Top WWE star Seth “Freakin” Rollins appeared on Insight With Chris Van Vliet, where he talked about a number of topics including Joey Mercury helping him with the finish of his WrestleMania 31 match against Randy Orton.
Rollins said, “Well, Randy is not a practice guy. Randy is not a guy that wants to fall down when he’s not getting paid in front of people. Joey Mercury is the reason that I felt we could do it. Joey was a mentor for me a long time in Florida Championship Wrestling and on the main roster. He was a perfect little mechanic and could figure out how to do anything work. Joey is much smaller than Randy could eat a snack the size of Joey.”
On how they planned out the finish:
“That made it easier for me to step on Joey’s head when we were practicing it. I could do it with Joey. Randy is much stronger, but he didn’t want to fall down and do the RKO. Even if you slide a crash mat under, it just wasn’t working. We had a backup plan in case it didn’t work. Randy was like, ‘screw it, I always take the easy way so I can beat 1,000, let’s just do it and give it a shot. If it screws up, whatever. I’ve had plenty of Mania moments, I don’t care.’”
On how there was nothing he couldn’t do physically at the time:
“At that time, there was nothing I couldn’t do physically, if I had my mind set on it, we’d figure it out. ‘Ah, the adrenaline will carry it through.’ I did have some reservations about it in the match. When we got out there, it was very hot. In the middle of the day. Very hot and dry. I was more winded than I expected to be. When we got to it, my legs were a bit heavier. All the different ways you don’t want to feel when you’re about to do the grand finale. When I started running towards him, ‘I was like, oh, here we go. Let’s hope for the best.’”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)
