WWE Payback 2016: 5 Epic announcements Vince McMahon could have made
We wouldn’t be magnanimous at all in saying that WWE Payback 2016 crossed expectations as the first capacity since WrestleMania 32. In fact, it left us coloured a healthy shade of impressed.
The McMahons main-evented their second straight PPV and those disappointed with the outcome of the tag team title number one contender’s final should be ashamed and on their knees praying for Enzo's diss-troyer to get back into kilter.
All the matches made the grade when it came to action, but the crowd were left with a bitter taste in their mouths after witnessing a bootleg of the reason behind a wrestling's legends (who just beat cancer, no less) vendetta against Vince McMahon.
Speaking of the power-walking, let-your-walk-do-the-talking, there's-nothing-I-can't-get-away-with CEO, he once again demonstrated the power of uncertainty. The whole arena was filled with the grating sound of fingernail against scalp after Vince tossed the future of the WWE into his children's hands with the same air of a father giving into his kids' pleas for a second ice cream.
But after all that, we couldn’t help feeling that the element of surprise could have been amplified. Here's how:
5. Brand split
The most obvious and rumoured shift in the landscape is still in incubation. The sibling-partnership thing though underwhelming, is a shrewd tactic to make assure viewership while not spending it on a lesser PPV.
It’s most probably going to be announced for SummerSlam, what with Survivor Series succeeding it and whispers of War Games being revived. It looks like the WWE are holding their nerve in the absence of a lot of top draws. This would’ve been a nice compensation for WrestleMania, but, sigh, we’ve been patient with them for this long, so why not a little longer?