So we’ve had it confirmed from that most sanctified of sources, “The Oracle” Paul Heyman: Seth Rollins was faking his big injury right from the beginning in order to pull off his Money in the Bank cash-in.
The twist might have given us one of the best images of SummerSlam, as Rollins tossed aside his crutches before marching down to the ring. But should it have happened in the first place, given the whole point was to make us think that Rollins had suffered a potentially career-shortening injury?
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Let’s get the obvious part out of the way: there is a rich history of fake injury angles in pro-wrestling history — but most of the time the deception is revealed pretty quickly, and usually at the expense of the other wrestler rather than the entire fanbase. In other cases, the “fake injury” is obviously part of the storyline: like the backstage attack on Jade Cargill, for example.
That wasn’t the case with Seth Rollins’ angle, the whole point of which was to look like something that actually happens in real life. How long ago was it that we saw Zoey Stark suffering an in-ring knee injury that looked like something you used to see on those old internet forums frequented by shock-hungry teenage boys? No wonder people were so willing to believe Rollins might have suffered something similar.
When you see an injury like Zoey Stark’s, or you hear Kevin Owens saying he is undergoing serious neck surgery, you probably have the same reaction you might if it happened to a colleague or acquaintance: sympathy. And that’s the way it should be given that you’re witnessing someone’s whole livelihood being put at risk.
That isn’t something unique to pro-wrestling. Look at the way football fans react when an opposing player picks up a seemingly serious injury: with a sympathetic round of applause. Hell, even a sport as brazenly macho as Power Slap doesn’t revel in the idea of its competitors being injured. But here is WWE trying to use a supposedly serious injury for storyline clout.
For my money, the Rollins injury isn’t even the worst offender on that front. That dubious honor has to go to NXT, which wrapped a show in 2023 with the image of Ilja Dragunov being stretchered out of the arena with an apparent neck injury, following a nasty suplex from Ridge Holland (yes, the same man who was involved in the horrendous accident that ended Big E’s in-ring career).
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Leaving aside the obvious questions of taste, there’s a danger that WWE opens Pandora’s box by legitimizing the idea that on-screen injuries might be fake. What happens the next time that a match gets called short and a wrestler has to be helped out of the ring by medical staff? Do they really want half of the internet speculating as to whether the whole thing is a set-up?
That’s before we get to the reports that most of the locker room was led to think the Rollins injury was real. As plenty of others have already commented, the history of wrestling promoters trying to “work” the talent isn’t exactly a brilliant precedent for WWE to follow.
There’s a big parallel here with WWE’s claims earlier this year (still disputed by some) that they had intentionally “fake fired” R-Truth in order to set up a storyline at Money in the Bank. Whatever the truth of that episode, we know that plenty of wrestlers actually thought that Truth had been legitimately released. Some expressed sympathy for their colleague, only to be told later down the line it was all a ruse. Maybe next time they won’t bother.
If there’s a steel-man case for the injury angle, then it’s the one set out by Paul Heyman on Wednesday: that Seth Rollins is the master manipulator of WWE and had worked out this was the best way to dupe his nemesis CM Punk. “That is what we call ‘The Vision,'” said Heyman during his interview on “The Ariel Helwani Show.”
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He’s right that it does add some intrigue to the character of Rollins. It also raises the stakes for more twists further down the line. But given the obvious moral questions involved, you have to wonder if the juice is really worth the squeeze. Like most wrestling fans, I don’t make a habit of questioning “The Wise Man,” but, on this occasion, I’ll make an exception.