Make a Universal Championship match for Payback 2017

[Dagger Dias]

So when Brock Lesnar held the World Heavyweight Championship hostage by not defending it monthly at PPV events back in 2014-2015, I ran a thread series on asking how people would have booked the World Heavyweight Championship matches for the PPV's that were without any type of World Championship defense. We have entered a situation with a similar issue with the Universal Championship now, so let's talk about Payback 2017 which just took place a couple of weeks ago and how to fix the main event tier of the show. Ultimately the show felt incomplete for me and it was for two primary reasons. Not only did Brock NOT defend Raw's top title but there was also the odd decision of Bray VS Orton suddenly turning into a non-title match. The whole point of being a wrestler, within kayfabe, should be to win a World Championship. WWE should not hold PPV events without a World Championship match. They could have stripped Brock of the title for refusing to appear at the show then awarded it to the winner of Strowman VS Reigns, simple as that. Unfortunately we were without a World Championship match at the event.


Here are the results from the actual show:


0. Enzo Amore & Big Cass defeated Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson in a tag team match. [6:35]

1. Chris Jericho defeated Kevin Owens (c) by submission to win the United States Championship in a singles match. [17:55]

2. Austin Aries defeated Neville (c) by disqualification to retain the Cruiserweight Championship in a singles match. [11:20]

3. The Hardy Boyz (c) defeated Cesaro & Sheamus in a tag team match for the Raw Tag Team Championship. [12:45]

4. Alexa Bliss defeated Bayley (c) in a singles match for the Raw Women's Championship. [11:15]

5. Bray Wyatt defeated Randy Orton in a House Of Horrors match. [17:10]

6. Seth Rollins defeated Samoa Joe in a singles match. [15:55]

7. Braun Strowman defeated Roman Reigns in a singles match. [11:50]




Alright, so for the purposes of the discussion in this thread you have been tasked with coming up with a Universal Championship match for the Payback 2017 event. Would you have had Brock Lesnar defend it? Would he be stripped of the title due to not appearing for a title defense? You may make a match between anyone who was currently active on the roster during this PPV. Feel free to re-book the entire card too if you want to, but in order for your post to remain on-topic you must address the Universal Championship and then provide a reason for why you booked the match the way you did.

What would your version of Payback 2017 have been like? What would the Universal Championship match have been and why?

Discuss!

 

[Deoxyribonucleic A.C.I.D.]

Finn Balor.

Reigns, who just defeated The Undertaker at Wrestlemania and Rollins, who just defeated Triple H at Wrestlemania, would seem like the most obvious choices for Lesnar. But Rollins has his hands full with Joe and Reigns has his hadns full with Strowman. But, we have a guy, that has never lost the championship and was forced to vacate it due to injury.

Finn Balor makes his return and goes after the Universal Championship and Brock Lesnar. I'd have Finn face Lesnar both at Payback and Extreme Rules and give him a decent showing against the Beast. Actually, have normal Finn get his ass whooped at Payback and then bring out the Demon, who goes up evenly matched against Lesnar at Extreme Rules!

 

[The Perfect Max]

Yeah I think Finn Bálor too. He had absolutely nothing to do so why the heck not? This could have been his return segment on Raw, which in reality I don't think was very interesting, nor was his first month back. This would greatly improve his return AND get the inevitable out of the way.

Finn may face Brock down the line, but he will surely lose no matter when that is. Having him face Brock here is a surprising twist to his return because I'm not sure many people would predict his return would be straight into a feud with Lesnar. But it's Payback and he never lost his title blah blah blah. However, I wouldn't bring back the Demon ONLY because we've only seen that once on the main roster, and while Finn won, I wouldn't want to ruin the aura of that character to those who didn't experience it in NXT by having him lose in his second round as the Demon, especially to Brock. He should bring the Demon out to win (most of the time, of course. I wouldn't want him undefeated for too long).

Having said all of that, and I understand the purpose of this thread and COMPLETELY agree that Lesnar should defend the belt on every pay-per-view, I didn't necessarily mind him not defending here so long as they had done some sort of contendership match. If they weren't gonna have a match for the title at all, at least have the contender determined here and have a match at Extreme Rules AND NOT GREAT BALLS OF FIRE WHAT A STUPID NAME. Anyway, I would have been happy to have Braun beat Roman in that match as it happened, just for the contendership too.

Either way, I hope this title run doesn't last too long and we don't have to imagine what could have been in these threads all year long.

