The Great Muta was present at ringside for the WWE Payback main event on Saturday.
Muta was briefly shown on camera while seated in the crowd for the Seth Rollins vs. Shinsuke Nakamura main event at Saturday's Payback pay-per-view in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Rollins defeated Nakamura to retain the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in the show-closing bout. Muta did not get involved in the match.
Muta, real name Keiji Muto, retired from the ring earlier this year after a career spanning nearly 39 years.
Prior to his retirement, Muta wrestled Nakamura on January 1 at Pro Wrestling NOAH's The New Year show in a rare instance of WWE allowing a contracted talent in Nakamura to work a match outside of the company.
Muta would wrestle for the final time as The Great Muta character at The Great Muta Final Bye-Bye event on January 23 of this year in Yokohama, Japan. His final matches under his real name cam in February of this year at the Tokyo Dome at the Keiji Muto Grand Final Pro-Wrestling "Last" Love show, where he lost to Tetsuya Naito, then defeated Masahiro Chono in an unadvertised match to close his career.
Muta was then inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame on WrestleMania weekend on March 31 in Los Angeles.
Muta won the Wrestling Observer Newsletter award for Wrestler of the Year in 2001, and was a member of the 1999 Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame class.
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