Seth Rollins stole WrestleMania 31. His MITB cash-in during Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns‘ WWE Championship main event was the lasting image of the show and a moment that crystallized the Rollins character. However, the essential ingredient of Rollins’ coup, the Curbstomp, was stripped from him the following week. We’ve heard WWE’s story on what the move was stripped, but never Seth Rollins.
Until now.
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2.5 years later, Rollins can speak comfortably on the subject. He recently joined the Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast and spoke bluntly about his lost finisher
“No more blonde and The Curbstomp is gone, guys. It’s not my fault. Trust me. It’s not like I was [saying], ‘oh yes, I want a new finisher.’ No, they snatched it from me. They took it from me. No, so this is what happened, okay? After WrestleMania, I had won the [WWE] title, and I flew across the country to do the Today Show. For the Today Show, they put together a package of all of Seth Rollins‘ awesome maneuvers. At the time, my finish was The Curbstomp.”
Rollins would continue to elaborate:
“So Vince McMahon is sitting wherever Vince McMahon sits on a Monday morning and he’s seeing me on the Today Show and I look good in a suit. I’m representing the company. I look good in a suit. And I’m wearing the title and then he sees this package of me stomping another man’s head into the ground and it being called The Curbstomp on national television. And he thought to himself, ‘well, that’s not a good representation of what I want my top guy to do,’ so he just had a meeting with some of his people, and they decided, ‘well, we don’t need it – we can figure out another finish for you’ and the rest is history. I get it. I hate it. I think it’s silly, but it is what it is and it’s not my company. I’m doing the best I can with it.”
Rollins has suffered since losing the Curbstomp. The unique and impactful move distinguished Rollins from the rest of WWE. Since its removal, Rollins has been in finisher limbo resulting him using Triple H’s Pedigree on loan. However, that too is a thing of the past for The Kingslayer.
“I get it from a marketing standpoint. I totally understand it. I hate it because it was such a great finish. It was easy and could do it to everybody, but, hey, so is my cool knee now, so let’s start like that.”
The “Ripcord Knee” is now Rollins’ newest finisher. It has yet to get a true spotlight as Rollins is now 1/2 of RAW’s Tag Team Champions. With his days of a being a solo competitor currently on hold, so is the visibility of his finishing maneuver. WWE and Rollins may never reach the potency of the Curbstomp but we’ll all have to give the Ripcord Knee a chance.
