WWE has reminded fans how Seth Rollins was nearly fired by the company before his career hit the heights that we’ve seen over the years.
At this point, Rollins is a Grand Slam champion in WWE, being a five-time World/Universal Champion, and holding more than 10 other titles in total throughout his tenure.
However, there’a a timeline where none of that would have happened.
Rollins joined the WWE developmental system in 2010 after making his name as Tyler Black on the independent scene and most notably in ROH.
Someone he hit it off with immediately and seemed to really ‘get’ Rollins while he was in developmental was Dusty Rhodes, whose advice to Rollins was simple – be himself.
However, that advice had its positives and negatives.
While you always want to stand out and be yourself as an aspiring wrestler, there’s a fine line between doing that and being seen as disrespectful by those that came before you.
This mindset led to Rollins repeatedly butting heads with trainer Terry Taylor. Before joining WWE, Taylor had worked in IMPACT Wrestling, and already had something of a negative experience with Rollins.
When Rollins left ROH, it wasn’t just WWE that wanted to sign him, but IMPACT as well, and Rollins believed Taylor may have had something of a grudge against him from those negotiations and Rollins snubbing IMPACT for WWE.
Rollins admitted that he would openly engage with Taylor in front of the class, challenging him on certain points he was making and essentially claiming his view of wrestling was stuck in the past.
Eventually, his conduct led to an ominous meeting with the most influential name in the WWE developmental system at the time – Paul Levesque (Triple H).
Triple H told Seth Rollins that he simply didn’t see anything special in Rollins, and unless he was going to start being more co-operative, the company would get rid of him:
“Hunter took me aside and was like, ‘Look, I don’t see anything special in you. So if you don’t wanna play ball, if you don’t wanna work with us, you can go back to Ring of Honor and do things your way. But you need to start doing things our way’.
“And I was like, ‘Man, my dream’s about to go up in smoke here’.”
Rollins then credited Joey Mercury as being a voice of reason, telling Rollins that he didn’t necessarily need to change who he was, but he did need to learn “how to play the game”, and “find a way” to be himself while still being coachable.
According to Seth Rollins, it was three months after this that he pitched to Triple H to become the first ever WWE NXT Champion – and that’s exactly what happened.
Rollins defeated Jinder Mahal in the final of the first ever NXT Championship tournament in 2012, and 11 years later, after proving himself to the company throughout that time, history repeated itself.
In 2023, Triple H booked Rollins to be the first winner of the new WWE World Heavyweight Championship, beating AJ Styles in the final.
This was a big responsibility as Rollins’ reign was going to set the tone for the importance and prestige level of the championship – something that, after nearly firing him all those years ago, Triple H had grown to trust Rollins to pull off.
The Broken Skull Sessions episode in which Rollins told the story of his near-firing was originally released in 2021 on the WWE Network, but the official WWE Vault YouTube channel uploaded this particular clip just yesterday, and it’s already amassed 100,000 views.
Rollins is currently off WWE TV in the midst of another injury hiatus following his return for Money in the Bank and SummerSlam after already being out since WrestleMania 40.
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