Took The Bump: How the Greatest Love Story In Wrestling Rewired my Brain
This is a post about wrestling, because I am a woman of many interests.
It was June 2022 when my household finally caught covid, well, half of us. For comfort and safety reasons my dad and I moved out into an airbnb for a week to avoid getting sick. I had recently quit my job at a pharmaceuticals company (after an oven exploded, no less) and so was left alone in the middle of the day in a stranger’s tiny apartment. That’s how I ended up watching a rerun of Monday Night Raw, where I saw Seth Rollins for the first time in a while.
This is where I tell you, dear reader, that I’ve always had notions of wrestling. I was a big fan when I was little enough to not remember anything about it, then my cousins were (and still are) really big fans and so is my fiancé. None of them ever really talked to me about it, but I would still catch stuff here and there.
So I knew who Seth was and I knew who the Shield were and I was surprised at the character on screen: dressed in a flowery suit calling himself a visionary and attacking a man with a mallet (Monday Night Raw, June 6th). I was intrigued. Soon after this I started watching wrestling regularly for the first time since I was a kid.
I had a little bit of tunnel vision for Seth Rollins at the start, not gonna lie. He’s a handsome man in some great, incredible, bonker-balls outfits with a great theme song being generally an evil little shit. It did not help that I didn't really know anyone else except maybe Edge, Rey Mysterio and Sheamus. Randy Orton was out injured, the Undertaker had retired, The Big Show is at another company now, John Cena is having a great time at Hollywood. So while I asked question after question about the new (for me) talent, I was fully invested in Seth and his path to the title.
Meli, the title mentions a love story, please don’t tell me it’s between you and wrestling or, worse, between you and Seth. Of course not, the Love Story of the Century was written by what I imagine to be a single auteur at the WWE writing table completely possessed by, idk, the ghost of Oscar Wilde or William Sheakespeare and it’s between Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns.
Because I was newly curious about Seth and wrestling I was 100% searching his name on social media, searching for gifs and, boy, I found them. Especifically I found gifs of the Reigns/Rollins Royal Rumble 2022 match which sent me deep into the rabbit hole I’m about to take you into.
Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns were two thirds of the Shield, a faction that debuted in 2012 and became extremely popular and dominant in the ring. In 2012, I was 15 and was busy getting my heart broken for the first time, so I ignore some of the finer points of The Shield trajectory, as I was NOT keeping up with wrestling. I do know that at some point, they were all champions: Seth and Roman were tag team champions while Ambrose was US Champion. They called each other brothers, they had a pretty significant undefeated streak, it was, as Taylor Swift would say, the golden age of something good and right and real.
And they never saw it coming when Seth Rollins tore it all up*, betrayed his team in the lowest way you possibly could in wrestling: from the back, with a steel chair. He had, until that point, been the heart of the shield. He made sure they worked out their differences to keep working as a unit. He was the one keeping them together, and he was the one who broke them.
After this betrayal Ambrose set out for revenge: interfering matches and generally making Seth’s life hell while Reigns moved on. Sort of.
While Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins got some sort of closure in their story with Dean and Seth feuding around 2014-2015, then reuniting and working together in 2017 years after the shield split and Dean got his lick back at Seth ultimately after a shield reunion where he ended up attacking Seth (with a steel chair, from the back). Roman never really got that sort of clean cut end to their story.
Rollins and Reigns would nod at each other, acknowledge the friendship that had been there when working together, but what was broken back in 2014 could not ever be fully repaired.
Fast forward once again, to January 2022. With Roman Reigns as the Tribal Chief, WWE’s Undisputed Champion and Seth Rollins morphed fully into the Seth “Freaking” Rollins character. With the title on the line, Seth comes out not to his regular theme, but to The Shield music (as a delicious detail, the Shield theme features the voices of all three members). As if it wasn’t enough torment for Roman to hear his own voice from ten years ago, from a completely different life before you knew the betrayal of those closest to you, Seth comes out of the crowd (like The Shield would), fully dressed in Shield gear.
The match** begins with Seth mocking Roman and throughout the announcers (some of my favorite characters in wrestling) talk about how they know each other better than anyone else in the whole world. Sure, they’re talking about how they know each other’s wrestling moves, but the inherent homoeroticism of wrestling is almost impossible to avoid.
It ends with Roman putting Seth in a guillotine hold, the bell rings announcing a disqualification and, as Seth passes out, the referees yell at Roman to let go, and he yells back “He deserves this! He deserves this! I can’t! I can’t let go! He won’t allow me to let go!”
It’s an insane ending for a match. No one wins. As no one has ever won since the Shield broke up. Roman Reings was champion for over a 1000 days, the only* wrestler he never actually beat? Seth Rollins. Their story continues to be open ended, continues to be about the hurt you can cause those who know you best. About how the love that once was there remains, twisted and gnarled it becomes just pain in the shape of them. The Shield version of them might be gone, but never buried. They’re for them to carry, to remember that once they were great Together.
Roman had his own faction now, but He was on top of the world, there was never an us like there used to be. There’s no letting go, ever.
It’s really these moments of character work that make me tune into wrestling. I love the dramatics and acrobatics, but a story so many years in the making being satisfying every time? I’ll be seated for the every PPV (except the Saudi ones bc I love women and hate oil money).
After I had most of this post written, but before posting, Roman Reigns finally lost his title to Cody Rhodes at Wrestlemania XL. How did he lose? He had the chance to hit Cody with a steel chair or to hit Seth with a steel chair, from the back. Of course he took the latter choice. Repeating the exact same spot with the actors reversed. This gave Cody the chance to gather himself and beat him. Not letting go took everything from Roman, and still he holds on.
*The author is a swiftie and cannot resist an extended reference. She’s so damn quotable, after all.
** The match is on youtube and I recommend it so much: FULL MATCH — Roman Reigns vs. Seth "Freakin" Rollins — Universal Title Match: Royal Rumble 2022
***I don’t actually know, I’m making that up for dramatics. I’m taking a bit of poetic license
Continuously fascinated by the depths of wrestling
I will never get over the fact that both Seth and Roman lost their respective titles at WM for not being able to let go.