WWE: Seth Rollins Says SummerSlam Crowd Let Him Down
During last night’s WWE SummerSlam event, the Universal Title match took place between Finn Balor and Seth Rollins. It was a very good match as I wrote about in my detailed SummerSlam review, but what was disappointing about the match was the crowd reaction.
For much of the match, the crowd was reacting to the new WWE Universal Title with chants of “that red belt sucks” and things like that. They reacted that way because the title has the same design as the WWE Title and the Women’s Title except it’s red for Raw. It was picked up on the broadcast very well, yet the announcers didn’t put it over because they wanted to focus on the match.
About an hour after SummerSlam was over, Seth Rollins tweeted this about the crowd reaction.
More important than a title's appearance is what it represents for the men fighting over it. You really let me down tonight, Brooklyn.
— Seth Rollins (@WWERollins) August 22, 2016
I think he has a point. The crowd reaction sucked and I don’t blame him for saying the crowd let him down because they were busting their ass in the ring while the crowd was more interested in booing a title. While I think the title design is lazy, it’s one of those things where I just shrug my shoulders, say no big deal and move on. Watch the damn match. Who cares about the look of an object? It’s not a big deal.
Could WWE have prevented something like this? Yeah, they could have done that by introducing the title on television and gauged the audience reaction at that point. If they knew the crowd would have hated it maybe they would have done something different for SummerSlam.
The hate for the title has made its way online because a lot of fans were complaining about it on social media. On a Youtube video of a segment with Mick Foley and Stephanie McMahon that took place in front of the live crowd only, there are over 11,000 dislike reactions compared to 5,500 like reactions for the new title. Needless to say, the WWE Universe is not thrilled with the Universal Title that WWE claims is supposed to represent them.