Seth Rollins' top 5 WWE PPV matches (and 5 that flopped)

Seth Rollins burst onto the WWE scene at Survivor Series 2012 alongside his fellow Shield members, Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose, and he has been an integral part of WWE programming ever since.

Between November 2012 and June 2014, “The Architect” mostly competed in multi-man matches with Reigns and Ambrose, notably against The Usos, The Rhodes Brothers, The Wyatt Family and Evolution.

Shortly after betraying his Shield brothers the night after Payback 2014, Rollins quickly established himself as WWE’s next top singles Superstar by winning the 2014 Money In The Bank ladder match.

As a member of The Authority, he won the World Heavyweight Championship in the main event of WrestleMania 31 in March 2015, while he recovered from a lengthy injury to win WWE’s most prestigious title for the second time in June 2016.

Rollins went on to have more singles success after turning babyface in September 2016, but his most notable accomplishments came in 2019 when he won the Royal Rumble before defeating Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 35 and SummerSlam to become a two-time Universal Champion.

In this article, let’s take a look at Rollins’ WWE history by counting down his top five pay-per-view matches, as well as five that flopped.

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Top #5 WrestleMania 31 (vs. Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns)

As an individual moment, Seth Rollins’ Money In The Bank cash-in on Roman Reigns in the main event of WrestleMania 31 would obviously rank at #1 in the Shield member’s greatest WWE career highlights.

However, the majority of the match was contested between Brock Lesnar and Reigns, with Rollins appearing in the closing stages to pull off “The Heist of the Century”, so it only just makes it onto this list in the #5 position.

Top #4 SummerSlam 2019 (vs. Brock Lesnar)

Seth Rollins lost a lot of momentum in the summer of 2019 following his storylines with Becky Lynch and Baron Corbin, so it was only natural that he was considered the overwhelming underdog heading into his Universal Championship rematch against Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam.

As it turned out, the two men produced their best one-on-one match against each other to date, with Rollins causing a huge upset by pinning “The Beast” clean to win the Universal Championship for the second time in his career.

Top #3 SummerSlam 2015 (vs. John Cena)

At the height of his run as a heel member of The Authority, Seth Rollins became the first person in WWE history to hold both the WWE Championship and United States Championship at the same time.

He achieved the unique feat at SummerSlam 2015, where he received help from an unlikely ally – television personality and SummerSlam host Jon Stewart – who hit John Cena with a steel chair to help Rollins win the Champion vs. Champion match.

The shenanigan-filled finish received a mixed reception from WWE fans, but this was certainly a milestone victory for Rollins.

Top #2 Survivor Series 2014 (Team Cena vs. Team Authority)

The previous three matches in this list ended in Seth Rollins wins, but Survivor Series 2014 showed that some Superstars can look just as good in defeat as they do in victory.

That year’s main event saw Team Cena (Big Show, Dolph Ziggler, Erick Rowan, John Cena and Ryback) defeat Team Authority (Kane, Luke Harper, Mark Henry, Rusev and Seth Rollins), with Sting making his first WWE appearance to help Ziggler pin Rollins and pick up the win for Team Cena.

Sting and Triple H took the headlines from the PPV, but it cannot be denied that Ziggler and Rollins’ 43-minute performances were among the best of 2014.

Top #1 Royal Rumble 2015 (vs. Brock Lesnar and John Cena)

Despite being the Money In The Bank holder at the time, Seth Rollins challenged for the WWE Championship in a Triple Threat match against Brock Lesnar and John Cena at the 2015 Royal Rumble.

Rollins revealed in an interview on E&C’s Pod of Awesomeness that he pitched the idea to Cena about him being added to the match, and the 16-time World Champion then passed on the suggestion to WWE’s decision-makers.

The end result? A victory for Lesnar in what turned out to be one of the greatest Triple Threat matches in WWE history.

Flop #5 WrestleMania 30 (vs. Kane & The New Age Outlaws)

Along with Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins was heavily involved in WWE’s weekly storylines on RAW and SmackDown in the year leading up to WrestleMania 30.

It looked for a long time as if WWE might book a Triple Threat match between the three Shield members at the event. However, they ended up squashing Kane & The New Age Outlaws in a three-minute match that would not have looked out of place on an episode of Main Event.

Flop #4 Battleground 2015 (vs. Brock Lesnar)

It might seem a little harsh to include the first one-on-one encounter between Seth Rollins and Brock Lesnar in this list, but the match turned out to be less about the WWE Championship and more about the return of The Undertaker, who attacked Lesnar to bring the match to a sudden end.

‘Taker’s return and Lesnar’s reaction was priceless, so there is no way that the moment itself belongs on a list like this. However, as a one-on-one WWE Championship match, Rollins vs. Lesnar was completely overshadowed.

Flop #3 Stomping Grounds 2019 (vs. Baron Corbin)

Seth Rollins was arguably the top babyface in WWE after defeating Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania 35. From there, he retained his title against AJ Styles at Money In The Bank before getting involved in what many fans perceived to be an underwhelming feud with Baron Corbin.

One of the lowlights from the rivalry came in the main event of Stomping Grounds, where Rollins defeated Corbin in a match which had Lacey Evans as the special guest referee.

The match was not necessarily bad, but it felt like it belonged on RAW and not in the main event of a dual-branded pay-per-view.

Flop #2 TLC 2018 (vs. Dean Ambrose)

One of the most shocking WWE moments of 2018 saw Dean Ambrose turn heel on Seth Rollins on the same night that Roman Reigns announced that he had been diagnosed with leukemia.

The rivalry between Rollins and Ambrose culminated in an Intercontinental Championship match at the TLC pay-per-view, where “The Lunatic Fringe” won the title from his former Shield colleague in a match that lasted 23 minutes.

Unfortunately, despite both Superstars being regarded as two of WWE’s best in-ring talents, the match lasted far too long and lacked excitement, leading to “Boring!” chants from the crowd.

Flop #1 Hell in a Cell 2019 (vs. Bray Wyatt)

Competing in his second televised match as his new persona, “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt was expected to defeat Seth Rollins for the Universal Championship in the main event of Hell in a Cell 2019.

Although matches inside the steel structure have always had a No Disqualification stipulation, the referee decided to end the match without a clear winner after Rollins used a sledgehammer on his opponent.

The unpopular finish to the match led to a series of negative chants from the crowd, including “AEW!”, “Refunds!” and “Restart the match!”.