Views From The Turnbuckle: Will Seth Rollins’ 2017 Be Better Than His 2016?, Omega / Okada Review

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the views of WrestlingInc and its staff

2016 was an awkward year for Seth Rollins. Although he spent most of 2015 dominating as WWE World Heavyweight Champion, 2016 saw him miss the first half the year after tearing his ACL the previous November. Since he returned at Extreme Rules he has struggled to regain much of the dominance that he had exuded during 2015. There is no denying that Rollins is extremely talented and will be a major factor in the main event picture for years to come, but since his return six months ago, he doesn’t seem to have quite the appeal that he once did, and his future as being one of the two or three top guys in the company seems in doubt.

At Roadblock, Rollins wrestled Chris Jericho in a good, quality wrestling match. Jericho has worked his tail off to turn himself into the best heel in the company, but even with a master like Jericho in the ring with him, the crowd did not seem to react that well to Rollins. The Pittsburgh audience was dead for most of show, but for a good wrestling match featuring one of the biggest babyfaces beating one of the biggest heels, the pop was underwhelming.

The problem with Rollins is that WWE has awkwardly booked his babyface run. When he returned to WWE it seemed like he would be a natural face. Even though when he left he was a heel, he was a popular wrestler who made an impressive recovery from a devastating injury; much like Triple H did a decade ago. When he returned at Extreme Rules he got a huge babyface pop, but WWE decided to leave him heel by having him come out on RAW the following night and mock the fans who cheered for him the previous night. This robbed WWE of having a hot new top babyface, something any wrestling company should be craving.

Perhaps what was even worse was that Rollins was not a heel for all that long, WWE turned him babyface a few months later when Triple H and The Authority turned on him and made him good guy after all. But the turn was incredibly sloppy since Rollins main reasoning for becoming a babyface was that the villains who had helped him win a bunch of matches no longer wanted to help him. You don’t get a babyface over by having them constantly whine about how the bad guys are no longer cheating for them, and that is basically what Rollins has done. Instead of having a great hero that made a courageous comeback from a major injury, they have a guy who mainly complains about how mad he is that the heels are mean to him.

If that was not bad enough, WWE robbed Rollins of the one thing that could have really salvaged his awkward face turn. After Triple H turned on Rollins, Rollins at least had a good heel to start his babyface run against. Surely fans would tune in the next week on RAW to see how Triple H would explain what he did and hopefully see Rollins get a measure of revenge. But that did not happen; in fact Triple H hasn’t been seen since, leaving Rollins to essentially work an angle all by himself.

WWE plans on eventually doing Triple H vs Seth Rollins, but that is a match that now seems destined for WrestleMania. It can be rationalized that this is a big feud so it makes sense to have it at WrestleMania, but the reality is that sitting around and waiting for Triple H to show up again is not helping him get over as a babyface. Why didn’t they just do it right when Triple H turned on Rollins? Nobody really knows, but …

continue reading in source www.WrestlingInc.com