Opinion: How Seth Rollins turned boos into cheers in the main event of SummerSlam 2019
Let's just begin by saying that 2019 hasn't been a great year for Seth Rollins. After starting the year with a bang by winning the Men's Royal Rumble and defeating Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 35, The Beastslayer's (we believe that he has earned the title) stock has seen a steep decline due to a myriad of reasons.
It all started with Rollins vociferously defending WWE and the current product on social media, which irked a lot of fans online. This was followed by him making a few unsavory comments regarding the departure of his Shield Brethren, Dean Ambrose, aka, Jon Moxley, from WWE. Rollins would then get into a Twitter back-and-forth with New Japan star, Will Ospreay. Rollins' on-screen partnership with Becky Lynch only made matters worse as the pair failed to click as an on-screen couple.
The build-up to Seth Rollins' match against Lesnar wasn't great either. Except for that brutal beatdown he suffered at the hands of Lesnar a few weeks ago, there was nothing to warrant this match to be the main event of a big show like SummerSlam. The build-up to the match, as we said earlier, was average at best and this was essentially a rematch from WrestleMania 35. Much like everyone else, we thought that this was going to be another one of those Lesnar matches - arrive, German Suplex, F5, Leave - but what we ended up getting was the best Universal Championship match in WWE history.
Now as good as a Styles Vs Rollins at MITB 2018 or Balor Vs Lesnar at Royal Rumble 2019 or even Lesnar Vs Goldberg at WrestleMania 33 was, the winner ended up being what many predicted. This wasn't the case with this match though and this is what made it even more special. The very fact that Lesnar and Rollins managed to keep the crowd at its feet for the entirety of the match especially after the Spectacular debut of 'The Fiend' speaks volumes of the quality of the match.
Lesnar proved once again why he is one of the best sellers in the business right now. He took every one of Rollins' moves and made The Architect look like a million bucks in the process. We give The Beast Incarnate a lot of grief, but man when Lesnar is in his element, he is an absolute joy to watch.
There were a lot of bells and whistles in the match which kept the audience from start to finish. But, perhaps the biggest story coming out of the match was how Seth Rollins managed to turn a hostile crowd who were booing him at the start of the match to vociferously cheer for him by the end of it.
Rollins did what he did best, ie, wrestle his heart out in the squared circle with a man who is one of the most decorated athletes in Combat Sports. Rollins countering Lensar's German Suplex with a backflip was a thing of beauty and the pair of Frog Splashes he delivered to The Beast was picture perfect.
This win over Lesnar has without a doubt cemented Rollins' position as the company's top dog. Lesnar losing clean isn't a sight that is seen quite often and the fact that The Beast has put Rollins over twice in 2019 speaks volumes about the equity that the Iowa-native has built for himself within the company. We were quite apprehensive about how this match would turn out, but we are glad to say that Rollins made a believer out of us following his incredible performance in the main event of SummerSlam.