WNS Column: Set Rollins To Heel

I sat down to watch the 2nd June's edition of Monday Night Raw with the logic that it would be eventful considering it followed a Pay Per View.  I am glad my suspicions were well founded as there were certainly a few talking points, these included what appeared to be a Steve Blackman lookalike aka Dave Bootista, I mean Batista who was dressed as what can only be described as a car salesman before stating that he would quit the WWE again.  Batista then produced a wave which looked like a plugged in robot imitating a new line of programming code, if you look closely you can see a robotic engineer pressing CTL + 7 and then wondering what happened.

But as the title for my third column suggests, I know third, I am not here for Batista but instead Seth Rollins and a quite memorable heel turn, which for the moment has seemingly ended both The Shields Hounds Of Justice three piece gimmick and also subsequently lead Rollins into the arms of Evolution.  What I found to be compelling was the surprise element which WWE employed, with the aim of circumventing viewer's expectations by abruptly cancelling the scheduled main event between Randy Orton VS Roman Reigns.  Viewers were quickly and effectively surprised by the deviation from said script.

Further scrutiny of the 2nd June 2014 episode of Raw also throws up another striking point, by this I am referring to the very start where Triple H addresses the hostile crowd with reference to the previous Sunday's Payback defeat at the hands of The Shield.  The King Of Kings smugly stated that "I don't lose, I never lose, I win, always"  At the time this seemed inconsequential, but having known the conclusion beforehand, this made logical sense when Batista left and made way for a new third member of Evolution.  Even though this storyline was planned well in advance of Raw, probably even months before, it's interesting to note what happened at the start of Raw, as the seeds being sown for this heel turn.


Further evidence of this appears in the form of the heel segment itself, Seth Rollins stated that Evolution were not "one, like The Shield" This in itself portrays a notion of loyalty.  The audience therefore expected The Shield to remain as a three piece, but a cryptic comment by Rollins who declared that Evolution were just "three strangers who happened to be standing on the same side of the ring" can be applied to The Shield and the subsequent break up.       

 So was it the right move for Seth Rollins to turn heel? I would say yes, Seth Rollins is an exciting young wrestler who is seemingly been given his push alongside two veterans in Triple H, who has been around the WWE for nearly 20 years and also Randy Orton who himself has racked up over a decade with this promotion.  It's also interesting to note both Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose have already been significantly pushed within WWE.
 
Reigns received a convincing push when he was the sole survivor for his team at the 2013 edition of Survivor Series PPV.  Alongside this was the record which Reigns broke in 2014 Royal Rumble PPV with 12 eliminations, beating the previous achievement of 11 by Kane at the 2001 Royal Rumble.  Dean Ambrose has received prominence by being the longest reigning US champ of all time, yes I know I had more chance of beating Dean Ambrose as this title wasn't really defended, but I am still counting it as a push.

This could also offer more room to explore Rollins character now the burden of being "The Glue" which was stated by Rollins during a heated exchange on the 3rd March 2014 episode of Raw has been lifted.  This also offers a different dimension to Evolution as well, instead of a Batista battering ram we now have an athletic flip off the top turnbuckle Seth Rollins.

So can Rollins actually pull off a heel character? During research for this column, I stumbled across an interesting angle, which appeared courtesy of Seth Rollins time in the Ring Of Honour promotion.  During which time Rollins played a heel character by the name of "Tyler Black".  The origins of this heel run started when Rollins signed a developmental contract with the WWE, the fans realized this and therefore started to abuse and accuse him of being a "sell out"  Having this experience leads to possibilities which Colby Lopez can trade on for the Seth Rollins character.

 As I draw this column to a close I thought I would share one final piece of information, during Seth Rollins time in NXT he become the holder of the "inaugural NXT Championship" after defeating Jinder Mahal in an eight man tournament on the 29th August 2012.  Seth Rollins arms were held aloft with the belt around his waist by none other than the suited and booted Cerebral Assassin himself,Triple H.

 
Could Seth Rollins be a Triple H guy?  


Written by -  Christopher Files

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