Seth Rollins Concerned By WWE Policy Change
Seth Rollins is concerned about the next generation of WWE Superstars.
Despite being in and around the top of WWE for more than a decade, Seth Rollins could be about to embark on the biggest run of his career.
At WrestleMania 41, Rollins fully turned heel once more and aligned with Paul Heyman, who, in turn, betrayed both Roman Reigns and CM Punk. This allowed Rollins to stand tall at the end of the show as he entered the next phase of his career.
48 hours later, Bron Breakker attacked Roman Reigns on Raw to join Rollins and Heyman as a new faction begins to move into view.
However, despite that success, Rollins has admitted he’s worried about the next generation.
Seth Rollins Questions WWE Change
Throughout 2024, WWE significantly scaled back its live event schedule, giving talent a much less punishing schedule than previous generations. While this will help with career longevity and give talents more time at home with their families, Rollins believes there are also some downsides.
During a new interview on Outta Pocket with RGIII, Rollins said the reduced schedule will hamper the development of young talent, as they’ll be significantly less experienced than those in years past.
“My biggest concern, and I’ll try not to expound on this too much, but my biggest concern is the generation that is being groomed now, we are dipping our toe heavily into the NIL world. Taking a lot of college athletes who, maybe after college, there is no future for them as far as money in sports, so we offer them deals to get paid while they are in college to come and maybe be part of WWE when they are older.
There is nothing wrong with training these people from scratch, I have no problem with that, but couple that with our live event schedule. We used to do them every weekend, sometimes two shows every day on Saturdays and Sundays, there would be two running simultaneously in different towns. That’s where I learned my craft and the art of wrestling and storytelling.
If you don’t get the repetitions to learn that, I don’t care what kind of athlete you are or how impressive your vertical leap is or how many times you can bench press 400 pounds, it’s not going to translate because you don’t know how to tell stories. You might be a hell of a performer, but ‘I need a promo. Go out there, five minutes, get it done.’
If you don’t know how to do that because you haven’t learned and practiced and failed so many times that, there is no substitute for in-game. There is no substitute for doing a live show in front of a paying audience because they will give you instant feedback, and you’ll know what you have to change. That’s my biggest concern for our next generation.
You’re plucking from a world where these guys don’t really follow wrestling or may not be fans, and then they’re not getting the experience on top of it to learn how to be part of what we do and how to tell those stories. I do have a concern that over a few generations, that might be harmful to the future of the industry.”
Elsewhere on Raw, new Undisputed WWE Champion John Cena was attacked by Randy Orton, seemingly setting up a match between the pair at Backlash.
H/t to Fightful