 

[shafe_41]

I won't put a TON of thought into this... but I'd probably throw in a triple threat with Lesnar/Rollins/Balor. Make Lesnar defend the title against two guys that never really lost their titles. Sure Rollins got the WWE Title back before Ambrose cashed in MitB last summer... but he never lost it previously. Balor also never lost the Universal Title. You could also build in a vendetta where Balor and Rollins are teaming up on Lesnar to make sure he doesn't leave with the title. Rollins and Balor keep breaking up Lesnar's pin attempts on the other guy many times during the match. You keep both Rollins and Balor SOMEWHAT protected by Lesnar pinning one of the two but only after a long somewhat brutal match where Lesnar has to dig out a weapon or two or maybe somehow cheat to win knowing he can't beat both guys at the same time. I put about 90 seconds of thought into this but I'd like to see a triple threat between the three guys.

I would personally hold off on Braun beating Lesnar for the title until Braun juuuuuuuust starts to get that hint of a face turn and it's solidified big time and very quickly when Lesnar gets beat by Strowman.

 

[ISkye]

I never really get into fantasy booking, because doing the actual thing was really difficult for 300-500 (Maybe 50-100 more tops) people. Can't imagine having people with more talent than entire Indy shows that move well over six figures in merchandise. I wouldn't want to at the same time though so I guess that is all good. Feel like I'd either wrong the crowd or wrestler one way or another short and long term.

Anyway I guess I will just fun it out, because I've been kind of interested in WWE more from a potential standpoint the last two or so weeks. (Jinder Mahal, etc. A lot of the feuds are just starting or transitioning)

*** What would your version of Payback 2017 have been like? What would the Universal Championship match have been and why? ***

Going to be as straight forward / basic as possible on this before I re-work the whole show or something. Lesnar is such a big deal you could adjust 3-4 of these matches just with him being on the card.

So going to put Ambrose on the pre-show in some type of decent moment or segment. Just so he (IC title, anyway) remains some since of relevancy to the main show, and move Miz / Balor to the main card. I'd probably have Bray finish Orton without ridiculous interference with a sister Abigail. Then have Balor pop in (Out of demon paint) to take out Bray as those two are feuding and it gives them more reason. Bray also looks strong for once, and Orton looks more vulnerable than the guy who plowed through Cena, Styles, Wyatt, Harper, Ambrose, etc to make Mahal a bit more credible. Also Mahal doesn't bring out the title here making it look 2nd shot to the Universal or even appear on the brand it isn't associated with.

Would of altered Joe v Rollins to something that Rollins looked stronger in, because it'd be nice to have a middle of the road opponent for Lesnar with higher credibility other than the two obvious options. (Reigns, Strowman). I'm also pretty sure that is why Finn Balor is going to probably go over Wyatt, and the 1st Universal Champion ever will take on Lesnar. The Demon v. Beast thing is just such a legitimate money match I see them even getting behind if the timing lines up right. I love Joe, but I just do not see it happening at all although it'd be great to see him even just get in the face of Lesnar. Joe / Rollins / Balor all really could be placed better on this show in several possibilities if Lesnar was here and would probably be one of the top 3 priorities on my list. (Smackdown Main title, Future for Universal Title, Actual match here)

Actual match wise it is hard, because Balor was actually legitimately credible more than most guys on Raw even just coming back. Yet pulling the trigger on it that early would be ridiculous and couldn't be foreseen in time to really construct it properly. I'd almost rather him run through Big Show or something just to establish his ridiculous beast persona Brock was known for. Even possibly just walking out after the Strowman vs Reigns match and laying waste to Strowman and maybe Reigns spearing him, and Lesnar then destroying reigns just to stand tall. That was a big deal when Heyman was talking about who Lesnar wanted and was after so him destroying both the guy he mentioned and the first guy to get in his face would be actually consistent. Would set up him vs Braun early, and you can continue any variant of the current feuds with Joe, Balor, Rollins, Ambrose, Miz, etc with the same time frame to go. Then Reigns could go back up the ladder, and when the wheels eventually turns Reigns was re-built and can stand not just over Braun, but up to Lesnar as equals or maybe more.

 

[Navi]

As much as I agree with Dagger on the issue of not having the WWE Universal champ on each PPV in some form, I see Payback as being a little different this year.

Considering it was the first PPV for either brand after Mania, and taking into consideration that we just had a superstar shakeup, I would have kept the title off of this show. There were just too many loose ends to tie up on both shows.

For example, Bray Wyatt lost the WWE title to Orton at Mania so he had an automatic rematch clause. When he got traded to RAW it put the WWE into a bit of a dilemma as you really can't have both main titles on the same show. So Wyatt had to face Orton either at Payback or the upcoming Blacklash. It was sort of a given that he wouldn't get the title back and better off getting the whole thing done and over with right away, now in saying that, he still hasn't got his rematch has he?

