The Divas Championship is on the line in the next contest - Kaitlyn defending against AJ Lee. I don't remember Kaitlyn at all, but she actually held the title for several months. AJ Lee, meanwhile, is someone I remember mostly from her work with Daniel Bryan and Dolph Ziggler. The video recap helped me out, though, as it seems the Kaitlyn/AJ split was built around a faux secret admirer angle involving Big E. The match starts hot with Kaitlyn tossing AJ over the announce table with plenty of force and the crowd eats it up. Unfortunately, when you start a match with a big spot like that, things tend to cool down when actual wrestling holds get applied...but, hey, credit where its due - in 2013, women's wrestling was still rarely given any time so they had to make their minutes count and grab the audience as best they could out of the gate. I read in another review that Kaitlyn and AJ were real-life friends and that sort of comes out in this match as its clear that they wanted to bring out the best of each other, not hold back, and showcase Lee's quickness and ring savvy while also allowing Kaitlyn to dish out plenty of power moves and punishment. There are a bunch of "little things" in this match that help tell the story and these blink-and-you-might-miss-them turnarounds are what make this match stand out as not just "good for the girls" but legitimately must see, including a finish that might make Kaitlyn seem a bit dumb, but works because Kaitlyn can't help herself from trying to add insult to injury. Its a heel thing to do and eventhough Kaitlyn comes into this match as the sympathetic figure, she'd never really become a babyface. This is a match where the chemistry is there, the performers know their characters and motivations, and they clearly went in with a game plan that they knew they could execute and execute well. No minute is wasted and they had the crowd caring for all the big moves and shifts in momentum. I've got no problem calling it a "must see." (4/5)
After a short backstage segment, a Wyatt Family promo airs.
Back in the ring, Kane challenges Dean Ambrose for the United States Championship. While The Shield had not turned face yet, Ambrose gets a babyface reaction from the Chicago crowd and Kane gets booed. Nothing special about this match. Kane had been feuding with The Shield for months and months in mostly tag situations with Daniel Bryan. Ambrose eventually wins by countout, which was designed to keep Kane strong but doesn't do anything for Ambrose. (1.5/5)
A video hyping the return of Rob Van Dam plays.
The next match is one of the more memorable bouts from this era - Dolph Ziggler defending the World Heavyweight Championship against Alberto Del Rio. I don't recall all the details around this, but the story essentially goes that Ziggler had cashed in his Money In The Bank briefcase the night after WrestleMania and defeated Del Rio (who was a babyface) to win the title - which received a huge ovation because Ziggler was seen by many as being "held back" for years. In the week or two that followed, though, Ziggler received a concussion (from Jack Swagger on an episode of SmackDown, I believe) and his program with Del Rio was put on hold until this night. And so, with the smart Chicago fans in the loop, this match became all about Del Rio (still the face) attacking Ziggler's head (a heel move) and thus executing a rare "Double Turn." As Ziggler was always an excellent bumper and seller and Del Rio was about a million times better as a heel than as a face, the Double Turn works perfectly. What's also great about this match is that, while the story could've been told in a 6-8 minute squash that saw Del Rio target Ziggler's head and just mercilessly beat him down, Ziggler gets in quite a few hope spots and, at times, it seems like he might even pull one out despite obviously suffering massive head damage. AJ Lee's distress outside of the ring adds to the drama perfectly. While this isn't what I would consider a great wrestling match, the storytelling is what makes this a career highlight for both men. (4/5)
Next up - the return of CM Punk to take on longtime rival Chris Jericho. Almost a full year before this, Jericho and Punk had fought in a Chicago Street Fight at Extreme Rules 2012, but that bout is barely mentioned which is a lost opportunity to give the storyline going into this match more depth beyond just being Punk's triumphant return. I didn't love that Street Fight when I reviewed it earlier this year so I wasn't sure what to expect with this match being "straight up" with no stipulations. Jericho comes down and gets a decent bit of applause but its nothing compared to the ovation that CM Punk receives from his hometown crowd. I forget if it was the "script" from this match or their match at WrestleMania in 2012 but in one of his books Jericho shares how detailed these two could get in counters and reversals and nearfalls and this match is just loaded with them. Instead of this being all about CM Punk coming in with the momentum and blowing Jericho away, Y2J doesn't ever go down without a fight and even looks like he might play the spoiler at times - a booking decision that wouldn't have been all that out of place in the WWE (where babyfaces often lose in front of their hometown crowds). They get plenty of time to their hard-fought back-and-forth story, the match going beyond 20 minutes and closer to 30 when you include the emotional entrances and post-match celebration. Some might argue that there are too many finisher kickouts, but the crowd (and me watching at home) bit on the nearfalls and felt like the match could go either way, which is not something you could say about other "finisher spamming" matches where it feels like they're just putting on a fireworks display (and then no-selling them) instead of actually busting out the big guns as a strategic way to finish their opponent off. I wouldn't call this an All-Time Great match, but its close to it, especially if you're a Punk or Jericho stan. (4/5)
