Seth Rollins opens up on all things CM Punk.
Many fans were shocked when CM Punk returned to WWE at WWE Survivor Series. Punk returned following the WarGames match which saw Randy Orton, Seth Rollins, Sami Zayn, Jey Uso, & Cody Rhodes defeat Judgment Day (Finn Balor, Dominik Mysterio, Damian Priest, & JD McDonagh) & Drew McIntyre.
Rollins reacted by screaming at Punk and flipping him off as he was held back by Corey Graves.
Speaking to Jimmy Traina on the SI Media podcast, Rollins was asked when he found out about Punk's return.
"When I heard his music at Survivor Series. When I heard his music," he said.
Asked if it annoyed him that he wasn't given a heads up, Rollins replied, "Yes. Upon reflection, it's easy to understand why something like that would be kept as close to the vest as possible. I understand why very few people knew what was going on that day, but in the moment I was extremely emotional. In the moment, after everything we had been through, and everything the company had been through with that particular person as well, and then the night itself, Randy's return, all of it, it was a very emotional moment for me. Obviously, if you have any amount of social media, you saw how I reacted in the moment. It was a very raw, real, emotional response for me. Did I go too far? Maybe. It was what it was. I can't take it back."
Traina admitted he didn't want to ask if Rollins' reaction was "real or fake" or a "work or shoot," but did ask if his reaction was a work or a shoot.
"Like I said, it was an extremely emotional moment for me. Everyone knows how I feel about CM Punk. I've not made it any more transparent over the past few years. Nothing has changed in that regard. In that moment, I was extremely emotional and you got a lot of real and raw emotion from me. I don't usually get that worked up about much, but you caught me off guard and there was a lot of real emotion there. That's probably as much as I can say on that without going too far," Rollins replied.
Traina noted that Rollins did a lot of cursing.
"I regret that part of it because I do take my responsibility for our younger audience seriously. That part of it, to go too far, I wish I would have handled myself with a little more composure. I can't take it back. I can apologize to our younger audience and their families if I offended anybody. It was what it was, a moment in time," Rollins said.
Traina commented that there had been rumblings that Punk might return, and asked if Rollins was completely shocked when Punk's music hit, or if it was more "Okay, this is the reality, I can't believe they're letting this guy back in."
Rollins said, "The latter. In this industry, I've been with WWE for over ten years now, so kind of nothing surprises me anymore, fully. I heard rumblings, obviously, something they want to keep pretty close to the vest, for obvious reasons. Surprises are great in our industry and in this age of social media where everything is spoiled, it's nice to have surprises. That wasn't a very nice surprise for me, but it was for a lot of people out there who are fans of that guy for whatever reason. It was mostly just like, 'Ah man, this is it. This is what we have to deal with now.' This is our future moving forward, how we navigate this. It was kind of an emotional reaction to that compounded with the adrenaline of what we experienced inside the double cage at WarGames."
Asked what happened when he got backstage, Rollins said, "My wife was there and I had a few people kind of corral me, I suppose. My wife is pretty good at understanding my temperament and making sure I'm level when I need to be. Kudos to her, she made sure I didn't get into any more trouble. There were enough people there who knew that I would be upset in the moment and to take care of me and it didn't get too chaotic."
Rollins admitted he didn't see Punk once he got backstage, saying, "No. No, I lost him. I waited for a while, I'm sure he was somewhere doing interviews or whatever, but I didn't see him."
In January, Rollins told Punk to stay away from WWE as he is a cancer. He later said that it pained him to say bad things about Punk as Punk helped him in the past.
Asked about his issues with Punk, Rollins replied, "A lot of it is personal. A lot of it is stuff I don't really want to get into. For the most part, I just think he's been really selfish when it comes to his perspective on the industry. I think he's been extremely self-serving, has played the martyr role to a tee and has, for someone who, when I met the guy, and look, I have a lot of good things to say about parts of my relationship with him. He helped me in places when he didn't have to, whether that was for his own good or not, I'm not entirely sure. Regardless, it helped me get where I needed to go and do the things I needed to do. For a guy who, when I met him, made it seem like he was all about giving back to the business, he really turned into a pretty selfish guy and wanting to take more from the industry. Look, he said some really bad things about me. Talked down about me for years, and the company, for years. I'm talking some really bad stuff. Called me a bootlicker and crap like that. You don't know me. You don't know what I stand for. I'm a loyal person, and I felt pretty insulted by a lot of the ways he treated me, treated the place I work for, treated friends that I worked with. I don't need to get into any of the stuff with Colt Cabana if you want to look at that kind of stuff, that's out there. Just the way he treated people. The way I felt like he's only looking out for himself, and then the way he talked about me and my friends and the people who are here putting the hard work in at WWE, trying to make this thing as good as we possibly can because we love the industry, truly love it, not just what it can do for us, we actually love it and want to give back to it and make it the best it could possibly be. I also felt like he's a fraud in that sense, or at least turned into one at some point in the last decade. That's the long of it. It's a deep-rooted, I wouldn't call it hatred, but there's animosity there."
Asked about potentially working with Punk and if there might be days where he could be like "I don't want to do this shit," Rollins replied, "Of course, and if you're working with him on essentially intimate levels, the two of you trying to put a story and match together or whatever it may be, it's not like you can just go out there and wing it. You could, but it's not going to go too well, most likely, but you have to work with somebody. You figure it out. Sometimes it's like pulling teeth. We'll cross that bridge when we get there, luckily we haven't had to do that yet. I assume it's only a matter of time, whatever venue it's at, I don't know, that's not my decision to make, I just show up and do the work. It is what it is. You don't like everybody you work with, I certainly haven't liked everybody I've been in the ring with over the years, but I've always found a way to make magic out of it. If it is Seth Rollins vs. CM Punk, somewhere down the road, one way or another, it's going to be magic."
Finally, Rollins was asked if he is in a position to turn down working with Punk.
"It's a negotiation. It's a conversation. No one is forcing something on you, but I'm a businessman, for sure, I'm hoping to do business, if it's there to be done. I'm open to mending fences, if that's even possible. I know that might sound crazy, but I'm open to it. I'm almost 38, and I ain't got time to hold all these grudges. I think it's a lot of energy to hold that negativity in, and I'd like to put that energy somewhere else and make it positive. I'm open to all different facets of what this could be. There are certain conversations that go on, it's not a cut and dry, 'you have to do this.' Sometimes, it is. I've been in positions where it's like, 'this is your job, I pay you the check. This is what I want you to do,' and that's just how it is. That's okay too. If you don't like it, you can skip it and we don't have to do business. I'm pretty open-minded when it comes to stuff like that. I think there will be a way to make it work for everybody. He says he's the Best in the World, that ain't the case, I'm the Best in the World. I'll make anything work, no matter who it is," said Rollins.
Rollins is the reigning WWE World Heavyweight Champion and part of WWE Raw.
CM Punk is billed as a free agent and set to appear on Friday's WWE SmackDown.
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