What we learned from WWE Payback 2017

The build to Payback was, generally speaking, a mess. The Superstar Shakeup saw a couple of key wrestlers moved off of RAW or awkwardly onto this pay-per-view, and it felt like it was potentially going to be stale for much of the card as WWE just moved past it as quickly as possible. Luckily, that’s not how things went down, as Payback was great nearly from start to finish, and the part that wasn’t great was weird enough to keep talking about the next day.

Jericho and Owens, like at WrestleMania 33, countered move after move of the other due to their familiarity with each other. Owens eventually suckered Jericho into the corner and poked him in the eyes when the ref couldn’t see, and nearly secured a victory off that underhandedness, but Jericho escaped the pin attempt and was able to tap Owens out in his submission, the Walls of Jericho.

What we learned: The expectation was that Jericho was going to lose his rematch and go on tour with his band, Fozzy, while Owens continued to lord the United States title over his new friends on SmackDown Live. Instead, Jericho regained the championship he lost at WrestleMania 33 to his former best friend, will move to SmackDown alongside him, and now we don’t know what’s going on.

Jericho is still going on tour soon, but will he have a rematch with Owens this week on SmackDown? Will A.J. Styles, the current No. 1 contender for the U.S. strap, be the one to face Jericho before the latter vanishes into the world of Sabbath-inspired rock? These are the questions that make you tune in.

Neville once again found a way to win underhandedly against Austin Aries, this time by losing. Neville got himself disqualified when it was clear he wasn’t going to be able to escape Aries’ submission finisher, Last Chancery, by grabbing the ref with his free arm and throwing him both into and over the pair. The ref gave Neville the DQ, Aries won the match but not the title, and Neville survived with the belt for another day.

What we learned: Back at NXT, Neville showed he would do what it took to win and hold onto that promotion’s top title, even when it made some shades of gray show up on the supposed babyface’s record. Now a full-blown heel, it’s been exciting to see that version of Neville return and ramp things up further: First there was the thumb to the eye at Mania, and now Neville blatantly getting himself disqualified to avoid dropping the title.

We’ll get Aries vs. Neville III at some point, and given the quality of the first two bouts, that’ll play.

The Hardy Boyz/Hardy Men/Hardy Menz might have won the battle, but Sheamus and Cesaro are here for much more than that. This felt like more than frustration at losing a tag title shot against the veteran duo, and more like Sheamus and Cesaro are fed up with these dudes strolling in at WrestleMania 33 and taking over the tag division that should rightfully be the property of the Mean Muscle Boys (thanks, Danielle Matheson).

What we learned: Sheamus and Cesaro were tremendous as a pair of tall dudes who liked hitting people very hard, and now they are going to be rude as heck about doing it. Plus, they might have broken the Hardyz, or at least got that ball rolling, and getting that iteration of the future Hall of Famers together in WWE would be ... wait for it ... delightful.

Alexa Bliss was the second-ever SmackDown Women’s Champion, and the first performer to win the title twice. She’s now the first-ever wrestler to have held both the SmackDown Women’s Championship as well as the RAW Women’s title, thanks to defeating Bayley — clean, I might add — at Payback.

What we learned: There has been some recent concern about Bayley’s in-ring performances, but she and Bliss managed to put on the best show of Alexa’s main-roster career. Fans are likely disappointed that Bayley lost so quickly after cementing herself as the leader of the women’s division on RAW — especially with Charlotte now over on SmackDown — but Alexa is arguably the top overall performer on the brand, and now she’s got the belt to back it up.

Bray Wyatt defeats Randy Orton in the House of Horrors match thanks to a refrigerator and interference from Jinder Mahal

House of Horrors was supremely dumb, but it was the right kind of supremely dumb that featured Randy Orton hearing dolls with Joker makeup talking to him in what looked like an abandoned meth house, a brawl that knocked down walls with horrible wallpaper on them, and eventually, a refrigerator being dropped on top of him.

When the match got back to the ring at the arena, Jinder Mahal and the Singh Brothers stepped in to make sure Orton didn’t get the victory.

What we learned: This was logical storytelling and a smart way to play on what SmackDown spent the last two weeks doing. Orton basically ignored Jinder, the number one contender to the WWE World Championship, in favor of responding to a man who wasn’t even on the same show as him anymore in preparation for the House of Horrors match. Jinder responded last week by attacking Orton and stealing the WWE title from him, then showed up again this week to hit him in the face with it. Maybe Orton will pay attention to this very real threat now.

Seth Rollins spent most of the match in submissions, with Samoa Joe trying to destroy his ability to fight back. Rollins eventually flipped one of those submissions over into a pin, though, and scored the victory. Given Joe’s penchant for destruction and retribution, expect a fiery promo on Monday, possibly delivered while Joe stands on Rollins’ neck.

What we learned: Nothing just yet, other than that Joe hasn’t enacted his plan for revenge and all that means is pain in Seth’s future.

This was perfection. Of course Braun Strowman was going to win this match. He tried to kill Roman Reigns by flipping over the ambulance his earlier attacks had put him into in the first place just a few weeks ago, and Reigns showed up to Payback still limping and with more of his body taped than not. Still, though, we’re so used to Reigns fighting back and winning out of sheer force of will despite whatever pain happens to be wracking his body that the result was still somehow in question.

Reigns wasn’t at 100 percent coming into the match, and after Braun beat the will right out of him in the main event of Payback, he certainly wasn’t in any position to be winning. Strowman was victorious, Reigns looked admirable in defeat, but most importantly, he looked mortal — at least when he’s on the receiving end of a Strowman beatdown, anyway.

What we learned: Roman Reigns nearly defeated Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 31 before Seth Rollins cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase and stole that victory from him, and Roman has only become more unstoppable since then. Strowman defeating him and making him actively look weakened and vulnerable in the process is something new, and says a lot about what WWE’s plans for the 6’7, 385-pound behemoth are.