Seth Rollins isn’t buying Roman Reigns’ recent claims about making the WWE World Heavyweight Championship more important.
While discussing his long-running rivalry with Reigns during an appearance on Delivering Happiness with Big Nick Turturro (see video below), Rollins took direct aim at his former Shield stablemate, dismissing comments Reigns has made since capturing the title and carrying it into WWE’s current landscape.
For Rollins, the idea that Reigns somehow elevated the championship is simply not true.
“So, now Roman Reigns is walking around with my title, right? Talking about how he made the title relevant, which is bullsh*t. I’ll just say it. It’s complete bullsh*t. He knows it. I know it. Everybody else knows it. He sounds like an idiot when he says it.”
The remarks add another chapter to one of WWE’s most enduring rivalries, a feud that has spanned more than a decade dating back to The Shield and continues to simmer whenever the two stars cross paths.
Rollins also shifted gears during the interview and discussed what separates wrestling’s biggest stars from the rest of the roster. According to “The Visionary,” success at the highest level goes far beyond athletic ability or even traditional intelligence.
Instead, he believes the greatest performers possess a unique understanding of human behavior and crowd psychology.
“I think one of the things that’s really underrated in top talent and you kind of look at it through the history is there’s a level, there’s an intelligence that exists. There’s an understanding of people and how to read people, how to read a room, and how to kind of manipulate that reaction and that feeling.”
Rollins pointed to several legendary names across multiple generations of wrestling, arguing that the common thread connecting them is an ability to connect with audiences and guide emotional reactions.
“You look at guys from all different eras and they have it and they may not be traditionally the smartest guys in the world, like, you know, math scientists type things, right? Like Dusty Roads was incredible at it, the American Dream. You look at Ric Flair, you look at Bruno Sammartino, you look at Stone Cold Steve Austin, you look at The Rock, you look at all these generations, Triple H, these guys, John Cena, myself, Roman Reigns, the common denominator, aside from the desire for greatness, there’s a hunger to be at a level above other people, right? There’s an intelligence. There’s a knowhow with a way to get people to do what you want them to do.”
Interestingly, Rollins included Reigns among the elite names he mentioned despite criticizing him earlier in the interview.
That’s where Rollins believes true top-tier performers separate themselves from everyone else.
“And I don’t mean that in a negative manipulative way. I’m not trying to trick you or anything like that, but I understand what you want and what you don’t want and how to make those things work in conjunction with each other in the context of a story. And I think that’s the big thing that really, I think separates kind of that upper level from like the elite.”
