At Night of Champions, Seth Rollins will take on AJ Styles in the finals of a tournament to decide a new World Heavyweight Champion.
Triple H announced the creation of the new title prior to the draft, citing Roman Reigns’ dominance and part-time schedule as reasons why WWE needed a full-time World Champion. The result was that whichever brand didn’t end up with Reigns (Raw) would get the new title.
Although the situation was slightly confused with an entire tournament bracket to crown the new champion held on SmackDown.
Since the announcement and start of the tournament, Rollins has been a heavy favourite to win the gold, and his popularity with fans continues to soar. However, after the star was pictured on the set of new movie Captain America: New World Order, it was reported that there was some “hesitancy” backstage about making him champion.
While this has sparked debate among fans, WRKD Wrestling has now attempted to clear up its earlier report. Any hesitancy around Rollins becoming World Champion is not an “immediate fear,” but instead a potential long-term issue if the star and Becky Lynch carve out careers in Hollywood.
“Clarifying a prior report: we’d said that there was “hesitancy” to put the new title on Seth Rollins, due to his role in the new Captain America film. However, its been made clear this isn’t an immediate fear, but for the future, should he & Becky Lynch further pursue Hollywood.”
Seth Rollins To Miss WWE Raw
It has been reported that after missing Raw on May 15th because of filming, Rollins will also miss the show on May 22nd for the same reason. His in-person absence is being covered by a series of pre-taped segments where the star is being interviewed by Corey Graves.
Night of Champions is being held on May 27th in Saudi Arabia. The go-home edition of SmackDown on May 26th has already been recorded, you can find spoilers here.