Rollins’ first match back is going to be a title bout.
On night two of WWE WrestleMania XL, Seth Rollins lost the World Heavyweight Championship and then attempted to help Cody Rhodes in the main event. Rollins had been away from WWE programming since then as he underwent a knee operation.
He returned to television on the 6/17 Monday Night Raw. He told Matt Aguilar of ComicBook Nation that he was given a few weeks’ notice about his return to WWE.
A little fluctuation. I had a few weeks’ notice (that I’d be coming back to TV). We kind of looked at the timeline of the injury and looked at the stories and where I fell back into place. You never really know, you never know how things are gonna go. But, the top of the card here on Raw is pretty stacked. You got guys like Damian Priest, you got Drew McIntyre, CM Punk whenever he’s around and able. You’ve got GUNTHER kind of waiting in the wings as well. You have Rey Mysterio, you got the whole Judgment Day so it’s stacked so, it was very interesting to see where I could slide in, but yeah man, the time felt right and coming off a huge event overseas, Clash at the Castle in Scotland, it was ripe for the picking. Damian Priest needed a challenger so I hopped right in.
Upon his return, World Heavyweight Champion Damian Priest offered a title match to Rollins for the Money in the Bank Premium Live Event and it was made official.
Rollins weighed in on Priest’s title reign and thinks he’s doing well. Rollins stated that he knows that pressure and when he won his first World Title in 2015, he was not ready.
Yeah, yeah, Money in the Bank’s kind of my thing. You know, he’s (Damian Priest) been doing well. He’s been doing well. I understand what it’s like, the pressure of a first title reign. I know when I had my first title reign way back in 2015, I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready. I was a different cat back then. I thought I was ready, I wasn’t ready. It’s tough. You put a lot of pressure on yourself, but he’s done very, very well, had some really incredible title defenses between (Drew) McIntyre and Jey Uso and he’s growing, you know? And that’s all you can really ask for. I’m not gonna go as far as to say he’s keeping it warm for me but, it is what it is. If it wasn’t him, it’d be McIntyre. It doesn’t matter. That title’s really mine and we’re gonna get it back sooner rather than later. I actually had every intention to just win the match, Ladder match at Money in the Bank and cash-in but, he feels like he’s gotta prove something, maybe to himself, maybe to me, maybe to the audience and he’s actually the one that laid the challenge out to me. A little surprising but, I’ll take it.
Rollins and Priest met face-to-face on the 6/24 Raw and they agreed on two stipulations for their title match. If Rollins loses, he can no longer challenger for the belt as long as Priest is champion. If Priest loses, he must leave The Judgment Day.
The winner of Rollins versus Priest will move on to SummerSlam to defend the World Heavyweight Title against GUNTHER.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit ComicBook Nation with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
