Seth Rollins Retains WWE Championship in Fatal 4-Way at WWE Payback 2015

Although the odds were stacked against him Sunday night at Payback, Seth Rollins retained the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in a Fatal 4-Way against Randy Orton, Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose.

The WWE Universe Twitter account provided the result as Rollins won by hitting Orton with a pedigree: 

WWE captured Rollins celebrating the win with his mentor, Triple H:

One of the highlights of the match was a triple power-bomb from the three members of The Shield: 

But it doesn't appear the gang will be getting back together anytime soon, as WWE displayed in this GIF:

Robert Littal of BSO noted how hard the four men were competing throughout the match: 

WWE Legend Mick Foley enjoyed the match: 

After winning a controversial match over The Viper at Extreme Rules, Rollins was initially placed in a Triple Threat match at Payback when the WWE Universe voted in favor of him facing both Orton and Reigns. That changed a couple weeks prior to the pay-per-view, though, as Ambrose beat Rollins to get inserted into the match and make it a Fatal 4-Way.

All of this was done, to some degree, with the help of Kane. Despite being the Director of Operations and a member of The Authority, The Big Red Monster continued to make life difficult for the self-professed present and future of WWE.

Despite Kane's passive-aggressive actions toward Rollins, the champion continued to claim that there weren't actual issues between them:

Even so, it was blatantly obvious that The Devil's Favorite Demon was trying to teach Rollins a lesson at the very least. It can be argued that he has gotten too big for his breeches since successfully cashing in his Money in the Bank contract at WrestleMania, and Kane has done his part to take him down a peg or two.

Entering Payback, it was clear that Rollins had his work cut out for him. He has had major issues with all three opponents dating back to last summer. He left both Reigns and Ambrose high and dry by destroying The Shield, and he prevented Reigns from winning the world title at WrestleMania by cashing in his Money in the Bank contract.

Also, he put The Lunatic Fringe out of action for several weeks by giving him a Curb Stomp onto some cinder blocks.

The former Mr. Money in the Bank put Orton's career in jeopardy as well by Curb Stomping him onto steel stairs and putting him on the shelf for a few months. WWE's Apex Predator returned and defeated him at WrestleMania, but Rollins was ultimately able to get one up on him by using questionable tactics to defeat him in a Steel Cage match at Extreme Rules.

All three Superstars wanted to decimate Rollins at Payback, but with the WWE World Heavyweight Championship on the line, it was inevitable that they would have some issues with each other as well.

Rollins was able to take advantage of that, and he once again escaped with the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in tow.

While Rollins now has a couple successful title defenses on the pay-per-view stage, he has yet to win decisively. That isn't uncommon for a heel of his ilk, but WWE may need to make him look stronger moving forward in order for fans to buy him as world champion.

The writers haven't shown the ability or willingness to do that on Raw and SmackDown thus far, but Rollins' victory at Payback means they will now have more opportunities to establish him.

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