Seth Rollins, Company Man

Pictured: a sycophant
Photo Credit: WWE.com

So WWE Universal Champion Seth Rollins spent Monday and now Tuesday beefing with known misogynist and rape apologist Will Ospreay for no other reason than he's hyper-protective of the WWE brand in a time when the WWE brand is at its lowest value since 1995. Was his spat with Ospreay over boring shit like who would be better, how many shows they worked, or who made more money borne out of ego, or did he do it out of duty to his employer, err, I'm sorry, the company that has him on exclusive retainer? Well, he went on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina and made it clear that it was the latter by attempting to bury former stablemate and supposed friend Jon Moxley:

Ambrose can do what he wants, he's a big boy. He's got his big boy pants on. He can go out there and say whatever he wants. But the bottom line is not everyone is equipped to handle the rigors of the WWE and the schedule and how it affects you mentally and emotionally. Ambrose gave everything he had for the company, he put his heart and soul into the travel and the schedule and the injuries, into y'know, the work in the ring. All that stuff. But at the end of the day he took his ball and went home or went elsewhere at least. And I think it's a little presumptuous of him to get on a podcast and talk down about the company that gave him such opportunities. I just don't think, again, there's any reason to hop on a soapbox and complain after the fact. You need to take the first step and that's looking in a mirror and asking yourself, "Did you do every single thing you possibly could to make yourself and your situation what you want it to be?"

Talk about a backstabbing.

First, it's rich that Rollins used the terminology "took his ball and went home" when Moxley did everything the right way. He played out his contract, did every date he was contracted to do, did jobs, took bumps for Nia Jax, and virtually buried his friend EC3. He could not have been more deferential to WWE and the rest of the roster on his way out, and a dude whom he said he considered a brother shoveled dirt on him after it all went down. It would be one thing if Paul Levesque did the burying himself, but he's too savvy to go on something as below him as a podcast. I would bet half of what's in my checking account on Friday on Rollins being fed those lines from good ol' Uncle Paul. Still, if that indeed was the case, what a craven sack of shit Rollins is for agreeing to disparage Moxley like that.

Second, go back to what Moxley said on the Talk Is Jericho podcast. One, he thanked WWE for the opportunity and offered up his critiques of the creative process. Now, I'm not saying he was right to thank WWE; people can get attached to their places of work even if their bosses donate to Donald Trump and go into business with a genocidal regime. That being said, Moxley didn't completely bury WWE. He also said NOT A SINGLE CROSS WORD about Rollins. For Rollins to take criticisms of WWE to his own heart and basically slander Moxley is real betrayal.

Third, before his injury, Moxley worked the most matches in WWE during his tenure on the roster. It's insane that someone who worked that hard and that long couldn't handle the "rigors of the WWE schedule," especially since Rollins has shown he's more injury-prone. It could be that Rollins is less lucky. It could also be that being as into CrossFit as Rollins is can increase the probability of injuries. Either one works, but before he got sick of what management was throwing at him, I think Moxley showed the ability to handle that impossibly difficult schedule as well as anyone could.

Wrestling is a cutthroat business, and one shouldn't be surprised when someone in WWE takes a potshot at someone who leaves and goes to the competition. It's so disappointing though in this case because Rollins showed himself to be just another brown-nose corporate suck-up whose ambitions aren't so much being the best he can be at wrestling but getting as much dap from Levesque as possible, kind of the career path Levesque himself took. Obviously, Rollins can't marry into the McMahon family, but that won't stop him from being the dude at your office who brings donuts in for management and management alone or who tattles on other workers for browsing Twitter instead of doing TPS reports. No one really wants to see that kind of person succeed, whether or not they're good at what they do.

But is Rollins really good at what he does? I don't think he's all that special in the ring, but I'm just some random dickhead on the Internet. It would take thousands of people voicing similar opinions, and well guess what, several of Rollins' marquee matches in the last year have gotten the rowdy fan rebellion treatment. Maybe he should step back and reflect why so many of his big matches have flopped and realize that maybe sucking up to Levesque and the McMahons isn't as good a path as perhaps using the influence he has to get them to think about how they present the product differently. Shitting on Moxley certainly isn't the answer, though.