WWE ran an angle this summer where Seth Rollins suffered an injury out of nowhere on Saturday Night’s Main Event, which led to an awkward and abrupt finish in his match against LA Knight.
There was a lot of confusion in the aftermath of the show, with many folks swearing Seth was legit hurt, while others said it was all a work. Some reputable outlets said it was disrespectful to even suggest Seth was faking an injury, while others reported that it was all part of a plan for him to do a surprise cash-in
of the Money in the Bank contract on CM Punk at SummerSlam. Of course, the latter scenario came to fruition and Rollins is now the world heavyweight champion.
During an interview on the SI Media Podcast with Jimmy Traina, Rollins talked about how great it felt to pull off this ruse when it’s so difficult to keep plans from leaking today.
“I think that was part of the appeal for me, was that I knew it was gonna be a gray area. In our industry, that’s all you need. You just need a little bit of room, a little question in the back of people’s mind that I don’t know the answer. I can’t predict what’s happening here. And as long as you have that, that’s what makes the magic in our industry. So, we had that in spades.
…We live in the age of information. Everybody’s got inside sources. The inside sources want to tell everybody, whether it’s for money, or power, or aura, or whatever it is. So it is very difficult to keep a good secret in our industry, and I was very happy with the way this turned out. So we kept a pretty tight ship on this thing. A few people were aware, but yeah, it was nice…I don’t know [how many people knew it was a work], you can probably count on two hands.”
Seth thought the idea was brilliant, and he was the perfect man for the job.
“I’m not exactly sure where it was hatched. It was presented to me in advance, quite some time, in our business it was a few weeks. I thought the idea was brilliant when I first heard it. Obviously the execution was gonna be important, and the details were gonna need to be ironed out. But I felt the crux of the idea was brilliant, and I was the guy to be able to pull that off. So I was very excited at the prospect of it. My level of commitment to our industry is second to none, I would say, so I was the guy for the job.
I did not anticipate how annoying it would be to have to crutch around the city for a weeks, though. That was an unexpected part of it. That was pretty obnoxious.”
Rollins then took a minor shot at smart wrestling fans who fell for the angle.
“I thought as soon as Saturday Night’s Main Event went off the air, you saw everybody asking questions. And I was like, oh we’re in. You know, that’s it. It’s over. So, I don’t know that it was too difficult. I think people maybe think they’re smarter than they are sometimes.”
Seth doesn’t feel guilty at all for working the boys and girls in the WWE locker room, or his close friends, because it’s just business.
“No, I didn’t feel guilty [laughter]. I let my wife take all the guilt. She’s got that Irish guilt anyway. She feels guilty about everything. She steps on an ant and she feels like she’s going to hell.
It’s a business. If someone did this to me, I wouldn’t feel bad in the slightest. You know what I mean? I totally would get it. Even my closest friends.
Maybe John Cena…John reached out and I had to do my best to wiggle around it. But again, John and I are cut from the same cloth, so when John saw the final outcome, he was very happy. He was proud, in a way.”
Do you think it’s in WWE’s best interests to work most of the wrestlers in the locker room for the sake of protecting a major creative plan, or is this practice asking for trouble? Let me know in the comments below, Cagesiders.
