3. Seth Rollins Reveals Why He Stopped Using The Curb Stomp And It’s Different From The Earlier Reason
During a recent appearance on Chris Jericho’s “Talk Is Jericho” podcast, former WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins appeared as a special guest and dicussed why he dropped his original finisher “The Curb Stomp”, honoring Triple H by using the Pedigree, RKO from Randy Orton at WrestleMania 31 & more. Below are the highlights:
On Stopping The Use of Curb Stomp:
“It was right after I won the WWE World Heavyweight Title at WrestleMania 31 and I think it was the first time Vince had thought about it and he just decided that because they’re sending footage down to the Today Show to show because I’m there. I took the flight that night and they’re showing me and they have the footage to back up when we’re talking and stuff like that and a lot of it is me doing the Stomp. Aside from it having a fairly violent name and connotation, right, but just the visional of it, he was watching it and he thought to himself that it is easily imitable by young children, which a lot of our stuff is, but, for whatever reason, he had it stuck in his head, as his champion, as a top guy, he just didn’t want that to be the lasting image. He didn’t want to put any bullets in the guns, so to speak. He didn’t want to have any reason for people to be like, ‘oh, what the hell?’, so he just removed it from the equation.”
The previous reason given for Rollins not using the Curb Stomp was because of the concussion lawsuits against the WWE.
“Once in a Lifetime” RKO at WrestleMania 31:
“Randy and I kept missing it and missing it. And neither of us were interested in taking the bump itself on a Thursday afternoon or whatever, because it kind of sucked, in a practice ring in front of nobody, so we never got it one time practicing that day.
[showhide more_text=”Read More” less_text=”Read Less”]We got the popup, but we never actually did the full thing. We come back to ‘Mania on Sunday and we’re talking and we had come up with a Plan B, like he was going to get me out of a springboard or something like that, which we’ve done and everyone has seen it. And Randy’s one of these guys who likes to play it safe sometimes. He likes to bat 1000, he said, and I have no problem with that. I have no problem with that. I was like, ‘screw it, dude. I get it. You want to bat 1000.’ And he was like, ‘yeah, you know what? I always play it safe.’ He was like, ‘I always play it safe. Every time! And that’s great, but lets just try it. To hell with it.’ And I’m like, ‘are you sure?’ And he’s like, ‘yeah! You know what? I play it safe. I have plenty of WrestleMania matches that are fine, but lets just try it. If we can hit it, it’ll be awesome. It’ll be the greatest thing. Lets just do it.’ So we get out there, we’re doing the match. I ran and I hit. It was just one of those things. I hit it and I knew it. I got up in the air. I got super flat. We made eye contact. He hits the thing and he forgets to cover me. If you watch it back, he hits it, he stands up immediately, starts Randy firing up however he does, which was a complete shoot, and I think John Cone was our referee or maybe Mike Chioda and he’s like, ‘cover him, cover him!’. He was so excited that it worked.”
On Making “Pedigree” His New Finishing Move:
“The Pedigree was something that I feel very fortunate to have it as a finisher. A) because it has a built in response. Everybody knows that’s the end of the match for the most part because Hunter had done it for years and years and years. And there are only two guys in the history of the company who’ve done it: myself and Triple H. So that’s good company and it fit with what we were doing storyline-wise. So funny story, I texted Hunter about it when I had the idea and I was like, ‘hey, what would you think about me using The Pedigree?’ and he made some sort of like Hunter joke that I took as him, like, skirting around it, not wanting to say anything. And I was like, ‘hmmm, I’ve got an idea.’ So I went directly to Vince when we were looking for new finishers. I said, ‘Vince, what would you think about me using The Pedigree?’ and he did his Vince thing where he just sits and thinks about it for a minute and stares off and then he looked at me and he was like, ‘I love it. It’s great. It’s perfect. Fits right in with the story. That’s it.’ And I was like, ‘alright, I win! Excellent!’ So I kind of went around Hunter to get to him, but I don’t think he cares. At the end of the day, he’s going to retire and I did it as a tribute, as a way for his legacy to kind of live on in another generation.”
