Seth Rollins Is Happy You Hate Him

It’s been more than a year since Seth Rollins sold out – or “bought in” – via a series of chair shots on former Shield brothers Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns, and in the time since, he’s made the most of his opportunities, becoming one of the top heels in WWE, winning the Money in the Bank briefcase and cashing in at WrestleMania to become the World Heavyweight Champion.

In many ways, his rise was remarkable. But, since making it to the top, he’s been forced to watch those beneath him snatch the spotlight. From John Cena revitalizing the United States Championship and Brock Lesnar casting a sizeable shadow over the promotion (on a part-time basis), Rollins has almost become an afterthought. On top of that, his reign has coincided with the rapid ascent of the promotion he used to rule, NXT, and talent like Kevin Owens, who made waves when he was called up to WWE earlier this year. More proof that it’s not easy being champ.

But has any of that caused Rollins to lose confidence? Of course not. And as he prepares to reassert his dominance (and his title’s eminence) against Cena on Sunday at SummerSlam, the WWE champ spoke to Rolling Stone about the criticisms of his reign, the art of working a crowd and why he thinks he’s still the best in the business.

So I wanted to ask you right off the bat: What was it like to break John Cena’s nose?
It was bad. John, being who he is, had no intention of stopping that match, whether his nose was halfway off his face or not, but I knew right away when I hit him; the impact was way harder than I thought it was going to be. I heard his nose pop, and I felt it on my knee – I thought it was his eye socket or something; the way it cracked, I never heard a nose break like that before. The narrative changed after that, but that’s one of the cool things about all this. You can’t do that in any other medium. That visual of him finishing the match, standing there with his nose halfway across his face, that’s something that will be around forever. It’s pretty awesome.

Speaking of narratives, are you aware of how your reign as WWE Champion has been received? A lot of what I read online has been less-than-complimentary, to put it mildly.
Twitter’s kind of an abridged version of all that; I see enough of it, so I don’t really go out of my way to read the sites or the sheets or anything like that. You have to take everything with a grain of salt, because everyone’s got an opinion, and now, with Twitter and the blogosphere and all that bull crap, everyone has the means to express that opinion, so it’s really hard to gauge an actual response. You just have to go out and do what you do; I know when things I do are good, and I know when they’re not, so I’m not going to lose my confidence over one dude online who’s writing a report that 20 people read. I know that I’m the one who worked for 12 years to get to this point, I’m the one who spent my whole life putting this before my family and friends, I’m the one who sacrificed every relationship I’ve ever had to get to this point, and if that guy sitting on his couch, who never did a thing, wants to point fingers at me and talk to me about my championship reign – even if it’s a good thing – he can suck it. His opinion is irrelevant to me.

To be fair, most of the criticisms have little to do with you and everything to do with the way you’ve been booked – as cowardly and incompetent, a weak champion.
Well, I am a heel. I am a bad guy. The object of being a bad guy is to be hated, and for people to not want you to have the championship. And I’ve had the title for 100-and-whatever days, and every single day of that reign, people have wanted me to lose that title more and more; so in my estimation, I’m doing a bang-up job as WWE World Heavyweight Champion. People have lost sight of what heat is. They don’t understand it, in the era of reality in wrestling, and how smart they are and all this, they’ve lost sight of what actual heat is. So the idea of booking a champion too weak doesn’t exist in my opinion. It’s about the heat.

So would you like to explain the concept of heat for those who don’t understand it?
It’s an incredible art form. There’s multiple ways to do it, because the beautiful thing about art is that everyone’s got their own method. I think there’s certainly an art form to being a heel, just like there’s an art form to being a babyface. For me, it’s always about finding a way to take a shortcut whenever I have an opportunity. That’s the one thing that resonates with people of all ages, races, sexes – if they see someone always trying to take the easy way out, it chaps their asses a little bit. They want their champion to be a certain way, and every single time I have the opportunity to take the easy way out, I’m going to do it, from a live event in Bemidji, Minnesota to a main event in Brooklyn, New York for both titles. I’m going to find that little thing that irks people just enough; right when they think they might like me just a little bit, I’ll get them all the way there, and then I’ll do the one thing that pisses them off. That, for me, is a trick of the trade, always thinking that way: “What’s the crappiest way I can do this?”

Do you feel that working matches as a heel has limited you?
Well, you have to dictate the pace of the match, and not give the people what they want all the time. You can’t just go-go-go-go for five minutes every single night, because that works against both sides – me and the audience. I think that it’s been a challenge, but in a good way. It’s definitely something that’s going to keep my body healthier, and it’s just fun to do new things. I love the fact that I spent three years in Ring of Honor, and got to do that style, I love the fact that I got to learn on the indies, I love the fact that I got to work carnivals and fairs and barns, to figure that stuff out, and I love the fact that I’m here in WWE, and I get to be the top guy and figure out how to do that. To me, that’s constantly learning and evolving, not just as a character, but as a human being.