Last Night, WWE hosted its kind of Raw-exclusive Pay-Per-View, Payback. Overall, the show was pretty solid. The House of Horrors Match was as hokey and wacky as expected, Alexa Bliss captured the Raw Women’s Championship, Braun Strowman destroyed Roman Reigns again, and Chris Jericho fooled everyone by regaining the United States Championship. Out of everything, though, what were the high points and what were the low points of the show?
The Best
Alexa Bliss Makes History
When Bayley won the Raw Women’s Championship, it was a long time coming. Fans were anticipating when the Hugger would dethrone Charlotte, and when she did, it was a great moment. However, her championship reign was a subpar compared to expectations, and it seemed like it was time for things to freshen up. Alexa Bliss winning the belt here was the perfect solution.
Bliss is the only woman to have held the SmackDown and Raw Women’s Championships, and she is exactly the champion that Raw needs right now. Over the past year, SmackDown was generally received to have the better Women’s Division, which leaned heavily on its character development, while Raw had unexciting stories but the better in-ring talent. Bliss helps elevate Raw’s Women’s Division by being the best female talker in the company who can always keep a feud interesting.
Sheamus and Cesaro Change Their Attitudes
After reluctantly becoming a tag team, Sheamus and Cesaro have formed a pretty strong friendship. While their relationship as a team continues to develop, they have seemed to be treading water for the past several months. They dethroned the New Day’s record-setting Raw Tag Team Championship title reign, but they only held the belts for a month. Since then, they have come close to regaining the belts on several occasions, but they could never get it done.
At Payback, Sheamus and Cesaro suffered yet another loss in a championship match and they’d had enough. While the Hardy Boyz celebrated their win, Sheamus and Cesaro attacked them from behind and laid waste to the highly decorated tag team. They have always been a good team, but this helps add another layer to their characters that they’ve been lacking.
Neville Barely Retains the Cruiserweight Championship
At WrestleMania 33, Neville defended the Cruiserweight Championship against Austin Aries. He seemed to be on the brink of losing when he poked Austin Aries in the eye and cheated to win. Unfortunately for the King of the Cruiserweights, Aries regained his spot as #1 Contender and challenged for the championship yet again at Payback.
Neville has not lost an important singles match since his return in December, and he was desperate to keep his championship last night. While Neville did lose the match, they way he did it kept the Cruiserweight Championship in his hands. While Austin Aries locked in the Last Chancery (which almost forced Neville to tap out at WrestleMania), Neville grabbed the referee and pulled him to break the submission. Since Neville put his hands on the referee, he would lose the match, but keep his championship.
The Worst
Braun Strowman Destroys Roman Reigns… Again
It is clear that the vocal majority of the WWE Universe clearly hates Roman Reigns. A lot of this hate has to do with his push in 2015 when it could be argued that he was pushed too soon. Fast forward two years later, and Reigns has improved tremendously in the ring and on the microphone, but fans fail to see past the troubles they had two years ago. This is where the popularity of Braun Strowman comes in.
For the past several months, Braun Strowman has made it his mission to destroy Roman Reigns. He did so two weeks ago when he attacked Roman Reigns backstage, forced him to be put in an ambulance, and then tipped over the very ambulance Reigns was put in. Strowman would then defeat Reigns in the main event of Payback, and follow up the victory by assaulting Reigns with steel steps.
While the assault was expected, what made the moment even worse was the crowd chanting “Thank you Strowman” and “You deserve it” while Reigns is bleeding profusely. WWE is pushing Strowman just as hard as they were with Reigns in 2015, but for some reason, fans are behind Strowman in this case. Aside from his matches with the Big Show, Strowman has pretty much been doing the same things every week.
Payback was a pretty good show that helped finalize the Superstar Shake-up and get things rolling towards Backlash and Extreme Rules. There was a lot to be positive about, but the downsides were a little too much to keep this from being a great Pay-Per-View.
