During a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, Seth Rollins revealed that the initial plan for night one of WrestleMania 40 was for him to go head-to-head with CM Punk. That changed due to Punk’s torn triceps injury. Rollins will now defend the WWE World Title against Drew McIntyre.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On his recent knee injury: “It was not as serious as it could have been. My biggest fear when I felt my knee go in the direction it wasn’t supposed to go was that it was going to be a repeat of 2015 [when he tore the ACL, MCL, and medial meniscus in his knee during a match]. I’d have had to vacate the title, miss WrestleMania, all the hard work from the past few years was going up in smoke, and I’d have to start all over. That wasn’t the case. I was able to continue to work on the injury, continue to tell stories and continue to build rivalries. I always looked at it from a glass half full situation. The fact that we missed out on a few Seth Rollins matches on Raw breaks my heart as much as it does yours, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s all working out in the way it was intended to. I’m happy at full strength and ready to go for not one but two nights of WrestleMania.”
On the changes to WrestleMania 40: “A match against Punk, that was never on my radar. I believed I would never see that guy again. I thought that until I saw him at Survivor Series. We are living in one hell of a timeline. It’s crazy to think about all the people in WWE at the same time. The Rock is back, and all that’s happened with him and Cody and Cody’s fans, it is incredible and I’m still making sense of it. Years from now we’ll look back on this; it’s going to create a moment that lasts forever.”
