Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship Changes Hands At Payback

Could the red and blue tag straps be turned purple come Monday?

by Scott Carlson
WWE Payback 2023 Judgment Day
WWE.com

The Judgment Day are your new Undisputed WWE Tag Team Champions, defeating best friends Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn in a wild, chaotic street fight at Payback Saturday night.

Finn Balor & Damian Priest technically are your new champs, but they entire stable got involved to tip the scales, with Dominik Mysterio and Rhea Ripley sacrificing themselves for the greater good, and even Balor ally JD McDonagh making a save at one point.

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Zayn and Owens fought valiantly, but 5-on-2 was too much to overcome. That didn't stop them from battering everyone with chairs and trash cans and putting the Judgment Day through multiple tables. In the end, it was Mysterio breaking up a pinfall and nailing Sami with the Money in the Bank briefcase that proved to be the difference-maker.

KO and Sami won the tag titles five months ago at WrestleMania 39, defeating the Usos in the main event of Night 1 in a brilliant match that ended the brothers' record-setting tag title reign at 622 days.

The Judgment Day now boasts an impressive jewelry collection, with Ripley holding the WWE Women's World Championship, Dominik with the NXT North American Championship, Finn and Damian with the tag titles, and Priest also holding the MITB briefcase.

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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.