WWE: Seth Rollins Discusses Return of his Finisher, Heel or Face and Goals for 2018
Tonight’s edition of Monday Night Raw takes place in Des Moines, Iowa, which is the home state of Seth “Freakin'” Rollins, who grew up in and still lives in Davenport, Iowa. It’s well documented on the WWE 24 feature on Rollins, which I highly recommend by the way.
Rollins has spent much of the last six months as part of the WWE Raw tag team division, but with Elimination Chamber coming up next month it appears as though it’s the right time for him to focus on his singles career again.
In an interview with the Des Moines Register, Rollins covered a lot of topics. Here’s what he had to say.
Rollins on being in front of a hometown crowd for Raw:
“Oh, absolutely it’s a hometown show for me. Anywhere when I’m performing in the state of Iowa it feels to me like I’ve got the home team on my side, so it’s definitely going to be an exciting Monday night for me. I’m looking forward to coming down to Des Moines and doing my thing.”
“I’ve got a lot of supporters. I’ve been living in the state basically my whole life. I’ve been fortunate enough to get a lot of local fans, and people in Des Moines themselves have paid attention to what I do because I’m from Iowa.”
Rollins on the return of the Curb Stomp as his finishing move, which is now being called The Blackout:
“I was pretty excited to reconnect with an old friend. It’s been three years since I’ve been able to perform the move. Obviously, it got a nice reaction from the crowd and from the online audience as well. It was exciting to bring it back and hopefully moving forward it’d be a nice piece to add to my arsenal.”
Rollins on if he prefers being a face or a heel:
“I just do my thing and have fun with it. I like both aspects of it. Obviously, as people we all got a little light and a little dark in them, so it’s fun to let them both fly out from time to time. Who even really knows what a heel or a face is nowadays, I couldn’t even tell you. You look at the landscape and listen who the fans cheer and who they boo and it’s all turned upside down. It’s sort of a different era we’re moving into where I think just having strong characters and strong personalities is what sets you apart.”
Rollins on what his goals are in 2018:
“To get back to the mountain top. I want to reclaim the spot that I lost before I got hurt a few years ago. I haven’t been able to have a lengthy run as the man, the champ, that I was back then. I want to stay healthy obviously. I want to travel to as many places as I can and wrestle in front of as many wonderful fans as I can. Personally, I’d love to get that big red title belt from Brock Lesnar and be a guy that the show centers around. So, those are my goals and I’m going to work as hard as I can to get there.”
Rollins also discussed the Shield reunion, Finn Balor, NXT and more that you can read from his talk with Des Moines Register right here.
TJR Thoughts: I’m a huge fan of Rollins and think he’s an outstanding performer as evidenced by the fact that he was my WWE Wrestler of the Year in the Johnny Awards in 2014 and 2015 as well. As he alluded to, injuries have slowed him down a bit with a serious knee injury in late 2015 and then the minor knee injury last year. Since Rollins beat Triple H at WrestleMania last year, there hasn’t much for him to do as a singles guy, so he did the Shield reunion with Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns that ended up as a disappointment.
I hope that Rollins can have a big year as a singles wrestler because he’s too good to be just a tag team wrestler. It seemed as though his WrestleMania direction would lead to a match with Jason Jordan, but with Jordan possibly out of WrestleMania due to a neck injury, Rollins may end up in another direction. Maybe Samoa Joe as an opponent? If Joe is healthy from his foot injury that would be a good match.
I think post WrestleMania, Rollins is likely going to be moved to Smackdown after WrestleMania (assuming there’s another roster shake-up post WM) just to give him some new opportunities and to get the Shield guys off the same show. There are a lot of potential feuds out there for Rollins.