Payback 2023 Review

Saturday, September 2nd, 2023
PPG Paints Arena
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

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Steel Cage Match
Trish Stratus vs. Becky Lynch

Trish tries to escape, but Becky hits a series of Beck-sploder suplexes. Trish is able to bounce back and hits a spinebuster before rubbing Becky's face in the cage. The intensity is turning up now and they battle up on the top turnbuckle. Trish is at the top of the cage, but Becky gets her on her shoulders. Trish fights out, but ends up eating a powerbomb for a 2 count. Trish comes back and hits a Widow's Peak for a nearfall. She even did the hair thing that Victoria used to do. Trish goes for Stratusfaction, but Becky counters and hits the Twist Of Fate for a 2 count. Trish now hits Stratusfaction and Becky barely kicks out. Both ladies are working really hard here and the crowd is into it. They battle on the top rope again and Trish is able to hit a super bulldog for another 2 count. They go climbing again and the are battling all the way up on the top. Trish is now hanging from the top. Becky picks her up and is able to hit a superplex. Becky starts to climb up the cage and Trish then starts crawling to the floor. Becky sees it and comes down. Becky has her by the legs and out comes Zoey Stark and starts pulling her by her arms. Zoey slams the door on Becky's face, but she kicks out. Becky hits a Manhandle Slam, but Zoey breaks up the pin attempt. Becky closes the door shut with Zoey in there and they start going at it. Trish starts climbing the cage and Becky hits the Manhandle Slam on Stark. Becky climbs and catches her and hits a super Manhandle Slam from the top for the victory. That was absolutely fantastic work by both women. The feud didn't seem to be getting as good of reactions on Raw as I had hoped, but this match ended up making this a great feud. 

Match Rating: ****1/2

After the match, Trish slaps Zoey after an argument. Zoey fires back and hits the Z-360. 

John Cena is our host for the evening and headed to the ring. Cena announces that he'll be the special guest referee for the LA Knight/Miz match and out comes Miz to tell him how much he sucks at hosting. Cena says that he doesn't like Miz, but he respects him. He asks Miz for hosting advice and mocks Cena for looking like the Teletubbies. Cena gets a referee shirt and says that he guesses that he's going to be the referee. LA Knight's music hits and I guess it's match time. 

Miz vs. LA Knight

Miz takes his sweet time getting in the ring and then immediately rolls out of the ring after the bell rings. Miz then heads to the back and Knight charges. Miz ducks and it still ends up in Knight's favor. They start duking it out in the ring and then Knight hits a back elbow. Knight goes for the superplex, but Miz blocks it and drops him face first. Miz hits a double ax handle off the top rope. Knight is able to attack Miz out of the ring and then Miz drops Knight's face into the announce table. Miz charges at Knight and gets back body dropped over the barricade. Knight gets into an argument with Cena after he pulled him off Miz after not breaking a count. That distraction allows Miz to regain control. He hits a variation of the Codebreaker and gets a 2 count. Knight comes back and hits a variation of a Rock Bottom that looked pretty cool. Miz is back though and hits his DDT for a 2 count. Miz misses a clothesline in the corner and Knight hits a twisting DDT. We get some drama with Cena and it leads to Miz hitting the Skull Crushing Finale, but again Knight kicks out. Cena's counts aren't the best. For some reason most wrestlers can never get it right. Miz goes for the 5 Knuckle Shuffle, but Knight is up and he hits a slam and an elbow drop. He hits the BFT and that's all. I don't think anyone thought there was a doubt that Knight was going to win, but they may have bought into that last false finish. The match was pretty good overall. After the match, Cena takes off his ref shirt and reaches out his hand. After a delay, Knight shakes it and Cena lifts up his hand before heading to the back. 

Match Rating: ***

United States Championship Match
Austin Theory vs. Rey Mysterio

Apparently this match is sponsored by Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It's all Theory to start until Mysterio hits a moonsault that no man his age should be able to hit. He hits a sliding DDT before hitting the seated senton from the top rope. Theory is able to avoid the 619 and then catches Rey in the air before hitting a spinning sitdown powerbomb. The most underrated part of Rey Mysterio is that his size allows other wrestlers to hit moves they typically can't. Rey comes back and hits a 619, but Theory gets the knees up on the splash. He puts him up for A Town Down, but Rey counters into a pin and picks up the victory. Rey was Rey here, which is always amazing, but this felt a little more like a TV match than a big show match. 

Match Rating: **3/4

We go backstage to Becky Lynch, but she's interrupted by Tiffany Stratton. She apologizes for calling Becky a former NXT Champion since she wasn't one. 

