The event was established in 2013 and replacedNo Way Out in the mid-June slot of WWE's pay-per-view calendar. It continued to be held annually until2017; in2015, the event moved up to the May slot, and was then moved to late-April in 2017. To coincide with theWWE brand extension that was reintroduced in mid-2016, the 2017 event was held exclusively for wrestlers from theRaw brand. Payback was then dropped from WWE's PPV calendar for 2018 as followingWrestleMania 34 that year, WWE discontinued brand-exclusive PPVs, resulting in the reduction of PPVs produced yearly. The event was thenreinstated in 2020, which moved it to late-August right afterSummerSlam that year. It was then dropped again but reinstated in 2023 for early September duringLabor Day weekend.
In 2012,WWE reinstated theirNo 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] Theinaugural Payback event was held on June 16, 2013, at theAllstate Arena in theChicago suburb ofRosemont, Illinois.[2][3][4]
The2014 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'slivestreaming service, theWWE Network, which had launched earlier that year in February.[5] In2015 and2016, the event was held in May.[6][7] The 2016 event was also promoted as the first PPV ofThe New Era for WWE.[8] In July 2016, WWE reintroduced thebrand extension, dividing the roster between theRaw andSmackDown brands where wrestlers were exclusively assigned to perform.[9] The2017 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, followingWrestleMania 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 theCOVID-19 pandemic, the2020 event was held in WWE'sbio-secure bubble called theWWE ThunderDome, hosted at theAmway Center inOrlando, Florida.[12] WWE resumed live touring in July 2021, but Payback would take another three-year hiatus before it wasreinstated in 2023 forLabor Day weekend on September 2 at thePPG Paints Arena inPittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This will be the first Payback held on a Saturday, the first held in September, and the first to livestream onPeacock in the United States after the American WWE Network merged under Peacock in March 2021.[13] Payback was not scheduled for 2024 and was replaced byBash in Berlin.
