Vince McMahon told ‘it’s not happening’ over banned WWE move as top star continues rehab
Not many in WWE are in a strong enough position to refuse an order from the boss.
Seth Rollins, however, has never been a shrinking violet and rarely turns down the chance to speak his mind.
It’s been that way for over a decade – just ask former WWE chief Vince McMahon and his team, who turned his in-ring world upside down by banning his finishing move right at one of the peaks of his career.
Rollins had just won the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 31 and was on a high – gleefully hitting opponents with the Curb Stomp, a move in which he appears to stamp skulls into the ring mat.
As an elite-level athlete and a highly trained professional wrestler, Rollins knew how to execute the move safely, of course – and so, too, his colleagues knew how to receive it, so the real danger was minimal.
McMahon, however, feared children replicating the move would hurt themselves and – despite an insistence from Rollins that any and all wrestling moves present the same risk – informed the grappler the move was now on the banned list.
Star summoned for backstage chat with McMahon
In an interview with Complex News, Rollins revealed the backstage interaction with his former boss, saying: “Vince is like: ‘Come in. I gotta talk to you about something.’
“He’s like: ‘Ah, we’re not gonna do that anymore… it’s not safe… kids are gonna do it to each other at home.’
“I dunno what happened. Somebody got into his ear and said that it was a problem.
“I thought it was so silly but, whatever, it’s not my sandbox.”
The conversation soon turned to what would fill the void in Rollins’ in-ring arsenal – he said he posed the question: ‘Well, what do you want me to do?’
That’s where the disappointment continued for the former Shield member turned singles star — as officials urged him to replace the relatively low-impact Curb Stomp with a heavy-load finisher: A top rope frog splash.
It’s safe to say it wasn’t a discussion that lasted long, such is the toll taken on the body by routinely leaping from the top rope on to the canvas below.
Rollins said as much, adding: “Then they wanted me to do a frog splash and I’m like: ‘Absolutely not. I’m not doing that every single night. I like my knees and I like my elbows. It’s not happening.”
With the Curb Stomp out of favour and the frog splash never a consideration for Rollins, thinking caps were donned and another move ended up with a regular place in the arsenal of one of WWE‘s top stars.
That, of course, was The Pedigree, made famous over the course of the previous 20 years by Triple H, who’d won world championships aplenty with it.
Such was the status of the move, Rollins was soon then on the receiving end of resistance – from The Game himself.
He went on to note Triple H’s discomfort that, he hints, still stands to the present day given the grappler still busts out the move from time to time despite since being able to use the Curb Stomp once more.
‘Triple H really hates it’
He explained: “It was the process of trying to figure out a new finisher, and thankfully, I was in the mentorship of Triple H at the time in The Authority and no one else had ever used the Pedigree as a finishing move and he was not an active performer at the time so I was like: ‘I think this would be the perfect.’
“He was hesitant about it, too. He didn’t like it. I think he really hates it now because people kick out of it sometimes.
“I think it worked for the time being. It got the desired reaction, and it already had the 20 years of equity to it which is the hardest thing to do with a finisher because anything can be a finisher. You just have to beat people with it for a while.”
Rollins’ desire to turn down the frog splash to protect his body was due caution – he’s suffered his own share of injury woe during his career and is currently sidelined after shoulder surgery late last year.
When will Seth Rollins return to action?
His timetable for return isn’t fully known — WWE always preferring to keep the possibility of a shock comeback on the table at all times.
The multi-time former world champ says he’s at present only just able to “wash my hair and scratch my armpit and all those things,” which would suggest a Royal Rumble comeback this month or even a WrestleMania return in the April are highly unlikely.
But this is WWE and fans know better than to ever say never — perhaps just don’t bank on too many frog splashes.
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