Seth Rollins rejected a WWE Hall of Famer’s advice about using a particular wrestling move.
Before Seth Rollins became a multi-time world champion on RAW, he was a young superstar trying to make a name for himself on NXT. Rollins arrived on the scene after wrestling under the name Tyler Black on the independent circuit for five years.
WWE Hall of Famer “Road Dogg” Brian James was a trainer in developmental right around the time of Rollins’ NXT debut. The former NXT Champion used to use a forearm strike in the corner, which previously had a long build-up that Road Dogg wasn’t a massive fan of.
Now, Road Dogg has opened up about Rollins rejecting his advice to change up the build-up leading to his corner strike.
During an AdFreeShows Q&A session, the Hall of Famer revealed that he had an honest conversation with Triple H about Rollin’s attitude after he rejected his advice and said he didn’t want to work with him again:
“He used to do this thing in the corner where he would jump up and down, jump up and down and run like he was in a mosh pit, and then run and hit the guy with a forearm. And I thought, ‘Oh, man, that’s so anticlimactic. Like if you jump up and down and you’re really warming up, and then you run and hit the guy with a flipper.”
“I don’t know; it didn’t seem right; it seemed like the build-up was bigger than the finish-up,” opined Road Dogg. “So I went up to him and told him that, and he said, ‘No, that’s what I do. I’m not changing it; that’s what I do.’ I went to Hunter and said, ‘Well, that kid, I’ll never talk to him again.’ You know what I mean?”
Road Dogg later revealed that Rollins eventually took his advice and changed up his routine:
“So his bad habit was not saying, ‘Okay, thank you, sir,’ or whatever being respectful and not doing what I said [laughs] for any other young wrestler,” added the WWE legend. “But at least, pretend to respect what I’m telling you, you know what I mean? What I was telling him was right, he did change it, and he did come up with someone that was had a bigger pop than the setup to it.”
Rollins became the first-ever NXT Champion in 2012. He would later debut as part of The Shield at Survivor Series that year.
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