Seth Rollins opens up about battling imposter syndrome and facing the realization that he may never be the face of WWE while existing in the era of Roman Reigns.
There are very few wrestlers to come through WWE in the last decade that have accomplished all that Seth Rollins has. Seth Rollins has won every conceivable major championship in WWE and has checked off every major milestone along the way including Royal Rumble victories and successfully cashing in his Money in the Bank briefcase at WrestleMania.
Despite this, Seth Rollins feels as though he can never be the main face of WWE as that role is reserved for Roman Reigns. In a new interview with Ariel Helwani of BT Sport, Seth Rollins reveals that this is not a new feeling for him, as he always felt as though he was never set up to be the face of Ring of Honor when he was working for that company.
"I just feel like, in some ways, I've never gotten my just due. I've never been the guy. You know, I've never been the one on the marquee at WrestleMania. It was John [Cena], it was Roman [Reigns]. In some regards, when I was at Ring of Honor, it was Nigel [McGuinness], or it was Bryan [Danielson]. I was always the guy like, on the come-up or underneath, or I was kind of the second, or the next big thing, and that always just eats at me, it eats at me so much. I don't know where that competitive spark comes from, but it drives me insane. The thing is if I was that guy, I don't know if it would just go away, I always would find some way to put the chip there. It's just the way I operate best. I have to have it for some reason. In everything, for better or worse sometimes," Seth Rollins said.
Furthermore, Seth Rollins openly admits that he felt imposter syndrome throughout his first run as WWE Champion, a run that began with him cashing in the Money in the Bank briefcase at WrestleMania 31 and ended with him getting injured before he could face Roman Reigns for the championship at Survivor Series 2015.
"I always felt a little bit of imposter syndrome with my first title run," Rollins said. "I was a young 26, I think, when I first won the world title — maybe 28, something like that. I was young and I was working with guys after I won the title who were a lot more experienced than I was. Not that I wasn't adding anything to stories, but I didn't feel like I was thinking about it the way — and this is all in retrospect, I don't feel like I was thinking about it the way that I would think about it now.
"I never felt like even when I had won the title at WrestleMania, cashed in, great moment. I still felt like I was the second fiddle to Roman, I still felt like he was the guy. [It felt] just kinda, 'You're the placeholder until he's totally ready, and we're totally ready to put the ball in his hands. But for now, you're a step ahead. So we're gonna give you this, and then you know, we'll move on to where we really want to be. But this is going to take a few months.' So now I've never ever felt like, in my time in WWE, that the company was like, Yep, he's our guy put his face on everything."
Expanding on his mentality towards the top spot in WWE even further, Seth Rollins says he's coming to grips with the idea that he may never be the number one guy in WWE and perhaps the best thing he can do is be Roman Reigns' greatest rival in the same way that Randy Savage was to Hulk Hogan and Edge was to John Cena.
"I don't know, man. I wonder if because I live in the Roman era, that's just never going to happen, you know? The only time I was ever considered, I think, for the main event of WrestleMania is when Roman got leukemia and he was out from August to February, and I was kind of second behind him in the babyface column there, so I got slotted in. So I feel like it's going to be one of those things that the best I can hope for is to be the Edge to his John Cena or the Savage to his Hogan. Sometimes I just feel like that's the way the cookie crumbles. Doesn't mean that I don't think that I'm better than he is or that I can perform or that I can draw at that level, I certainly think all of those things but it's not my sandbox. I don't make those decisions."
Seth Rollins last paste Roman Reigns at the Royal Rumble in January 2022. Seth Rollins would actually win that match by disqualification, making him the only pay-per-view opponent to defeat Roman Reigns during his historic run as WWE Universal Champion.
Elsewhere in this interview, Seth Rollins speaks about his working relationship with another early NXT Superstar, Bray Wyatt. Learn more here.
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