Steel City Street Fight For The Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championships
Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn vs. Finn Balor & Damian Priest

So there are no tags needed here, it's just a brawl. Balor stomps on a Terrible Towel, which is major heat in Pittsburgh. Owens and Zayn start using trash cans and Owens rips off his shirt to reveal a Terry Funk shirt. The put the can on Balor and start whacking him with kendo sticks. Priest is able to change things in the Judgment Day's favor. The action eventually spills out into the crowd and out comes Dirty Dom to help out. Judgment Day starts celebrating and out comes Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens dressed in Pittsburgh Penguins jerseys and attacking with hockey sticks. Zayn and Balor are in the ring with a bunch of chairs. Priest grabs Zayn, but Zayn is able to escape and hits the Blue Thunder Bomb on the chairs, but Balor kicks out. Man, he can't even win with that move even when it's on chairs. Priest then hits Zayn with a slam onto some chairs propped up, but Owens breaks it up with a chair. We're back in the crowd again. I like how the referee has to wear gloves because Owens is bleeding, but it's okay for him to be walking through the crowd. They battle over by the pre-show announce table and then Zayn does a somersault dive off of it onto both Priest and Balor. Out comes Dirty Dom again, but Owens takes care of him. Now Owens is up over the tunnel and hits a senton through the table. Owens is the slightly saner version of Jeff Hardy. They got a really cool camera angle of the other side of that too. Zayn and Balor are back in the ring and Zayn goes for a Helluva Kick, but Priest throws a trash can at his face. Balor goes through a table and Zayn hits the Helluva Kick, but JD McDonagh makes the save. Owens comes out and gives him a Pop Up Powerbomb onto the announce table. Out comes Rhea Ripley and she Spears Owens through the barricade. Balor hits Sling Blade on Zayn and misses with Coup de Grace. Zayn hits the exploder in the corner and gets the Helluva Kick. Dom makes the save with the Money In The Bank briefcase and Balor rolls over to win the titles. I had a feeling they may give it to them here, but figured they'd just go with the happy ending instead. This was such a fun match that Zayn and Owens added their unique personalities to it from start to finish.

Match Rating: ****

It's time with the Grayson Waller Effect and the guest is of course Cody Rhodes. Cody goes over how we all think this is going to go, which is ending with a brawl and him hitting Cross Rhodes. Instead he announces that he's bringing out Jey Uso to join Raw. Waller tries to mock Uso, but it ends with him hitting a superkick on him. So is this how we get back to Cody/Roman at WrestleMania?

Women's World Championship Match
Raquel Rodriguez vs. Rhea Ripley

Rhea's music has to be in the bottom 10 of all time. This one is already making my eyes heavy. Raquel is such a black hole of personality. For the two people who may stumble onto this page and most likely never read it, please note that I just don't have it in me to recap this match. I know that it defeats the purpose of reviewing a match, but I now have put in enough words to make it look like I recapped it. I guess I'll start now. Raquel hits Rhea into the ring post. Out comes Dirty Dom again and she gives him a body slam. The distraction allows Rhea to hit Riptide for the victory. I just had no interest in this match.

Match Rating: *

John Cena interviews the new tag champs and they say they have all the gold, so it's time to celebrate. So does Damian Priest have one more left in him tonight? 

World Heavyweight Championship Match
Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Seth Rollins

This has been an intriguing story that has reinvigorated the Nakamura character for me. The first big spot of the match happens when Seth is trying to leap off the barricade onto Nakamura on the announce table. Nakamura gets up and press slams him onto his back into the table. He naturally goes after the back as expected. They battle up on the turnbuckles and Seth is able to hit a hurricanrana. Rollins comes back with a Frog Splash, but it's not enough. Later on in the match, Nakamura is able to put on the triangle choke but then Rollins somehow hits a powerbomb out of it. Both men are able to hit kicks to the head and both are now down. Rollins goes to climb to the top rope, but Nakamura gets there first. He puts him on his shoulders and hits a Landslide from the ropes, but Rollins kicks out. He's selling his back and then Nakamura hits Kinshasa. He wants to go again, but Rollins doesn't get up. Nakamura just hits a series of insulting kicks instead. Rollins counters out of some suplexes and hits the Pedigree. Rollins comes back with the Stomp and that's enough for the victory. I'm not sure that was quite the classic they were going for, but there were some good moments throughout. 

Match Rating: ***1/2

There were two really awesome matches on this show and a good main event, so it's pretty much a guaranteed thumbs up. The Raquel match was really the only thing that I didn't enjoy other than the runtime of the show. There's no reason a 6 match show needs to be over 3 hours long. Kudos to the ladies in the opener one last time for putting on an absolute classic.

Overall Rating: 77%