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

Seth Rollins vs. Samoa Joe

What we learned: I think we learned here that even two of the best wrestlers in the world struggle to get a crowd back following a horrible segment. Samoa Joe and Seth Rollins had the task of going on after the pre-taped segment and the crowd, who had been hot all night, was just dead for the majority of this match. It didn’t help that this was just an average match, either.

Joe focused on Rollins’ knee for quite a while but it really didn’t play into the finish that much. It’s not that this was bad and maybe we expected a five-star classic, which I know these two are capable of and may end up getting at Extreme Rules, but I just wanted a little bit more. I did like the finish as it didn’t end up hurting anybody. Rollins was able to pull off another big win despite being dominated for a good portion of the bout and Joe still looked strong in the loss. The story here is that Joe was focusing too much on hurting Rollins and not focusing enough on actually winning the match, and he got caught in a rollup and lost. It wouldn’t surprise us if they went to the footage of his shoulder actually not being on the mat when the three-count happened.

What’s next: The last sentence of the first paragraph leads right into what could happen next. Joe’s shoulder wasn’t down and even if they stick with the result as is, Joe is still not going to be happy and will likely put another big beating on Rollins in the next week or two. Perhaps we’ll soon see Stephanie McMahon back to further the storyline and she’ll be wanting to punish Rollins anyway after he beat Triple H at WrestleMania and essentially put her through a table. A match at Extreme Rules with Samoa Joe would be good punishment and that’s where I see things going.