Seth Rollins Wonders If He Can Ever be The Top Guy in WWE Living in the Roman Reigns Era

– Ariel Helwani recently spoke to WWE Superstar Seth Rollins for BT Sport ahead of his match with Matt Riddle at WWE Extreme Rules. Rollins will face Riddle in a Fight Pit Match at the event. During the interview, Rollins was asked if he ever felt like he was the best or top guy in WWE and wondered if he ever can make it to that level in the era of Roman Reigns. Below are some highlights:

Seth Rollins on if he’s ever overlooked as being “the guy” in WWE: “That’s interesting because you don’t really — you know, wrestling’s so interesting because it’s like a meritocracy to a point, right? There’s like a connection that you can get with an audience that you can work and you can cultivate over years, and that equity will push you to the top of a card, or a promotion, or whatever, but being anointed as the guy is not always that simple. And so, I don’t know. And the biggest thing is maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m not as good as I think I am. Maybe there are people out there that draw more money, perform better in the ring, sell more merch, etc., etc. than me, and I’ve got this inflated idea of myself, and like that’s the fear, right, is that I’m just dead wrong. And so maybe that’s the truth, and maybe that’s just how it, is but I can’t operate at optimum levels accepting that.”

“I pride myself on my work ethic, and my hustle, and I feel like if I just settled for saying, ‘Ah, I’m just not good enough,’ or ‘I’m just not you know as big of a star,’ ‘I can’t be as big of a star as say Roman Reigns, or Hulk Hogan, or John Cena,’ then I would be doing myself a disservice. I’d be doing the business a disservice, and I just don’t think I could go to sleep at night accepting being second best. Why I am? I don’t know.”

On how much he feels doubt in himself: “I mean all the time I think. I think it’s like a — it festers like healthy anger in me. You know, like that’s what keeps me hustling is to be the best, and that thought that I’m maybe not is like a — you know, it’s like a boiling pot of water, and the higher I turn the heat the faster I can go you know, the more steam I can pump out, and so like that’s just that’s it, man. I don’t know any other way to deal with it, but I definitely — I mean it’s there. It’s constant. It’s as constant as like the question of, ‘Am I not as good as I think I am,’ is there right next to, ‘I’m the best to do it all the time.’ They are — I think anybody that’s competing at an ultra-high level [will tell you,’ you have to have both. It’s almost like the yin and the yang. I just don’t think there’s anybody out there that tells you that if they say that they don’t wonder about that, then they’ve got to be lying to an extent.”

Seth Rollins on not even feeling like he was the best when he was champ: “No. Nope. I always felt like a little bit of impostor syndrome with my first title run. I was young, 26, maybe 28, something like that. I was young, and I was working with guys who after I’d won the title that was a lot more experienced than I was. And not that I wasn’t adding anything to the 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 in the way that says I would think about it now seven-eight years later, whatever it is. And so yeah, I never felt like even when I had won the title at WrestleMania, cashed in, great moment, I still felt like I was second fiddle to Roman [Reigns]. I still felt like he was the guy, we’re just gonna — 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 going to give you this. And then you know we’ll move on to what we really want to be, but it’s going to take a few months. So no, I’ve never ever felt like I’ve in my time in WWE that the company was like, ‘Yep, he’s our guy, put his face on everything.'”

Seth Rollins on if he ever feels like he’s close to that point: “I don’t know man. I wonder often if it’s because I live in the Roman Era that that’s just never going to happen, you know. The only time I was even considered I think for the main event of WrestleMania, Roman when he got leukemia, and he was out for from August till January or whatever. February it was, and I was kind of second behind in the little babyface column there, and so you know, I got slotted in. I feel like it’s one of those things, I’m like the, you know, the best I can hope for is to be the Edge to his Cena, or like the Savage to his Hogan. Sometimes I just feel like that’s just the way the way the cookie crumbles. Doesn’t mean 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 those things, but it’s not my sandbox. I don’t make those decisions.”

Seth Rollins vs. Matt Riddle will go down at WWE Extreme Rules 2022. The event is scheduled for Saturday, October 8 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It will be broadcast live on Peacock in the US and the WWE Network everywhere else.

If using any of the above quotes, please credit BT Sport, with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription