Seth Rollins reflects on his historic cash-in at WWE WrestleMania 31.
Seth Rollins became the first man to successfully cash in the Money in the Bank briefcase at WrestleMania in 2015 when he hijacked the main event between Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns and pinned Reigns to win his first WWE Championship.
Now, Rollins is reflecting on that moment nearly ten years later in an interview with Chris Van Vliet on the Insight podcast. Rollins revealed that he had pitched the idea to cash in his briefcase two months earlier, and that the lightbulb went off in his head during the 2015 WWE Royal Rumble.
"The idea to cash in the contract at WrestleMania was my idea. I put it into the ether probably two months prior or so," he said. "I win [the contract] in June, and immediately when you win it, you look at the landscape and go, ‘Okay, when can I cash this in?’ At the time, if I’m not mistaken, there was only one world championship. The champion was Brock Lesnar. Brock wrestles like twice a year, when are you going to cash this thing in on Brock Lesnar? Is Brock Lesnar going to allow you to cash it in on him? What circumstances would be the best for this? Then, you start to go down the months. Take off all the shows Brock is not going to be on. SummerSlam, probably not going to happen. Survivor Series, if he’s there. Maybe Rumble. Mania. Then you’ve got that little window after Mania where maybe? You start to plot it out in your head and the major point for me, as I was going along with that, was the Royal Rumble earlier that year.
"I did a Triple Threat Match with Brock and John Cena," he continued. "I kind of had to, I don’t want to say weasel my way into that, but that was initially meant to be John-Brock three or four. They were in a series of matches. The audience was kind of getting a little tired of it. Not to say that those guys aren’t incredible, they are, but you do the same thing. Brock wasn’t around to sell the story that much. He was an attraction at that time. I think the audience was getting a little bit bored of it. I was like, ‘What does it hurt?’ I didn’t need to be in the Rumble because I had the briefcase. Why would I win two title matches? That doesn’t make any sense. I didn’t want to be off the show. Just throw me into that triple threat. I can mix in there good, change the whole dynamic of it up and see what happens. We ended up having a really great Triple Threat and a really good dynamic. That was the first time I had worked with Brock, really. He got to see how my mind works a little bit and got to create some touches of respect there."
Seth Rollins, then recounted what happened later that night at the Royal Rumble in 2015 when the Philadelphia crowd completely turned on Roman Reigns as he won the titular Battle Royal and the jeers were so loud, that not even The Rock's appearance could save the moment.
"Then, later that night, Roman wins the Royal Rumble to a chorus of boos. Even The Rock comes out to try to endorse him and it did not matter. I was like, ‘Oh, this isn’t good.’ You don’t want to give him this title at WrestleMania. If he gets booed out of the building there when he wins the title for the first time, that’s not good," Seth recalled. "I’m a hated hated villain at this time. If I win the title, we can give the audience time to understand the story of who the good guy is supposed to be against me. I’m not cool at all at this point. Let me be the heel to get what we want out of this change. I pitched the idea, I let it sit in the ether for a while, and even the day of, I was doing the story with Randy Orton leading up to WrestleMania. After my match with Randy was the first confirmation I had gotten that we were going in that direction. I don’t know whose idea the triple threat part of it was. My idea was a cash in after the match. Somebody came up with the Triple Threat idea and it was a brilliant way to do it that I had never considered."
Elsewhere in the interview, Rollins gave an update on Becky Lynch and her potential return to WWE. Read more here.
Rollins also recently confirmed that he will not be in Captain America: Brave New World. Fans can learn more about why that is here.
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