WWE Payback 2016: Best and worst

Best: Giving Heel Ryback his due

It was a bit shocking to see the Baron Corbin vs. Dolph Ziggler match moved to the pre-show without any real rhyme or reason, especially considering that Corbin is a recent call-up from NXT and has the look and feel of a guy that’s due for a big push on the main roster. Even still, their match was quite good, though it was also surprising to see Dolph also get the win in that match by catching the big rookie with a roll-up.

No matter what happened in that opening match between Ziggler and Corbin, though, the real highlight of the pre-show came in the next match as Ryback and Kalisto did battle for the United States Championship. To be clear, the best moment didn’t actually happen in the match, but actually came about during The Big Guy’s entrance for the match as he proceeded to savagely troll the city of Chicago. After doing his “Wake Up!” part of his entrance, Ryback then bent down and mocked CM Punk’s “It’s Clobbering Time” act in front of Punk’s hometown crowd.

Considering that Ryback and Punk have their share of bad blood, this was expert level heel working from The Big Guy. I’ve certainly given Ryback a large amount of criticism over the past year and I feel it was all deserved for the most part. However, I’ll give credit when a guy earns it no matter what I think about their whole body of work and this ways very, very well done by Ryback at WWE Payback.

Next: Scary Moment In the Tag Match