Trying To Make Sense Out Of Sunday's Moves

Two talking points coming out of Sunday's WWE Payback pay-per-view, from a betting perspective, were the swings that occurred in betting for the Raw Women's and Cruiserweight Championship matches.

Alexa Bliss' title win was telegraphed on Sunday afternoon when her odds flipped from outsider to favourite. This was despite Saturday wagering moving the way of her opponent, Bayley.

It would be easy to state that - in this case - there was a change of mind and that there was a decision made somewhere between Saturday and Sunday that Bliss would end up getting the win at Payback. However, there was another shift in favour of Bayley in the hours leading into the pay-per-view that forced the oddsmakers to move Bliss to outsider.

For a short period of time. Bliss wasn't an outsider for long. She ended up back as the match favourite within an hour of moving out.

The Cruiserweight Championship market also saw the eventual loser backed on Saturday afternoon when Neville went from a short to heavy favourite.

The difference between the Cruiserweight and Women's Championship market is there was no Sunday afternoon flip. Austin Aries was backed into favouritism at around midnight UK time, which was an hour before the pay-per-view commenced.

Aries became a favourite over here in Europe some time between Friday night and early Saturday morning. However, it's difficult to firmly make a case for that being an indicator of people with knowledge of Sunday's result having a bet on Aries winning the title match as wagers also came in on Kevin Owens, Samoa Joe and the team of Anderson and Gallows. The three examples lost their respective matches.

I guess it's safe to draw the conclusion that Aries' win was a last-minute change. As for the Alexa Bliss victory - one of two things could have happened.

The erratic moves could have one believe that this was a decision that was going back-and-forth and back again throughout the weekend. On Monday morning's Wrestling Observer Radio podcast,  Dave Meltzer suggested this could have what was going on based on how the favourite and outsider flip-flopped twice over the weekend.

Another possible reason is the sportsbook was taking enough action on Bayley from regular punters in the latter stages of betting to warrant pushing her to favouritism. I state this because I have noticed - in months when markets are published on a Friday or Saturday -  the odds tend to be cut more significantly if contrasted to events where markets are opened many days, or even weeks, ahead of the show.

If option two is what happened - Bayley was the choice to win, but this was changed on Saturday night or very early on Sunday morning US time and the late interest in Bayley was general punters backing the champion to retain with a win.

Unlike with the Aries flip, where all signs point to a late change, the decision on Alexa could have been either of the two scenarios I wrote about above. Either option is plausible, in my opinion.

The key point is that - whichever narrative you choose - the beginning and end are the same. Bayley saw significant action on Saturday, Alexa was then backed at a later point and ended up winning the title on Sunday.