2. Pay-Per-View-A-Palooza
While Payback delivered several solid matches and managed to not be offensive (save really for the pre-show), it sadly will be forgotten almost immediately, as WWE has to begin building up to Elimination Chamber in two weeks. While seeing the Elimination Chamber make a return is welcome, jumping straight into another PPV so soon leaves little to no time to actually digest what happened at Payback. In fact, when you consider that Money in the Bank will take place two weeks after Elimination Chamber, it will be four WWE PPVs in a seven-week span. Throw in the King of the Ring special too and youve got five events (and that doesnt even count NXT Takeover: Unstoppable). Its nearly impossible to become invested in the outcome of one event when theres another literally around the corner. On the one hand, its good to see WWE take advantage of the Network for stuff like King of the Ring and Elimination Chamber, but bunching stuff up like this could very easily lead to fan burnout and apathy.
Scott Carlson
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.
See more from
Scott