WWE Payback review: What we learned, takeaways, future projections

House of Horrors Match

Randy Orton vs. Bray Wyatt

What we learned: I honestly don’t even know where to begin here. Did we really learn anything here besides the fact that there were multiple people, including Vince McMahon (who has to sign off on everything), that thought this was a good idea? But before I get into the “match”, I can’t not address a few issues here.

First of all, we were supposed to believe that this was live, right? So in what universe is it dark outside in California at 6:30 p.m. on April 30? That’s one. Secondly, and I tweeted this out last night, is that WWE is so lucky that Bray Wyatt’s house was close to San Jose. I mean, what are the odds?

Come on, this whole thing was just ridiculous and Matt Hardy had to be watching in the back and just cringing. Final Deletion was meant to be a joke and everyone knew it, and that’s what made it so great. WWE tried to make this an actual serious thing and it did not play well at all. And did Randy Orton take an Uber back to the arena? The ridiculousness that was the actual House of Horrors, which featured nothing spectacular or brutal at all, was just made worse by the “match” finishing in the ring and then we didn’t even have a clean finish anyway as Jinder Mahal and the Singh brothers intervened.

Okay, I take it back. We learned one thing here: WWE SHOULD NEVER DO THIS AGAIN!!!

What’s next: Bray Wyatt got the win here but he still hasn’t gotten his WWE Championship rematch, so is that happening before he moves to RAW? I mean, that’s where he’s supposed to be now, right? Jinder Mahal is set to face Orton at Backlash for the title so does Bray just go away? Is that really the revenge that the most diabolical character in WWE really wants?

After six months of amazing storytelling, the last six weeks of this rivalry wasted the whole thing and this wasn’t the end that either of them deserved.