6 Ups & 4 Downs For WWE Raw (13 Oct - Results & Review)
2. Rendering Saturday Moot
We will delve into the positives surrounding the post-main event scene later, but this was far from a “clean” pivot by WWE.
Regardless of the reason – a Seth Rollins injury, declining ratings, dissatisfaction with the overall direction of The Vision – pivoting this hard, this quickly after Crown Jewel was bound to be messy. And the most notable way it was messy was in how it basically invalidated the entire storyline surrounding Rollins and Cody Rhodes for the past month.
WWE managed to make a “bragging rights” champion-versus-champion match feel important and meaningful by drawing on Cody and Seth’s history and tying Rollins’ self-worth and reputation to the outcome. He won.
48 hours later, he sounded and acted like the doomed cop in an '80s action flick, two days from retirement, enjoying life with his family, but then gets mowed down. Rollins laid it on thick, talking about how much he loved the two Bronnys… right before they double-crossed him.
If Rollins is going to be on the sidelines for a while, they clearly needed to write him off. But it still was an extremely abrupt turn. It would have made 10 times more sense had Seth lost at Crown Jewel. If Rollins is hanging around in any capacity, he’s at worst going to be yet another tweener (or a babyface with an edge) in the main event, which doesn’t help the scene.
As more news trickles out in the days and weeks ahead, this decision might come more into focus.