WWE Payback

WWE Payback was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by WWE, a Connecticut-based professional wrestling promotion. It has been broadcast on PPV since its inaugural 2013 event, the WWE Network since 2014, and Peacock for the 2023 event. The concept of the event is the wrestlers seeking payback against their opponents.

The event was established in 2013 and replaced No Way Out in the mid-June slot of WWE's pay-per-view calendar. It continued to be held annually until 2017; in 2015, the event moved up to the May slot, and was then moved to late-April in 2017. To coincide with the WWE brand extension that was reintroduced in mid-2016, the 2017 event was held exclusively for wrestlers from the Raw brand. Payback was then dropped from WWE's PPV calendar for 2018 as following WrestleMania 34 that year, WWE discontinued brand-exclusive PPVs, resulting in the reduction of PPVs produced yearly. The event was then reinstated in 2020, which moved it to late-August right after SummerSlam that year. It was then dropped again but reinstated in 2023 for early September during Labor Day weekend.

History

In 2012, WWE reinstated their No Way Out pay-per-view (PPV), which had previously ran annually from 1999 to 2009. The following year, however, No Way Out was canceled and replaced by a new event called Payback with a concept of wrestlers seeking payback against their opponents. The inaugural Payback event was held on June 16, 2013, at the Allstate Arena in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, Illinois.