Seth Rollins is challenging World Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns on Sunday (Aug. 2) at night two of SummerSlam.
Earlier today, WWE posted a SummerSlam Countdown interview where Jackie Redmond asks Rollins if he respects the way Reigns made it to the top of WWE. In answering the question, Rollins hones in on Roman being WWE’s chosen one right from the start. Seth says he resents the WWE system (and sometimes the fans) for letting Reigns get away with shitty promos like Sufferin’ Succotash and Tater
Tots. Rollins was not allowed to make mistakes like that, and Roman will never understand what that feels like because WWE always protected him.
“My perspective, I see it as he’s starting on third base. From his perspective, and I can see this, is that is a level of pressure that maybe I will never understand, right? But it didn’t matter if he failed. It didn’t matter if he wasn’t great at what he did. So yeah there was an expectation, but he could go out there and say sufferin’ succotash, and it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. He was still gonna get the opportunities.
If I go out and I lay an egg, whether it’s a promo, or a match, whatever it is, I may not get another crack. I drop to the bottom, and I got to find my way up.
There’s been a moment in my career. I won’t say who, but it was mid 2010’s, and I’m trying to figure out who I am. And I get told by someone that I respect a great deal that I’m not the star I should be. And that hit me so hard, because rewind a few years back to NXT, and I get told by Triple H, and this is a very public story, that I’m on the chopping block. These are situations that Roman Reigns will never understand. These are expectations that he will never have to deal with.
So I don’t resent Roman as a person for what he has, and what he was given. I suppose more than anything, I resent the system. I resent the way it is. And, gosh, this might not be a popular one. Sometimes I resent the audience for accepting that. I think that part, again, might not be popular to say, but it’s my truth. It’s just how I feel. Sometimes, and I get it, but it is hard for me to swallow sometimes.”
It seems like Seth’s argument relies on breaking kayfabe, since Rollins was The Authority’s chosen one on screen in WWE after The Shield broke up. One major problem with Seth’s point is that the fans did shit all over Roman Reigns and reject him as the top babyface in WWE, prior to his transformation into the Tribal Chief. The fans were so sick of Roman’s babyface push that they even booed The Rock for endorsing him at Royal Rumble 2015.
As far his resentment of the WWE system is concerned, I agree with Seth’s claim about Roman being handed the top spot and protected by WWE years ago. However, I’m not sure why Roman’s failures circa 2015 should cancel out the greatness he has demonstrated as the Tribal Chief over the last six years. It’s been evident for a long time now that Roman is one of the best performers in WWE.
It’s also hard to buy into the idea that Seth was fighting a major uphill battle against the WWE system to reach the top in the same way that stars before him like CM Punk and Daniel Bryan did. Rollins was positioned extremely well in WWE right from the beginning with The Shield, and he was always pushed as a big deal, even as WWE pushed Roman harder. I don’t ever recall Seth being dropped to the bottom, as he puts it above.
Do you buy what Seth is selling about resenting the WWE system for how it managed their paths as singles stars in the company? Let me know in the comments below, Cagesiders.
