Seth Rollins reflects on working with Bray Wyatt.
When Bray Wyatt morphed into "The Fiend" character in 2019, a Universal Championship program with Seth Rollins was one of the first angles this new iteration of the Wyatt character was involved in. Seth Rollins and Bray Wyatt would enter Hell in a Cell together, competing in the titular gimmick match which ended in a disqualification that was widely loathed by audiences. Eventually, Bray Wyatt would defeat Seth Rollins for the WWE Universal Championship at Crown Jewel in 2019 before they would go their separate ways. Following that rivalry, Seth Rollins descended on a character transformation of his own that resulted in the wacky, sharply-dressed, maniacal version of Seth Freakin' Rollins that fans see today.
Speaking with Ariel Helwani, Seth Rollins spoke about the difficulties of working with "The Fiend" character, saying that most characters that worked with Bray Wyatt, did not come out of the angle looking better than they did going in.
"Yeah, I mean, another crack at that one might be nice," Seth said. "I mean, look, the Bray Wyatt character is just difficult. If you look at anybody that worked the Bray Wyatt character for an extended period of time They didn't, they didn't come out of it better than they went in. It was very difficult to have a story with him where — aside from Randy [Orton], who obviously killed him, it was difficult for anyone. I think maybe Daniel Bryan Bryan might have escaped a little unscathed. But I mean, everyone else pretty much met a dire end for their character. I mean, that was the end for the Seth Rollins character as you knew it, 'The Beast Slayer' character. It was tough figuring out how to tell a good wrestling story with that character."
Seth Rollins would also say that he feels like he just wasn't good at navigating the waters of working with a supernatural character. Seth Rollins would reflect on the Hell in a Cell encounter with Bray Wyatt and say that, perhaps it would have been better if Bray Wyatt could have destroyed him in the cage and they could have both moved on from there.
"I just wasn't good at it. That was one thing I was not I was not good at the phenomenology stuff. I wasn't able to interweave that with reality enough to make what I felt was a captivating story. At the end of the day, it probably would have been better if he just mauled me in that cell, put the claw on me, and call it a day, you know? I could have moved on to something else and he could have had his run as champion. But, that wasn't the case and we played the hand we were dealt, and that was not our call. I know, he would tell you the same thing. That was — that did not go the way we wanted it to. We tried, and we tried, and we tried, and the boss at the time would not budge. So we ended up — like I said before, it's just not our sandbox. We are actors on a stage sometimes and we read the lines. So that was one of those nights where we didn't have the liberty to ad lib. We didn't have the liberty to take things into our own hands."
Overall, Seth Rollins is very honest about his shortcomings in the rivalry from 2019 but would like another opportunity to work with Windham Rotunda
"I would love to have another crack at working with Windham Rotunda. He's an incredible talent. [He has] a mind for the industry, stories, and for characters that is very unique. There are not a lot of people in our business, past, present, or future that think about things on the level that he does. I would love to have another crack at working with him. Because I think we could do something extremely special. Whether that's with 'The Fiend' character or not, who knows? He's a master at reinventing himself. So if he does — if our paths cross, and he does find his way back here, I would definitely love to have another go-around. I think we definitely — there's certainly magic to be made there. In what capacity? I don't know."
Elsewhere in this interview, Seth Rollins speaks about his character evolution into Seth Freakin Rollins, saying that he talked to Vince McMahon about potentially dropping the nickname after hearing it overused on commentary. Read more here.
As for Bray Wyatt, he has remained out of professional wrestling since being released by WWE in 2021 but he has received a unique offer to return to wrestling. Learn more about that at this link.
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