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The Raw After WrestleMania 39 was an odd show all around. WWE had just been sold to Endeavor. Vince McMahon was back doing what he & the company had been saying he wouldn’t run creative. Fans were still processing the fact Cody Rhodes didn’t finish the story, and how that meant Roman Reigns’ Universal title reign would make even more history.
In the midst of all that was an odd segment featuring Seth Rollins. Fresh off a victory over Logan Paul (and with the World Heavyweight title he now holds not yet in existence), Rollins did a brief interview backstage, went to the ring as Raw went to commercial, came back to the crowd performing an a cappella version of his theme song, then left.
Fan shot footage of Seth having a heated discussion with some production folks during the break hit social media, and before long podcasts were talking about him walking out of Raw.
But what really happened? Rollins was promoting SummerSlam on SI Media With Jimmy Traina and offered his version of events to the host:
“Yeah, that was not a big deal. I was upset, but it was mostly just a production miscommunication. Was that the night after Mania maybe? I think? And the intent of the segment was to go to break with the audience singing my song, allow them to sing during the break, come back up, they might still be singing and then drift off into nothingness and just let it be a musical interlude for the Raw after Mania.
“But for whatever reason, that never made it through to production. And so when we go to commercial, instead of just letting the crowd party, they did the thing where they blacked the house, shut down the music, and played the stupid video packages, which messed up what the whole plan was. And so the crowd was trying to sing, but you’ve got ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin talking about Broken Skull Ranch or whatever on the thing and DX and I’m like, ‘What? Did no one get the memo?’
“So it was just a production snafu. But in the middle of a commercial break, I’m yelling to try to get it turned off so they can keep singing, but it was already a disaster. The crowd was confused, didn’t know what to make of it, and then we