WWE Payback 2016: Best and worst

Worst: Congratulations on your completion of the Chicago Marathon

Had the match between Dean Ambrose and Chris Jericho been about 10 minutes shorter, this probably would’ve been a fine match between these two men. The problem, of course, is that it was far longer than that as this was the first egregious example of WWE trying to make up time on the show for having the tag match to open the show getting cut short.

Throughout the match, it was so obvious that Jericho and Ambrose were given instructions to add time to their match any way possible. That led to a ton of unnecessary and oddly placed rest holds, both guys doing a lot of just walking around at various points throughout the match, and even a lot of just sloth-like movements and transitions when they were getting physical with one another. The pacing was just absolutely brutal and felt amplified with this bout being in the middle of the card.

Again, this isn’t an indictment on the two performers and it was really the result of unfortunate circumstances at WWE Payback that came about due to injury. However, this match as a whole was hard to sit through without looking at your watch constantly and wondering just how long the match had been going on. These two guys deserved better than that, especially after building up to this match with a solid food—but sometimes this is the way things go in wrestling.

Next: Charlotte vs. Natalya