Last weekend, Seth Rollins had a meltdown following his WarGames win when Cult Of Personality blared out through the speakers and CM Punk returned to WWE. Many were unsure if his reaction was genuine or not considering public statements he has made about The Second City Savior. Notably, earlier this year at a WWE 2K event during Royal Rumble weekend, Rollins told me he thought Punk was a “cancer” when I asked about him possibly returning. Shortly after his profane-laden reaction at Survivor Series, word began to emerge that Rollins was likely working everyone. However, questions still linger about how the two men actually feel about each other.
On today’s Sports Illustrated Media podcast with Jimmy Traina, Rollins was asked to explain to fans why he has ill will toward Punk.
“A lot of it is personal; a lot of it’s stuff that I don’t really want to get into,” he said. “But for the most part, I just think he’s been really selfish when it comes to his perspective on the industry. I think he’s been extremely self-serving, has played the martyr role to a tee, and has, for someone who, when I met the guy, and look, I got a lot of good things to say about parts of my relationship with him. You know? He helped me in places when he didn’t have to; whether that was for his own good or not, I’m not entirely sure.
“But regardless, it helped me get where I needed to go and do the things I needed to do. And for a guy who, when I met him, kind of made it seem like he was all about giving back to the business, he really turned into a pretty, pretty selfish guy and really wanted to take more from the industry. And look, he said some really bad things about me. He talked down about me for years and the company for years.
“And that’s, I mean, I’m talking some really bad stuff. Called me like a bootlicker and crap like that. And like, you don’t know me. You don’t know me. You don’t know what I stand for. I’m a loyal person, and I felt pretty, pretty insulted by a lot of the ways he treated me, treated the place that I worked for, treated friends that I worked with, you know? I don’t need to get into any of the stuff with Colt Cabana if you want to go and look at, you know, that kind of stuff that’s out there.
“But yeah, I mean, just the way he treated people. The way I felt like he was only looking out for himself. And then the way he talked down about me and my friends and the people who are here putting the hard work in, in WWE, trying to make this thing as good as we possibly could because we love the industry, we truly love it. Not just what it can do for us, but we actually love it, and want to get back to it and want to make it the best it can possibly be.
“And I always just felt like he was a fraud in that sense. Or, at least turned into one at some point in the last decade. And, so, yeah, that’s, that’s the long of it. It’s a deep, deep-rooted, deep-rooted, I wouldn’t call it a hatred, but certainly there’s animosity there. No doubt about it.”
If you use any quotes from this article, please give a h/t to Haus of Wrestling and credit the SI Media podcast