WWE heads to Pittsburgh on Saturday for Payback, a pay-per-view that should deliver in the ring but is lacking in star power.
That’s the case whenever Roman Reigns isn’t on one of WWE’s premium live events. When someone is presented as the clear-cut top star in a promotion, things just feel less important when they aren’t around. WWE hasn’t done much to compensate for Reigns’s absence at Payback. This is the definition of a B-level PPV. Cody Rhodes, the second-biggest star in WWE right now, doesn’t even have a match advertised. Rhodes will instead be taking part in a talk-show segment on “The Grayson Waller Effect.”
Reigns and Rhodes not wrestling at Payback means that it’s up to Seth Rollins to be the featured attraction. Rollins will be defending his world heavyweight championship against Shinsuke Nakamura. It’s a matchup that shows why creating the world heavyweight championship was important. Everyone knows that it’s not on the same level as Reigns’s belts, but WWE needed another world title to headline PPVs like this. Reigns just doesn’t wrestle often enough to be the company’s sole world champion. Having a great match with Nakamura at Payback would help Rollins show that he—and the world heavyweight championship—are capable of carrying PPVs.
