Seth Rollins talks World Heavyweight Championship

[Chris]

Seth Rollins says the new WWE World Heavyweight Championship was created out of necessity.

Rollins told Ryan Satin recently that he understands his title is not seen on the same level as the one held by Roman Reigns. However, Rollins says the new championship provides a necessary function in WWE as the infrequency with which Roman defends his leads many wrestlers to be caught in a "holding pattern."

"I'm under no illusions that this title is the same as Roman's title. That title has been around, there's been so much equity put into over the past few years, it means a lot," Rollins said.
"You can't just come in and pretend that all of a sudden this title is that important, no one's going to buy that crap. The way I always saw champions that I looked up to and that I aspired to be were the champions that took the title to every territory or every town and defended it and then over time, people believed that it was a big deal. I came in when Cena was a world champion, and CM Punk was a world champion. I grew up watching Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, Triple H, these are the people who they did that for the world titles that they were wearing. So, I'm trying as I might to, kind of, fill those shoes and make this new World heavyweight Championship as big as it can be for myself and the rest of the roster," he continued.

Rollins continued to say that without an active champion, some characters on the show don't have anything to strive for.

"If Roman was doing what I'm doing there wouldn't really be a need for a secondary championship. There wouldn't be a need for another world heavyweight title on Raw because we would have somebody who was doing those things," Rollins said.
"What he wants to do with his schedule and his title reign is not what I'm doing, somebody's got to fill that void. We did our best with the United States Championship for a little while to do that but it never really felt like a world heavyweight championship. There's got to be that person, there's got to be that spot for everybody to get to, to try to fight for."

Rollins was then asked for his response to those who call the WWE World Heavyweight Championship a "consolation prize."

"I just believe it was a necessity so I wasn't offended, I wasn't annoyed or anything like that. If you watched and followed and saw how Roman has built up the title that he has, it only makes sense, I guess, for you to use the word consolation prize but for me, again, it didn't feel that way, it felt like a big deal. Like I said, it felt like a big deal because there are so many guys who are able to be in the shoes that I'm in right now and the fact that it's me makes it feel like a big deal to me and I feel a lot of responsibility to represent them and the industry as well as I can."
"It feels sometimes with Roman's title reign because there really is only one challenger at a time and often every few months that we're in a bit of a holding pattern, a lot of guys are in a holding pattern."

Rollins has defended the belt on WWE programming three times since winning it at Night of Champions on May 27. He retained against Damian Priest on the 6/5 Raw, Bron Breakker on the 6/20 NXT Gold Rush show, and at Money in the Bank over Finn Balor on 7/1. Rollins has also defended the title an additional seven times on house shows, with two wins over The Miz and five over Priest. It's his fifth world title reign on the WWE main roster as he's twice held the Universal title and twice held the WWE title.

https://www.f4wonline.com/news/wwe/seth-rollins-responds-to-claims-wwe-world-title-is-consolation-prize

 

[Dale]

He's not wrong. Raw just felt directionless forever when it didn't have the big prize for people to chase after. Even though there was him and Lashley two certified main event guys and then Theory all going after the US Title, it still came across as just going for the midcard title and not the top title available on Raw.

 

[Buffy]

Rollins with the perfect response here.