WWE Payback 2017: Full rundown and why you should care

WWE’s Payback is here, and it’s aptly named. It’s the first pay-per-view post-WrestleMania 33, which means we have a number of WrestleMania rematches on the card, plus Roman Reigns attempting to get payback — hey, that’s the name of the event — against Braun Strowman for the latter’s vicious attack(s) on him that included violence against an ambulance.

Payback will air Sunday on the WWE Network at 8 p.m. ET, with a pre-show beginning an hour before that. Let’s dive in and see who is going to get payback at Payback.

What am I looking at here? Neville is the impossibly muscled yet short dude with the long hair and the title. Austin Aries is the one wearing a jacket that will make you think he’s a bad guy, but in this instance against the self-proclaimed King of the Cruiserweights, Aries is actually the face. Also, he might be carrying a banana. Potassium is important, you know.

Why you should care: These two had themselves a high-quality Mania match, but it was on the pre-show. Neville defended via a thumb to the eye, which blinded Aries long enough for Neville to pick up the W. Whether Aries can avoid such unsportsmanlike attacks to become just the fourth Cruiserweight Champions is the question of the evening. My money is on no because Neville calls himself king, but he’s more like the cruiserweights god.

What am I looking at here? Alexa Bliss was SmackDown Women’s Champion at WrestleMania 33 but lost the title to Naomi there. She was then sent to RAW during the Superstar Shakeup, which saw a number of Monday’s stars heading to Tuesday and vice versa. Once on RAW, Bliss won a No. 1 contender’s match then got in Bayley’s face the next week while also dissing Bayley’s bestie, Sasha Banks, in the same promo. Bayley is the champion of our hearts, sure, but Bliss is delightfully evil and also probably right about most of what she says.

Heels aren’t always bad because they’re wrong, you know. Sometimes it’s just because they’ve got a little too much Walter Sobchak in them.

Why you should care: Bayley vs. Bliss is a mostly untapped resource for WWE, as Bliss was just coming into her own at NXT around the time Bayley left, and then they were on opposing shows. SmackDown’s women’s division ended up being built around Bliss even though it didn’t start out that way, and we could see the newcomer get a similar run on RAW.

That, or this is the night when Sasha Banks finally turns on Bayley to get her own chance at the RAW Women’s Championship, which just means that, regardless of what happens, Bayley probably isn’t going to have a good night.

What am I looking at here? The Hardy Boyz are back, even though they are now more like Hardy Men. Hardy Menz? Hardees? However you refer to them, what’s important is that they aren’t broken ... yet. Matt Hardy keeps teasing that he’s moving closer and closer to breaking, and we just might get to see it on WWE television soon.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, well, it’s tough to explain. But let’s just say Matt Hardy had a bit of a character transformation while he was outside WWE, and you should just watch this to see what that means:

Sheamus and Cesaro are former RAW Tag champions, and they are now best friends due to a shared love of beating other people up. Sometimes, it’s just that simple. They’re really, really good at beating other people up, so maybe we’ll see the Hardys broken by a championship loss.

Why you should care: It’s two great tag teams facing off for a championship, with the potential of the superior version of Matt and Jeff emerging from defeat like a phoenix with a weird manner of speaking and a penchant for saying, “Delightful!”

What am I looking at here? Kevin Owens is on SmackDown Live now, and he brought the United States Championship with him. He took that belt from Jericho at WrestleMania 33, though, the title was secondary to their feud, which was based on former best friends fighting each other thanks to Owens’ public betrayal.

Why you should care: As SmackDown already has a No. 1 contender for the U.S. title, a Jericho victory could mean he ends up on Tuesdays, too. But it sure feels like Owens is unlikely to drop this championship so soon. Their Mania match was real good, and a rematch should be a quality bout as well. But it’s admittedly a little tough to care too much about this since it seems clear that Owens is going to retain and move on to bigger and better things on SmackDown while Jericho is left behind on RAW.

What am I looking at here? Samoa Joe showed up on RAW working for Triple H, and his first order of business was attacking Seth Rollins. Joe injured Seth’s knee to the point that Rollins wasn’t a given for a WrestleMania 33 match, but he was able to return to action and defeat Triple H there. Now, with Triple H defeated and shamed off television for the last few weeks and Stephanie McMahon injured in the match when she tried to interfere, Joe is here to fight for his bosses and put the hurting on Seth that they could not.

Why you should care: Seth Rollins is the man, and that’s not just a nickname. Samoa Joe is the f’n truth, though, and when he says he’s going to take Seth Rollins out, you better believe he’s going to do his damnedest to make sure that’s what happens. After wrestling Sami Zayn and not getting a chance to appear in a WrestleMania 33 match, this should be Joe’s official welcome to the main event scene of WWE.

What am I looking at here? No one knows. No, seriously. Bray Wyatt invited Orton to a rematch after their stinker at WrestleMania 33, saying it was going to be a House of Horrors match. There has never been one of those. Orton accepted, and we know no more today than we did when that happened. With luck, at least part of the match will be pretaped so that WWE can use special effects and the like to actually give the House of Horrors the elements that the name suggests.

Why you should care: I won’t lie to you — I’m not sure if you should. This was originally supposed to be for the WWE World Championship that Orton won from Wyatt at Mania in a match that was, to charitably describe it, not good. Despite a tremendous build to that showdown, it didn’t even pass the most basic entertainment tests, and now they’re headed into the unknown without any excitement built into it — and it’s not for the title, either.

Maybe it’ll be great! A weird stipulation might be just what these two needed to click in the ring and deliver a memorable performance. At this point, though, you would be forgiven for needing to see it to believe it.

What am I looking at here? Oh, just the greatest feud WWE has going right now. Roman Reigns’ whole thing is that he’s a one-man army and that he’s unstoppable. So Braun Strowman decided to test that theory by attacking Reigns backstage during an interview. It was one of the greatest moments in RAW history starting at 1:05, and this is not hyperbole:

Don’t have time to watch the whole video? While I believe that’s a mistake, just know that the segment ended with this. Oh, and Roman was inside it at the time:

Reigns has been off television for three weeks because of the beating, and that’s not usually how he rolls. Roman tends to recover all of his HP in between shows, and he didn’t even appear to attack Strowman on the RAW before Payback. No one knows what kind of condition he’s in, but Strowman’s attack might have weakened Roman enough that he can finally beat him one-on-one.

Why you should care: Uh, did you not see the large man flip over an ambulance with his opponent still inside of it?