The WWE Tag Team Championship Match followed, The Shield's Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns defending against the "odd couple" of Daniel Bryan and Randy Orton. What surprised me here was that (a) Daniel Bryan didn't get as big of an ovation as I expected considering the timeline of his rise to being the top face in the promotion and (b) that I completely forgot that Orton and Bryan were paired together just a few weeks/months before feuding with each other through the fall of 2013 and all the way to WrestleMania XXX. Anyway, the crowd definitely seems a bit deflated when this starts having exhausted much of their energy during the Punk match. They chant for RVD which would imply that the action in the ring is not to their liking but they chanted for RVD during the Ziggler/Del Rio match (and would again during the action-packed Cena/Ryback match) so I think it has less to do with not enjoying what's happening in the ring as much as it has to do with chanting for the return of a "hardcore darling." This is a solid tag match but nothing phenomenal. As Lawler notes on commentary, the story here is all about The Shield being a finely-tuned unit and Orton and Bryan, despite being solid singles wrestlers, not being able to combine their efforts adequately enough to maintain control. Every time Orton or Bryan gets on a roll, the momentum is lost because they can't or won't trust their partner and, ultimately, their lack of timing and awareness of eachother costs them the match. Its a simple story, but its executed right and the "star power" is there even if Rollins and Reigns weren't as big of stars as they would be a year later. I like the finishing sequence too as it really came down to whoever landed their big finish last. (3/5)
Main event time - a 3 Stages of Hell match between WWE Champion John Cena and his rival Ryback. The first stage as a Lumberjack match and it might be the best "match" of the three, thanks in large part to the respectable psychology employed by Ryback and the heel lumberjacks (who all seem to thoroughly despise Cena, a tone reminiscent of how in the 80s, every heel was unified against Hogan). A big "RVD" chant broke out in the first few minutes. The most memorable spot of the match also happened during this first round as Cena flies off the top rope into a sea of humanity, popping the otherwise sour Chicago crowd. At the 8 minute mark, Ryback hit the Shellshock to get the victory. This is one of those times where you really wish the commentators would play up the idea that Cena may have "given up" the first fall knowing that he had the veteran advantage going into the second round - a Tables match - but nobody bothers so it just seems like the champion got beaten clean. The Tables match began with Ryback hitting a spear and drawing a "Goldberg" chant. Another 8 minutes pass of unremarkable action before Cena hits the Attitude Adjustment and sent Ryback through a table to win the second match. The final round was an Ambulance Match. Before the bell rang, though, Ryback sent Cena through an announce table on the outside. That spot would've felt like a much bigger deal if we hadn't just seen Ryback shrug off of a table bump and/or the Ambulance was set up and Ryback could capitalize. Instead, they go back into the ring and multiple minutes pass before it dawns on Ryback that maybe he should actually try to win the match. The final third of this match really flies by as Cena and Ryback repeatedly send eachother into various parts of the Ambulance until Cena climbs to the top. Ryback follows him up and after some back-and-forth, Cena hits an Attitude Adjustment and Ryback goes through the top of the ambulance. A really cartoonish ending, but I guess it fits with what these two were doing in their matches - which was basically just meandering through a series of set pieces and stunts. Not a career high point for either guy. (2/5)
With a Kwang Score of 3.07-out-of-5, Payback 2013 could've been an all-time great show...if it weren't for its unremarkable main event and pedestrian US Championship match. The opener overdelivers, AJ Lee and Kaitlyn put on a hidden gem, Punk and Jericho have an all-out war that I found more engaging than their Chicago Street Fight a year later, and the Ziggler/Del Rio match is rightfully considered a career peak for Dolph and also one of the best things Del Rio did in his entire WWE run. Its worth noting that some reviewers have also praised the Shield/Orton and Bryan match. All in all, a very good show marred only by a perfunctory main event that really highlighted the lack of chemistry between Cena and Ryback (even given basically carte blanche with a "3 gimmick matches-in-1" opportunity) and Kane's general boringness.
FINAL RATING - Watch It...With Remote in Hand
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