Vince Russo has turned into quite a regular blogger, and here is his latest, about WWE Booking of Seth Rollins.
The Booking Of Seth Rollins
by VINCE RUSSO
It seems that any time I sit down to write anything these days, I have to open up every column with first clarifying what I’m about to write about. The waves of negativity that pounds my Long Island shore on a daily basis are both pathetic, and exhausting at times. I’m up at 4:30 am right now, to write this blog as a means to get paid in order to support my family. The things that I discuss, I discuss because I have almost 2 1/2 decades of experience in professional wrestling. And while I know the business inside, and out, I also have a proven track record to back me up, and unfortunately for those haters–you can ignore the historical numbers all you want—but, they will never go away.
I only write about what I know. I only critic what I know. When I critique I am neither right, nor wrong, I’m just giving my opinion on a topic. It seems like almost on a daily basis a troll, or two, will hit below the belt by labeling me, “irrelevant”. Well, there’s two things about that: 1. I most certainly would be if the wrestling ratings had doubled since I quit writing for the WWE almost 15 years ago, but unfortunately . . . they haven’t. They’ve actually gone down for 15 straight years with the exception of a minuscule uptick one of those years. Number 2–I write about wrestling, and talk about wrestling, because all these years later people not only still ask my opinion on it—but, they also graciously pay me to give that opinion. So in other words—here I am to critique professional wrestling once again, in an effort to perhaps try and make it better. And guess what, there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.
SETH ROLLINS.
I am a Seth Rollins mark, and I have no problem publicly stating that. The issues I have with the booking of Seth Rollins have nothing to do with Seth Rollins—Seth Rollins doesn’t write the show. I have nothing negative to say about the in-ring ability of Seth Rollins. Why? Because for starters he’s amazing, and for finishers I’m not a wrestler so I have no right going there.
But . . . I am a writer who wrote weekly wrestling shows for a very long time.
For months now I’ve been begging the WWE writers to give WWE World Champion Seth Rollins a set of Spauldings. The endless weeks of Rollins running from everybody, depending on two midgets to fight his battles, hiding under Stephanie’s skirt and Hunter’s huge . . . ego . . . were just getting to the point of nausea. In an effort to make Rollins a “chicken-sh** heel”, the WWE forced every Rollins/coward scenario down our throats—with the exception of him peeing his pants every time he walked into the arena.
Now, here’s the one simple flaw of the “chicken-sh** heel” theory–why would Seth Rollins grow up wanting to be a wrestler, bust his arse on the indies for all those years to be a wrestler, sacrifice everything to be a wrestler . . . if he was afraid of other wrestlers? Doesn’t that seem odd to you? If the guy was actually afraid of anybody else in a pair of trunks, you would think that he would want to find another line of work about as far away from wrestling as possible. Who knows, maybe become a chef, or a barber maybe–but why, in the good name of professional wrestling, would Seth Rollins lace up a pair of boots every night—only to be scared, intimidated and run from everybody? It doesn’t make sense . . . and never has. Now maybe “back in the day”, you could get away with that when wrestling was “what it was”, but in today’s world of sophisticated programming at 9 o’clock at night–it doesn’t work.
So, I’ve been bellyaching about this for months. Finally Rollins took a stand against the Authority a couple of weeks ago—only to be standing on the stage celebrating with them by the show’s end. Again–the WWE dropped the ball and missed another opportunity. It was about that time that I wrote a column pointing that out. When I was done writing I said, you know what, I’m so tired of complaining and not doing something to make the situation better, that I’m actually going to send this column to Vince, himself, and hope that out of a morbid curiosity–he reads it.
Now, whether Vince did, or didn’t, I have no idea, but fortunately in the following weeks the WWE picked up with the story of Rollins finally standing up for himself. So let’s look at where the WWE has gone from there:
Seth Rollins, the WWE World Champion, loses to “Small and Smaller”. Honestly, when I witnessed this–I really didn’t even know what to say. I could only think what would have happened, if as the head writer, I would have pitched Austin, that Patterson and Brisco beat him in a handicap match. Now, even aside from the fact that both Patterson and Brisco were legitimate legends in the business–Austin would have freakin’ run me over with his beer truck. But here’s the difference—Austin was a BABYFACE and ROLLINS is a heel. You see? Do you get it now? It’s OK for the WWE Champ to lose to his own hired help–half his size–because he’s a “bad guy”.
But give credit where credit is due–the WWE Creative Team–Vince/Hunter/Whoever–righted the ship and wrote for Rollins to defeat Ambrose–CLEAN –at Money in the Bank.Now personally—I thought that was TREMENDOUS BOOKING. You see, I just put the WWE over. Finally, Rollins proved to everybody that he is indeed a great wrestler, and when the chips are down–he can back-up everything he says.
So, we go into the next night. Now, you would think that Rollin’s confidence would be at an all-time high, and at the beginning of the show—it was. Rollins cut a terrific promo putting himself over, and then thanking nobody but him for his performance last night. Again—great job WWE Creative team. But then . . . what happened? For starters, Rollins then went to the back and started kissing up to Triple H and Stephanie. Now you have to ask yourself–why would he do this? He beat Ambrose by himself last night, he literally proved he didn’t need the Authority, why is he back there once again munching butt? The answer is simple—because he’s a heel.
But the worst was yet to come.
In the next scene, Seth Rollins, the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, completely gets PUNKED OUT by the “Lollipop Kids”. Man, I have no idea who Joey Mercury knows . . .but, this was ridiculous. Mercury gets in Rollins face, belittles the Champ, and then walks away. Who are we trying to get over here–Rollins, or “Tattoo” (“De Plane, De Plane!”). Rollins should have killed Mercury and Noble here—KILLED THEM–again, giving the Champ his Spauldings back!!! Rollins is the money here, how in the name of “Gorgeous George” (the black-n-white one, not the hot one) are you building him by letting Mercury get the best of him . . . HOW?!!
And then, of course by the end of the show, we have Rollins, the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, retreating and back-peddling from Brock Lesnar. Everything that they had built with Seth’s character at Money in the Bank, was destroyed only 24 hours later. And why . . .
Because Rollins is a “chicken-sh** heel”.
Oy-vey.
