Payback In A Nutshell: No Holds Barred In ThunderDome

It’s an unusual happening, but we’ve got our second WWE PPV in a week. This time, we get our Payback In A Nutshell, with No Holds Barred in ThunderDome.

As in, we’ve got a match we never saw coming. A triple threat for the Universal Championship, with one combatant a freshly-minted Paul Heyman Guy-Roman Reigns.

That match, also featuring Braun Strowman and current champion The Fiend Bray Wyatt, should headline Payback.

And…what about Retribution? Will they show up again?

There are other matches on this quick turnaround of a show, of course.

We’ve got Bayley and Sasha Banks defending their Women’s Tag Team Championships. They battle the unlikely duo of Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax.

We’ve got an intriguing United States Title match too, as Apollo defends against Bobby Lashley.

Those are the biggest matches to watch for, but if you wanted a non-title match worth catching? How about Keith Lee and Randy Orton?

Plenty to like about Payback, which is why we’ve got it in this Nutshell.

It’s going to be no holds barred in ThunderDome for Payback!

Let’s crack open this Nutshell!

Best Match of the night:

Two choices, both tag matches.

On one hand, I enjoyed the Women’s Tag Team Championship match. It was an odd pairing, for sure, but we have seen those plenty in WWE.

The match had some good action and some memorable moments.

And then there was the Mysterios against Seth Rollins and Murphy. I’d call this one sneaky good.

I wasn’t expecting much of it (more like I overlooked it a bit), but it was easily one of, if not the best, matches on the show.

Worst match of the night:

Apollo losing to Bobby Lashley felt a bit anticlimactic. Or perhaps, overdue?

Maybe a bit of both…but of all the matches tonight, I was feeling this the least.

Star of the Night

This is tough…but I think this one belongs to Dominik and Rey.

Spot of the Night:

Sure, some might grab one of the bigger spots from the main event, but not me.

The spot of the night for me?

I shall take the dual submission, with Shayna Baszler having both Bayley and Sasha Banks in simultaneous holds.

Like, maybe that’s happened before, but nothing came to me yet. Especially not in a women’s match, for the win.

Plus, I liked the comment from Graves afterward, about hard to ignore Baszler now. Maybe she will finally be getting a full push, instead of one that constantly starts and stops?

Upset of the Night:

Well, on commentary, they said Matt Riddle beating King Corbin was an upset. Not sure I buy that, but that’s all I have.

Holy Sh** Moment of the Night:

It took WWE a few years, but they finally recreated the whole collapsing ring spot.

Honestly…it didn’t wow me this time. Just wasn’t “fresh”.

Botch of the night:

I forgot her name, but the one interviewing Matt Riddle early in the evening? She asked him about joining the main roster.

Oops.

Pretty sure WWE kind of shot that whole “main roster” and feeder brand mentality down. Not that it doesn’t still exist…but I thought Vince frowned upon folks saying main roster.

And someone just said exactly that on a PPV.

Noteworthy Moment:

So Roman Reigns never signed the contract Friday, and he didn’t sign it till about five minutes before he became Universal Champion once again.

Found that a bit interesting.

Also, Keith Lee ditched the shorts.

Lastly, no Retribution. Two PPV in a row where they don’t make any noise, which is a bit of a puzzle.

Overall lowlights:

Sure, we had a couple good matches…but outside of those, you could feel how this was an oddly placed PPV in the calendar.

Overall highlights:

We don’t get to say this often relative to WWE, but the two tag matches were the best of the show.

Ironically, we did not have a men’s tag title defense, which felt odd on a PPV. But the tag matches we got were strong.

After the final bell:

A rushed show or an odd show is probably the best way to sum this one up. We did get a couple redeeming matches though.

I feel like this would have been a good show for Retribution’s story to get moved further along, but no luck.

The rest of the show was kind of predictable? I mean, we all knew Reigns was winning once they announced that match.

The other title changes felt like foregone conclusions as well. That’s neither good nor bad I suppose…just what it is.
At the end of it, there is this silver lining to consider…