Seth Rollins Discusses his Recent Friction with Will Ospreay and Kenny Omega
During his appearance on the first episode of the After the Bell podcast, Seth Rollins discussed his online spats with Will Ospreay and Kenny Omega. Rollins kicked up no small amount of controversy earlier this year when he traded some barbs on Twitter with Ospreay, telling the NJPW star among other things that ‘we can compare bank accounts.’ He replicated the controversy a bit recently when he was asked at a Q&A about a potential match with Omega and said he’d welcome such a match when Omega was “done playing in the minor leagues” aka AEW.
Highlights from the discussion, and the full podcast, are below:
On his Twitter feud with Will Ospreay: “Yeah, it was Will and you know, first of all, tons of respect to him. He works really hard and he loves the industry. He is an incredible talent. One day, I think he and I could have an incredible match if the stars are aligned. But yeah, it was just one of those things said in jest, and then he responded to it saying — I said I was the best wrestler alive or something like that and he said he was alive, or something along those lines.”
On saying that he drew more money than Ospreay: “You know, to me a big part of being one of the best is being able to draw money. And that’s what our industry is at the end of the day. People don’t like that for some reason, when it came from my mouth. Now other people talk about it, say Cody Rhodes talks about it or Sasha Banks talks about it, or even Karl Anderson talks about it and how much money they have, or somebody takes a picture in front of a private jet, they’re cool, right? That’s the cool thing to do. But if just come right out and say ‘Hey, I’ve dawn more money than you over the last whatever years, I’m the bad guy. It’s fine, I’ll be that guy. If that’s who the internet wants me to be, that’s who they want me to be, that’s fine.”
On getting heat over the feud: “At the end of the day, I’ve got nothing but respect for Will Ospreay. It’s cool that he stepped up and we got into a little bit of a spat. To me it’s, you know, to steal a line from Bischoff, ‘Controversy Creates Cash.’ If we’re all just buddies, if we’re all then that’s lame man. If you want me to be that guy, I can be that guy. I can also be the nicest, most humble dude on the planet, but that’s boring. You know, Twitter’s supposed to be a place where you have fun. If you take it all too seriously it’ll really eat you alive.”
On saying Kenny Omega is in the ‘minor leagues’: “Oh, that was fun. You know, we do these con-type events. We do Q&A sessions and so I had somebody ask me about a potential matchup between Kenny Omega and myself. Kenny and I worked together in ROH nine, ten years ago, whatever it was. Maybe a little longer, event. And we worked with each other and had some really good matches, and I had a great rapport with Kenny. I actually considered him a pretty good friend and stuff. And so he told me about his time at developmental, because he signed with WWE in Deep South for a little while. He ended up getting sick of it and quitting, and stuff like that, and went on to have great success in his own right. But yeah, we were buds and in the end, no ill will towards Kenny Omega. And I’ve seen Kenny’s stuff and he’s an incredible performer.”
On making the comment: “But again, if I just sit there and say, ‘Oh, Kenny Omega. What a talent. I would love to wrestle him one day.’ Wah wah! That doesn’t make a headline, man. That’s boring. That’s boring, and then JR’s got nothing to talk about. You know, it’s — god, just let us hate each other. Look, Kenny’s great, Kenny’s not proven himself in the WWE. So, that’s what I was saying. It is what it is. WWE is the top of the mountain. I’m the guy sitting at the top of the top of the mountain. So, if Kenny wants to come and play you know, like I said, in the major leagues and get out of the minor leagues or whatever, then that’s fine. The bottom line is, I’d love Kenny to come to me because I’m not going to him anytime soon.”