Owens and Jericho were in the same situation with the US title. Jericho was also going on a leave of absence and Owens was traded to Smackdown. Better have all the loose ends wrapped up so that we can go forward. Plus it's too early to have Balor or Rollins go against Lesnar, I don't think either one of them are 100 percent healthy.

So when all is said and done, I didn't really mind that Lesnar didn't show up for this one, only this one though.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

Personally, I don't mind that the universal title isn't defended on every ppv because it makes the titles feel more important by not being the focus all the time but I come from another era we're the title was defended just a couple of time a year,

But I get why fans complains aout lesnar not defending the title on every ppv. So while I think that payback really didn't need a title match on it, if I had to book a universal title match for payback, I would have gone with a fatal four way match between lesnar, joe, rollins and balor.

To set up this match, I would have done the simple booking of having those three fight too see who will ne the no.1 contender and lesnar comes in a destroys everybody. Then angle comes in and say since nobody won the match, they are all no.1 contender for the title. That way you got your throwaway title match for payback.

 

[MINISTRYrising]

To be fair I don't thing there was really enough time to book a meaningful universe title match so soon after Mania, the only way around that would have been a rematch Between Lesnar and Goldberg and that was never going to happen. Also the only other realistic challengers for the Title were already involved in other feuds (Jericho VS Owens, Reigns VS Strowman, Rollins VS Joe)The only one this really left was Balor and in my opinion he would be the idea person for Brock to drop the title at Summerslam, So it makes sence to keep them apart until then. So in this instance WWE were right not to have the title defended at payback.

 

[Navi]

Personally, I don't mind that the universal title isn't defended on every ppv because it makes the titles feel more important by not being the focus all the time but I come from another era we're the title was defended just a couple of time a year,

And I agree with what you say here to a certain degree, what I don't agree with is the fact that the titles shouldn't be defended at PPV's. Isn't that the main reason we have PPV's?

Yes for the first ten years or so there weren't that many PPV's to begin with anyway, but as they turned up the volume on them, why would people spend money to order a glorified episode of RAW? You ordered the PPV to see a title match and maybe the title's change hands.

Isn't that why we have RAW and SD to build feuds for title matches on PPV's, aren't these matches supposed to sell said PPV? Very rarely do you see the titles change hands on free TV, yes it has happened, usually they change hands on a PPV. Up until the Network you could pay anywhere from $40 to $60 for each one, not to have a title defense defeats the whole purpose of spending the money and people would have stopped a long time ago.

I do agree the title didn't need to be at Payback, everyone who should have been involved with Lesnar was into something else, that doesn't mean though he shouldn't be showing up. If the guy is too expensive then why put the title on him to begin with. I'm expecting him to be at Great Balls of Fire, horrible name by the way, but Extreme Rules might be another RAW PPV without it's champion. Dismal booking by creative and Vince.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

And I agree with what you say here to a certain degree, what I don't agree with is the fact that the titles shouldn't be defended at PPV's. Isn't that the main reason we have PPV's?

Yes for the first ten years or so there weren't that many PPV's to begin with anyway, but as they turned up the volume on them, why would people spend money to order a glorified episode of RAW? You ordered the PPV to see a title match and maybe the title's change hands.

Isn't that why we have RAW and SD to build feuds for title matches on PPV's, aren't these matches supposed to sell said PPV? Very rarely do you see the titles change hands on free TV, yes it has happened, usually they change hands on a PPV. Up until the Network you could pay anywhere from $40 to $60 for each one, not to have a title defense defeats the whole purpose of spending the money and people would have stopped a long time ago.

I do agree the title didn't need to be at Payback, everyone who should have been involved with Lesnar was into something else, that doesn't mean though he shouldn't be showing up. If the guy is too expensive then why put the title on him to begin with. I'm expecting him to be at Great Balls of Fire, horrible name by the way, but Extreme Rules might be another RAW PPV without it's champion. Dismal booking by creative and Vince.

But with the current format of them be mostly network special instead of ppv now, I think you don't really need the title to be on every brand only special because it really doesn't matter anyway. If you watch the history of the universal title since it got created, is their one universal title match the made a difference for raw only ppv. Not really, in fact, most title match we're use on the undercard to set up the main event.

Lesnar is a special attraction and should remain that way and the universal title need a lot of rehabing as well to make it feel like a main title, that why I think you need to make the fans forget about the horrible run owens had with the belt and the perception that the title is at the same level as the us or ic title. When lesnar will return in june after extreme rules, it will make it a even bigger event instead of just another title match.