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Seth Rollins is one of the few WWE Superstars who is almost always involved in a storyline on television.
The former Shield member debuted on WWE’s main roster at Survivor Series 2012 alongside Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose, and the three-man group quickly proved that they were the future of WWE.
Following The Shield’s 2014 separation and Seth Rollins’ heel turn, “The Architect” won the Money in the Bank briefcase and went on to pin Reigns in the main event of WrestleMania 31 to become WWE Champion for the first time in his career.
Since then, Seth Rollins has racked up several accomplishments, including his 2019 Royal Rumble victory and Universal Championship triumphs over Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 35 and SummerSlam 2019.
In this article, let’s take a more in-depth look at some of Seth Rollins’ opponents by counting down three people who he requested to work with, as well as two who he did not request to work with.
#5 Seth Rollins requested to face CM Punk
As soon as CM Punk was confirmed as a WWE analyst on FS1 show WWE Backstage, Seth Rollins began publicly pitching the idea of a one-on-one match between the former colleagues.
Seth Rollins was involved in 13 televised matches with Punk between November 2013 and January 2014, with their most notable encounter coming at TLC 2013 when “The Best in the World” defeated all three Shield members in a 3-on-1 handicap match.
Speaking to the Houston Chronicle in January 2020, Seth Rollins reiterated his desire to have a match against Punk if the former WWE Champion ever decides to return.
“If he wants to get back into the ring and show that he’s more than just a critic, and that he can actually back up what he is saying, then I would love to be the guy to get in there and have the match, and I think WrestleMania would be the proper stage for it, but I don’t think it has to happen at WrestleMania.”
Punk has repeatedly stated in media interviews that he agreed a deal with FOX, as opposed to WWE, to work on WWE Backstage, and he has not held talks with anybody about an in-ring comeback.
#4 Seth Rollins did not request to face “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt
Seth Rollins’ eight-month storyline with Brock Lesnar came to an end when the former Shield member conquered “The Beast” in the main event of SummerSlam 2019 to win the Universal Championship for the second time.
In the weeks leading up to SummerSlam, it had become clear that Seth Rollins had gradually started to lose momentum, especially when fans barely reacted to his babyface promo on the final episode of RAW before the pay-per-view.
Following his win over Lesnar, Seth Rollins regained momentum as a babyface with a statement victory over Braun Strowman at Clash of Champions. Meanwhile, around the same time, Bray Wyatt’s new “The Fiend” character had become one of the most popular acts on RAW, even though he was mostly booked as a heel.
The title rivalry between the two Superstars resulted in the majority of WWE fans turning against Seth Rollins, who later said on the Cheap Heat podcast that he did not agree with the decision to book him against “The Fiend” at that time.
“I feel like I got a raw end of the deal, a raw shake, when it came to what I was doing at the time and the position I was put in with The Fiend character and the Hell in a Cell and the Super ShowDown [Crown Jewel] matches after I had just come off what I thought was an incredible match and long story with Brock Lesnar from SummerSlam.”
“The Fiend” took the Universal Championship to SmackDown after winning it at Crown Jewel, while Seth Rollins turned heel and transformed into the “Monday Night Messiah” character.
#3 Seth Rollins requested to face The Miz
Seth Rollins revealed in a 2019 appearance on E&C’s Pod of Awesomeness that he requested to work with The Miz for the Intercontinental Championship at WrestleMania 34.
“I pitched the idea to work with Miz at WrestleMania. That worked out great and we ended up getting Finn [Balor] in there. Finn and I had some excellent chemistry. Miz is fantastic, as always, and the three of us came together and we had a really good WrestleMania match."
In Seth Rollins’ words, he was “not ready to be the guy yet” at WrestleMania 34, which is why he was happy to challenge for RAW’s secondary title at the time instead of setting his sights higher.
The Triple Threat match ended up being one of the highlights of WrestleMania, with Seth Rollins picking up a pinfall victory over The Miz after hitting multiple stomps on both of his opponents.
Seth Rollins remained in Intercontinental Championship storylines with The Miz and Dolph Ziggler throughout the summer of 2018, and he even main-evented the Extreme Rules pay-per-view with the latter in a 30-minute Ironman match.
#2 Seth Rollins did not request to face Dean Ambrose
One of the most emotional WWE RAW episodes in recent years took place in October 2018 when Roman Reigns relinquished the Universal Championship after announcing that his leukemia had returned.
Later in the night, Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins won the RAW Tag Team titles in what was originally a feel-good moment at the end of an emotional show, but Ambrose then shocked the WWE Universe by attacking his tag team partner.
Speaking to Yahoo Sports in April 2019, Seth Rollins admitted that the heel turn “didn’t feel good”, especially as it occurred on the same night as Reigns’ announcement, and he would rather have been Ambrose’s tag team partner instead of his opponent.
“The way that affected Ambrose, that wasn’t really his best look. No one wanted to see us fight each other, we had been through that, it didn’t feel good. I was upset, he was clearly upset and people didn’t want to see it, they wanted to see us be brothers and care about each other.”
Despite his reluctance to go ahead with the storyline, Seth Rollins looked on the positive side and acknowledged that the moment with Ambrose gave him all the momentum that he needed for the next six months ahead of WrestleMania 35.
#1 Seth Rollins requested to face Hulk Hogan
Seth Rollins has made no secret of the fact that he was a ‘Hulkamaniac’ as a child, but would WWE really choose to book him in a match against Hulk Hogan at the company’s biggest show of the year?
In October 2019, Hogan told the Los Angeles Times that he is hoping to compete in one more match in WWE, as he is not comfortable knowing that the final match of his legendary career took place in Impact Wrestling.
Four months later, it was announced that WrestleMania 37 will be held at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, California.
As you can see in the tweet below, this prompted Seth Rollins to propose the idea of a match between “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan and “Hollywood” Seth Rollins at the event.
While the chances of this match taking place might seem slim, stranger things have certainly happened in WWE.
If Seth Rollins gets his way, we might just see the 34-year-old former WWE Champion take on a 67-year-old Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania 37!
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