Seth Rollins revealed when he knew his WrestleMania 38 opponent would be Cody Rhodes.
Prior to WrestleMania 38, Seth Rollins struggled to find a spot on the card. He attempted to challenge AJ Styles for his already scheduled match against The Rated-R Superstar Edge but failed to claim the spot. Rollin’s obsession over getting a match at Mania became so bad that he threatened to hijack Monday Night Raw.
It wasn’t until a few days before the event that former WWE CEO Vince McMahon told Rollins that not only would he be competing but that his opponent would be a mystery. Fast forward to night one of WrestleMania 38, and WWE fans and Rollins were reintroduced to The American Nightmare Cody Rhodes.
Rollins traded counters with Rhodes for over 20 minutes, but in the end, The American Nightmare gave Rollins a massive loss in front of thousands inside AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas.
During his appearance on Out of Character with Ryan Satin, Rollins revealed when he knew he would wrestle Rhodes at the “grandest stage of them all.”
“I knew like, I would say, for sure, I would say less than a month out from Wrestlemania. I was really left out of WrestleMania. He ended up being a godsend. It was finalized like I want to say like three weeks before Wrestlemania. Even as we were starting to build the story towards that, it was not quite sure. There were conversations being had and all this stuff that I wasn’t really privy to.”
I was kind of trying to poke around and be like, ‘Hey, is this going to happen or do I need to start thinking of something else because I’m really not interested in getting left off WrestleMania, two nights, and I don’t want to be thrown into a match that means nothing. Both the titles were being held up in the one match. I’m like, ‘I gotta have something here.’ I had been doing so much good work. I was doing great work.”
“If I was sucking, then yeah, I get it, but I’m not. I’m 35 at that time in my prime. I’m like, ‘I don’t know what else you want from me.’ I was like, this is awful. I had some really strong conversations, I’ll put it that way, with Vince leading up to that, but once we got rolling and everything was set in stone, like I said, I think it was like three weeks, four weeks, somewhere in that time frame where I finally texted Cody.”
Rollins and Rhodes’ match at Mania would end up being the first of three before Rhodes’ torn pectoral tendon forced him to step away from the ring. WWE wrote Rhodes off television by having Rollins attack him with a sledgehammer the night after their Hell in a Cell match.
H/t – Wrestlingnews.co