Seth Rollins has opened up about the exact moment he knew something had gone wrong during his match with Cody Rhodes.
Rollins has been out of action since tearing his rotator cuff in his bout against Rhodes at Crown Jewel in October. While appearing on the Games With Names podcast, Rollins walked through how the injury happened and how it immediately altered the rest of the match.
According to Rollins, the injury occurred during a risky aerial spot that didn’t go as planned.
“I jumped from one turnbuckle all the way across the ring to the other turnbuckle where Cody Rhodes was hanging upside down and I headbutted him,” Rollins explained. “But in the landing, I didn’t stick it. I did not stick the landing. I rotated a little bit to my left, landed hard on my left elbow, jolted it up into the shoulder. Felt it go right away.”
That realization came at a brutal time, as Rollins noted there was still a large portion of the match left to go. Despite the injury, he said they were able to push through everything they had mapped out beforehand.
“Fortunately, I was able to get through everything,” Rollins said. “I took his finisher off the top rope, which was pretty scary at that point because I knew I was going to land harshly on my shoulder so I kind of kept it tucked real tight.”
Adrenaline played a major role in getting him through the remainder of the contest, but Rollins admitted the limitations were obvious if you know what to look for.
“If you watch that match back, it’s dangling at my side,” he said. “I can’t throw even my punches or forearms correctly. It was hard to do what needed to get done.”
Later in the discussion, the conversation turned to Rollins and Rhodes’ infamous 2022 Hell in a Cell match, which saw Rhodes compete with a torn pectoral muscle. With both men now having shared multiple major matches where one of them was injured, Rollins reflected on their in-ring chemistry.
“You need a dance partner, and everybody’s got different chemistry with different dance partners,” Rollins said. “He and I have always had great chemistry. We did it again just recently at Crown Jewel, and it was as fantastic as ever.”
