World Wrestling Entertainment offers Payback this evening on pay-per-view from Chicago. John Cena defends the WWE championship against Ryback in a Three Stages of Hell match where the first fall is contested with lumberjacks surrounding the ring, a second is one where the victor must vanquish the loser through a table and, if necessary, the third fall requires someone being sufficiently debilitated to be placed in a waiting ambulance to terminate the stipulation-crazy main event.
While the feud between Cena and Ryback is a pretty logically booked and protracted one, it does not seem to be a huge draw on its own. The return of C.M. Punk, who has been on hiatus to try to heal up from some nagging injuries, will be a strong attraction for his hometown Chicago crowd when he faces Chris Jericho. Y2J is thought to be departing for a little break of his own that involves his band Fozzy going on tour this summer, so you can do your own figuring there as to who might likely be going over tonight.
Dolph Ziggler has been cleared to return from concussionville to defend the world heavyweight crown against the challenge of Alberto Del Rio and should do so successfully. Fandango has not been cleared from his own visit to the same zip code and has been replaced in a three-way for the Intercontinental title bout by the ascending Curt Axel.
Ironically, Axel gained two more victories over Triple H last Monday at Raw when they continued Hunter's storyline concussion injury angle in pretty entertaining fashion, if there is any such possibility when alluding to the serious subject of a head injury. It is obviously easier to be flippant when dealing with a pretend storyline.
At Raw, Helmsley was supposedly cleared by doctors to wrestle Axel and that match opened the show. Triple H's father-in-law, Vince, quickly marched down to the ring with the inimitable McMahon gait to order the ring announcer to ring the bell, stop the match and announce Axel as the winner. The poor guy nervously complied with the chairman's request and then just as nervously capitulated to Helmsley when he insisted the match be restarted (this time as a sixty-minute Iron Man Match) after Vince first left.
As the match re-started, out came Vince once again, determined to put an end to the contest about fifty-nine minutes earlier than the newly re-scheduled time limit. This time, McMahon wasn't taking any chances and told the ring announcer to declare Axel the winner by forfeit and he also took the ring bell with him as he hastened to depart with his son-in-law screaming in protest.
When the camera got backstage, we had Hunter's wife, Stephanie, begging her husband not to hurt her dad. She kept telling him to think of him as the grandfather playing with their children and Helmsley kept trying to get her to understand how embarrassed he was by what Vince did to him.
Have to admit it was more entertaining than it sounds written here. It was one of those things you had to see to appreciate fully. As the recipient of three hoaky wins over Triple H and one over John Cena in a couple of weeks time, Axel was announced later in the show as being inserted into the three-way tonight for the I.C. championship with Miz and Wade Barrett. You have to like Curt's chances of leaving Chicago with gold around his waist.
Kane challenges Dean Ambrose for the United States belt. Something tells me Ambrose retains. Likewise, I believe the Shield prevails as Rollins and Reigns keep the tag team straps over Orton and Bryan. The A.J. vs. Kaitlin match for the divas championship could easily go either way, but since I'm picking winners, I'll go with Big E getting involved and costing one of the women the bout. Which one, I'm far from sure, but let's go with A.J. getting the title here. If you get it, enjoy the show.