Payback Live Reactions – King Barrett vs. Neville

King Bad News takes on Neville in a rematch of the King of the Ring Finals.  They put on a good showing early, but this match was nowhere near as good as the matches they put on at Extreme Rules and in the King of the Ring Tournament.  Barrett doesn’t like the way the match is going, so when he gets knocked out of the ring he lets himself get counted out.  So, Neville wins and now Barrett wants to continue the fight as he ambushes Neville.  Barrett then retrieves his royal accouterments and takes his time putting on his crown and cape, only to have Neville come up behind him and German Suplex him onto his crown, snapping the top off of Barrett’s scepter in the process.  Neville then hits the Red Arrow to at least give the fans some resolution to the match after the crappy countout finish.  Apparently, WWE thinks the fans in Baltimore paid to see a couple of 3-minute tag matches, a countout and an “I Quit” Match rigged with bad stunts and nobody actually losing by the rules of the match.  Other than Sheamus vs. Ziggler and R-Truth vs. Stardust, there hasn’t been a clean and decisive finish to a match that lasted more than a couple of minutes.  To recap match by match so far.

R-Truth beat Stardust cleanly

The Ascension beat The Faux Mega Powers in under 3 minutes

Sheamus beat Dolph Ziggler cleanly

New Day stole the 3rd Fall in a 2-out-of-3 Falls Match when the illegal 3rd man (not even the illegal 2nd man) made the winning pinfall

Bray Wyatt beat Ryback after an exposed turnbuckle finish

John Cena beat Rusev in an “I Quit” Match in which Rusev didn’t really quit

Naomi & Tamina beat the Bella Twins

Neville beat King Barrett by countout

The Fatal 4-Way is coming up next.  Should be an exciting finish to a typically underperformed show with poorly booked finishes.

Payback Live Reactions – Sheamus vs. Dolph Ziggler, Tag Team Championship and Ryback vs. Bray Wyatt

Sheamus vs. Dolph Ziggler is the first match of the Main card and I was not expecting much out of this match.  These two wrestled several times for the World Heavyweight Championship during Sheamus’ reign back in 2012, but I wasn’t impressed by their work together.  Their match at Extreme Rules certainly wasn’t impressive.  However, tonight was in my opinion the best match the two of them have worked together.  Both guys put in a max effort whereas it seemed to me like they kind of coasted at Extreme Rules.  I didn’t catch the moves that caused the wounds, but Dolph was busted open and Sheamus had a big welt forming on his right shoulder / chest area.  I feel like Ziggler put on his best performance since losing the Intercontinental Championship back in January tonight, even in defeat as Sheamus wins with a Brogue Kick.

Backstage, Kane and Seth Rollins have a standoff where they rehash what they’ve had to say on Raw and Smackdown every week since Extreme Rules and the bottom line is of course that Kane isn’t sure what he’s going to do tonight.  The storyline has itself been great, but this segment was just a rehash that WWE apparently felt they needed for the people that don’t watch Raw and Smackdown.  If Rollins does not win, Kane loses his job.

Next up is the 2-out-of-3 Falls Match for the Tag Team Championship and this match had a lot of great spots in it.  Tyson Kidd and Kofi were all over the place in this one and it was a rare quality match on Big E’s part.  Kidd and Cesaro win the first fall and Woods starts calling for the Freebird Rule and wants to replace Kofi for the second fall, but is blocked by Natalya and Kidd takes him out with a dive to the floor.  Kidd ends up hurt somehow, and a blind tag finish leads to the Big Ending as a double team and New Day takes the second fall.  Cesaro throws a ton of upper cuts.  The match ends with Xavier Woods sneaking in twin magic style to replace Kingston and covering Kidd for the win and New Day retains in a steal.  I was expecting New Day to retain in some way because I’m pretty sure that WWE wants the title to change hands in two weeks when the titles are on the line in the Elimination Chamber for the first time in history.  So, putting the titles back on Cesaro and Kidd only to take them away again in two weeks didn’t seem very productive to me when you could have New Day steal another win and get the comeuppance at the Elimination Chamber.  New Day is not leaving the Elimination Chamber as the tag team champions though.

Bray Wyatt takes on Ryback next and I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t paying much attention to this one as it was taking place in the final moments of the People’s Champion challenge on WWE Supercard.  I intend to go back and rewatch this match after the end of the show.  In the meantime, Bray beats Ryback after Ryback hits an exposed turnbuckle and Wyatt finishes him off with Sister Abigail.