Seth Rollins Retains His World Heavyweight Championship in the WWE Payback 2023 Main Event

Seth Rollins overcame Shinsuke Nakamura's vicious assault on his injured back to retain.

By Connor Casey

Seth Rollins retained his World Heavyweight Championship in the main event of Saturday night's Payback pay-per-view, defeating Shinsuke Nakamura with a Curb Stomp. Rollins has now recorded 25 successful World Heavyweight Championship defenses since becoming the inaugural champion at the Night of Champions event in late May. He'll team with John Cena to face Imperium in a tag team match at the Superstar Spectacle event in India this Friday. As for Nakamura, this marked his seventh unsuccessful attempt at becoming a WWE world champion on pay-per-view. 

Nakamura repeatedly targeted Rollins' injured back throughout the match, just as he had been promising for weeks on Monday Night Raw. Rollins physically struggled to stand after the match, selling the injury he has legitimately been dealing with for years. And while the champ appeared vulnerable, Damian Priest did not appear to use his Money in the Bank briefcase.

Seth Rollins Comments on His Legitimate Back Injury

Rollins first went public regarding his nagging back injury in an interview with Logan Paul on the Impaulsive podcast. He noted at the time that he would eventually need to undergo surgery.

"I try to change my training up based on how I feel. There are constant injuries. My knee has been bugging me since before WrestleMania (39). I was having an issue with that. My neck acting up. My lower back has been at me since 2019 [and I] probably should get some surgery on that," Rollins said. "[I'm] trying to just do whatever I can to make sure I don't need it because I have a couple of stress fractures back there."

"I tried some stem cells, I've done a couple of stem cell treatments. I found that they were temporarily helpful," Rollins continued. "I wasn't taking time off. I wasn't just idling while I was on the stem cells, I was still working pretty much a full-time schedule with WWE. I found it temporarily helpful, but long-term it kind of faded off a little bit."

WWE Payback 2023 Results

  • Becky Lynch def. Trish Stratus (Steel Cage Match)
  • LA Knight def. The Miz (John Cena as special guest referee)
  • WWE United States Championship: Rey Mysterio def. Austin Theory
  • Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championships:  The Judgment Day (Finn Balor & Damian Priest) def. Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn 
  • Women's World Championship: Rhea Ripley def. Raquel Rodriguez
  • World Heavyweight Championship: Seth Rollins def. Shinsuke Nakamura
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