the PPV proper.

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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.