How Seth Rollins is helping to shape the future of WWE in his new role (Opinion)
It was only a year ago when the WWE seemed set to portray Seth Rollins as the next "top guy" of WWE, who would carry the brand on his shoulders. However, a year since then, Rollins, in his new gimmick as the Monday Night Messiah, has now taken the responsibility of pushing younger and upcoming talent on Monday Night RAW as the leader of a stable with AOP (Akam and Rezar) and Murphy.
With Murphy, he has gone on to become a RAW Tag Team Champion in January 2020, thus pushing Murphy to his first Championship victory since his promotion from the Cruiserweight division to Monday Night RAW.
The team then lost the Tag Team Championship to The Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford), another upcoming tag team that recently moved from NXT to RAW. Along with being involved in a long-time feud with Kevin Owens, he recently teased a feud with the former NXT Champion, Aleister Black, another Superstar who is trying to make a mark on RAW.
This change in the role can be traced back to Rollins' first run as the WWE Universal Champion. Owing to an underwhelming reign as the Champion and his negative social media interactions, fans soured on him. This negative tide was further exacerbated as WWE tried to focus heavily on his real-life relationship with RAW Women's Champion, Becky Lynch. The fan-favorite had suddenly turned into a full-fledged social media villain.
The change got necessitated because of the negative fan sentiments against him while he was the Universal Champion. However, Seth Rollins has gracefully accepted this change and shifted his role from being the WWE Universal Champion as a top babyface to helping up-and-coming talent to forge their way to mainstream success.
With the changing landscape of professional wrestling as a whole, it was a need of the hour that WWE invested in talent who would carry the company forward in the future. After spending 5 years in the main-event scene, Seth Rollins is ensuring that it happens seamlessly, even if he needs to attain a hated on-screen persona for that purpose.