WWE: Seth Rollins on WWE’s Long-Term Storytelling, Next NXT TakeOver Date, FOX SummerSlam Special

WWE

Aug 12, 2020

Seth Rollins Blames Fans for Not Being Patient for WWE’s Long-Term Storytelling

A recent episode of The Gorilla Position podcast had Seth Rollins as the guest and one of the topics discussed included his thoughts on fans not being patience enough to enjoy WWE’s long-term storytelling.

“Well, man, I think its kind of a lost art across the board in entertainment. And not that it’s a lost art, just the audience, as we get into this age of instant gratification, they don’t have the patience for long-term storytelling. When you can binge-watch your favorite series in two days as opposed to two months, it creates a different precedent for how we intake our entertainment. It’s the difference between watching a full match and just seeing the GIFs of it or the highlights of it. So, I just think people are intaking their entertainment on a different level. It’s the difference between artists releasing singles as opposed to full-length albums because of the way the consumers are taking in their entertainment, so that shift, wrestling is not immune to that shift and so we have to do that as well to keep up with our audience. But I do think, I’m not a twenty-something, I’m a thirty-four-year-old guy, so the storytelling I grew up on had a longer form and that’s what I enjoy, so I think if our younger audience could learn to appreciate it might be something they’re into. But it also might not be how their brains are wired or how we’ve rewired people’s brains to think. It’s a very interesting time in entertainment, in television, and music and movies altogether really, and that shift of how things are going.”

Rollins also commented on the criticisms towards his Eye for an Eye match against Rey Mysterio at last month’s Extreme Rules event.

“If this stipulation had happened in 1999 in the middle of the Attitude Era, I don’t think anyone would have scoffed at it. I think it would have just been a crazy moment of wild stuff happening in WWE and obviously, we are twenty years later and things are different in the way we watch things and the audience sees wrestling differently At the end of the day, it is what it is, that’s what the moment was meant to do was to create interest in the casual viewer. I think the moment you said ‘Eye-for-an-Eye Match’, the hardcore wrestling fan, and if I was a nineteen-year-old kid would probably say the same thing, would be like ‘Oh please, why can’t they just let these two wrestle?’ you know? But, at the end of the day, the wrestling spoke for itself and the end moment ended up on TMZ, so we’re doing a service to both of our audiences. We gave them a great wrestling match on the front end and gave the casual viewer to say, ‘What the hell are they doing over there?’. I loved it, I thought it was great, I was really happy with. I loved sharing the ring with Rey Mysterio and I was pretty overwhelmingly happy with the final product, particularly considering we sort did that last scene with limited time and in one take. So, I was overwhelmingly pleased with the finished product.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com

WWE Planning October Date for Next NXT TakeOver Event

WWE reportedly is currently planning for the next NXT TakeOver event after TakeOver: XXX to take place in October, according to PWInsider.

Mike Johnson reported that his sources told him that WWE officials currently have an October 4th date scheduled for their next NXT TakeOver event.

Johnson also reported that WWE’s plans for their NXT UK TakeOver: Dublin event on October 25th in Dublin, Ireland is currently looking less likely to happen due to the on-going coronavirus pandemic.