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 Outpay-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.[1] The
inaugural Payback event was held on June 16, 2013, at the
Allstate Arena in the
Chicago suburb of
Rosemont, Illinois.[2][3][4]
The
2014 event in turn established Payback as an annual event for the promotion. It was also held in June at the same arena and was also the first Payback to air on WWE's
livestreaming service, the
WWE Network, which had launched earlier that year in February.[5] In
2015 and
2016, the event was held in May.[6][7] The 2016 event was also promoted as the first PPV of
The New Era for WWE.[8] In July 2016, WWE reintroduced the
brand extension, dividing the roster between the
Raw and
SmackDown brands where wrestlers were exclusively assigned to perform.[9] The
2017 event was in turn held exclusively for wrestlers from the Raw brand, and was also moved up to late-April.[10]
The event was expected to return in 2018 as a SmackDown-exclusive event, however, following
WrestleMania 34 that year, WWE discontinued brand-exclusive PPVs. As a result, Payback was discontinued due to a reduction in the amount of yearly PPVs produced.[11] Following a three-year hiatus, however, Payback was reinstated in 2020 and held in late August. Due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, the
2020 event was held in WWE's
bio-secure bubble called the
WWE ThunderDome, hosted at the
Amway Center in
Orlando, Florida.[12] WWE resumed live touring in July 2021, but Payback would take another three-year hiatus before it was
reinstated in 2023 for
Labor Day weekend on September 2 at the
PPG Paints Arena in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This will be the first Payback held on a Saturday, the first held in September, and the first to livestream on
Peacock in the United States after the American WWE Network merged under Peacock in March 2021.[13]