WWE Payback 2016 Review

After earning a shot at the WWE World Heavyweight Championship on the night after WrestleMania 32, AJ Styles faces the biggest challenge of his career as he must take down The Big Dog in the main event of Payback!

Match 1: Enzo and Cass vs. The Vaudevillains
With The New Day watching ringside and eating pizza, the winners of this match would go on to face them for the WWE World Tag Team Championships. Of course, the story of this match was the quick ending due to Simon Gotch throwing Enzo Amore out of the ring who inadvertently hit his face directly into the rope and knocking himself out in the process. Something I have never seen before but as tight as those ropes are, this is no joke. The referee checked on a motionless Amore and eventually called for the bell. Scary moment to open up the night.
Winners: n/a
Rating: n/a

Match 2: Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn
Always a pleasure to watch anything these two are involved in, especially if it is against each other. I really do not even know how many times I have seen them square off, going back to their Ring of Honor days. What is there to say here? Incredible chemistry as usual with the usual spots that are still amazing to see like Sami Zayn diving through the corner of the ring on the outside and hitting a DDT on Kevin Owens. It really never gets old and is probably the most innovative move in the game. Zayn ate a kick from Owens as he was going for a Helluva Kick before falling to a Pop Up Powerbomb. Loved that the company was high on Owens around this time, the dude is simply money and oozes charisma. Zayn will eventually get his due. Owens then forced Byron Saxton to interview him after the match before joining the commentary team for the next match. Such a great heel.
Winner: Kevin Owens
Rating: ***3/4

Match 3: WWE Intercontinental Championship - The Miz (c) vs. Cesaro
Hilarious to see these smark fans boo the crap out of The Miz only for them to cheer him about a year later or so. Should also note the pop that Cesaro got was the loudest of the show so far. Cesaro is nursing a shoulder injury and the two built the match around it with The Miz doing a fantastic job of working on it throughout the match. Sami Zayn returned to fight Kevin Owens on commentary as their fight spilled into the ring. Cesaro had The Miz tapping out but the referee had his attention turned away. Miz then rolled Cesaro up with a handful of tights to pick up the win. Another solid match for the PPV with a fun finish that sets up a bigger match between these four guys.
Winner: The Miz
Rating: ***1/4

Match 4: Chris Jericho vs. Dean Ambrose
Chris Jericho looks to continue his momentum from WrestleMania by taking on someone who ate a loss at that event, Dean Ambrose. Much like what I said earlier about Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn, you know you are going to get a quality match whenever these two step in the ring against each other. They did just that, great pacing throughout the match along with them revisiting the Walls of Jericho spot on the announcers table like how they did on an episode of Monday Night Raw. Ambrose was able to escape a Lionsault from Jericho before hitting his Dirty Deeds finisher to get the W. Good match that sets up for more matches between the two in the future. Ambrose may have pulled this one off, but if Jericho throwing a fit afterwards means anything, he is far from done.
Winner: Dean Ambrose
Rating: ***1/4

Match 5: WWE Women's Championship - Charlotte (c) vs. Natalya
Since Ric Flair accompanied Charlotte to the ring, Natalya was sure to fight fire with fire by bringing out her uncle in Bret Hart. I have always said that these are probably the two best female wrestlers on the roster but unfortunately, this match cannot attest to that statement. It just seems as if their styles were not meant to click well with each other and much of what they were doing felt forced and unnatural. The crowd themselves had trouble getting into the action and I cringed when Natalya was screaming at Charlotte that she would not tap when a Figure Eight hold was applied. To make matters worse, the match ended when Charlotte put Natalya in a Sharpshooter as the referee called for the bell and what do ya know, another screwjob finish. Seriously, can we stop with these damn screwjob finishes? It was cool the first time but after the next 20 times, it got tiresome. Afterwards, Bret and Natalya both put Ric and Charlotte in their own Sharpshooters. That was definitely a disappointment.
Winner: Charlotte
Rating: **

Match 6: WWE World Heavyweight Championship - Roman Reigns (c) vs. AJ Styles
This is it, he has been a champion all over the world but never on the biggest stage as The Phenomenal AJ Styles gets his crack at the WWE World Heavyweight Championship against Roman Reigns in tonight's main event. Absolutely loved the buildup for this match with their beef increasingly becoming personal with Gallows and Anderson helping out Styles as The Usos side with their cousin in Reigns. Loved the start of the match with Styles focusing on the limbs of Reigns as Reigns did a great job in selling the injury and almost looking surprised at how good Styles can actually be. However, Reigns put his brute strength to play and used it as a bigger counter. Of course, many shenanigans came into play here with the match being restarted twice by both Shane McMahon and Stephanie McMahon on account of a countout and a disqualification. Here, the match was turned into a no disqualification match with no countouts. This allowed for Gallows and Anderson to try and help their boy before The Usos came out to add to the fire. While Styles almost had Reigns beaten, he eventually fell to a sweet Spear. Afterwards, Mr. McMahon is shown on screen with his kids as they book a new match for Extreme Rules. While this match was used as a platform to further the Raw GM storyline, it really didn't deter from me enjoying this from top to bottom. The interference from the two teams added more drama to the match rather than taking it away, a problem that can easily come about from doing them in main events. A great first match between the two that sets up major storylines to follow on the weeks leading into Extreme Rules. Well done on all sides here.
Winner: Roman Reigns
Rating: ****1/2

Overall Show Thoughts and Rating:
Despite the annoying chants for CM Punk and a lousy segment during the show where Mr. McMahon put his kids in charge of Monday Night Raw, I thought this was a fairly solid outing from the WWE after their biggest show of the year. The main event was certainly the main spotlight of the show and for good reason, Roman Reigns and AJ Styles delivered the goods and are help ushering in a new era with the company.
Rating: 7.25/10