Seth “Freakin” Rollins recently spoke with CBS Sports to promote this Saturday night’s WWE SummerSlam 2023 premium live event from Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan.
During the discussion, Rollins reflected on his time in NXT, where he was the first-ever world champion, and how the initial game-show version of NXT was revamped after certain parts of the show were already taped and “in the can.”
“No, all we did was film the pre-tape stuff, like we filmed the packages, we went to Full Sail University, and they had the cameras set up and went around you, and you got all wet and shiny, did the poses and then talked about who we were and where we came from and all that,” Rollins recalled. “So all that pre-production type stuff, we did all that, and then they never did the season. I think we were supposed to be season four or five? Hard to remember. Because they did the all-female season, and they did maybe one after that, and weren’t on that. Maybe it was five. But yeah, never came to fruition. For the better, I would say. At the time, very disappointing. Obviously, we were all looking to get our feet wet in WWE. We thought NXT was gonna be the ticket, that pathway in NXT anyway, and thankfully for all of us, that didn’t happen because here we are. Now I’m sitting and talking to you [as] World Heavyweight Champion, may not be the case had it been that way, so I would say my introduction was a little bit better than that.”
When asked if he were to be paired with a WWE Superstar that time, as was the style prior to NXT being revamped, he envisioned himself being put with “The Best in the World.”
“Oh man, that would have been like 2011, 2012,” he said. “At that point in my career, gosh, I would have been very closely aligned with CM Punk at the time. He would have probably been the guy if he was going to be involved with NXT that they would have paired with me based on our personality types and our upbringing.”
Check out the complete interview via the YouTube player embedded below. H/T to Fightful.com for transcribing the above quotes.
