Seth Rollins and Matt Riddle faced off on Saturday at Clash at the Castle in Cardiff, Wales, but they were originally set to have a match at SummerSlam. WWE ended up writing Riddle out of SummerSlam with a storyline injury, and Seth Rollins recently explained to Ariel Helwani of BT Sport why the previously advertised match was pulled from the event.
“It was one of those situations where we had a regime change in the midst of the build to SummerSlam, I believe a week out, we had the biggest change in the history of our industry. When Triple H took over the creative process, he was looking at the hand that was dealt to him. They ended up having to add what I believe was the Mysterios match based on a sponsorship agreement, I believe Rey and Dom have some sort of deal with an alcohol company, a beer company, there was some money involved and they had to add the match on. To do that, you either have to take out a whole match or you have to cut time from other matches to keep the show at a reasonable time. I think the runtime ended up being almost four hours anyway. Anything beyond that is a little ridiculous in my opinion.
You were looking at the card and you look at the title matches, which we weren’t. You look at the celebrity matches that you only get one chance to do, which we weren’t. We kind of fell into that spot where it was, ‘we could use more weeks to build this story.’ They made the choice to ax our match and make sure all the other matches were maximized with time and story and all that. Totally understood that and respect it, I was a little upset we advertised the match and not given that to them [the fans] and at the level I have been performing for really the last year, I felt it was a bit of a slap in the face to me as a performer that I wasn’t able to be on what is essentially the second biggest show of the year for us.”
After the match was pulled from the card Seth Rollins directly addressed the situation with a tweet that got Triple H’s attention.
For anyone who purchased a ticket to #SummerSlam hoping to see me in action, I apologize. I did everything I could over the last 6 months to earn my spot on this show, but some things are out of my control. Thank you for always singing my song. They’ll hear ya someday.
— Seth “Freakin’” Rollins (@WWERollins) July 27, 2022
I hear you! https://t.co/rnU2TabagV
— Triple H (@TripleH) July 27, 2022
According to Seth Rollins, Triple H understood where he was coming from and after hashing things out they agreed to disagree when it came to his match getting pulled.
“I understood what I felt was the purpose to the tweet, the response. Maybe it was a bit of a smirk. ‘Okay, he’s listening.’ It’s interesting going from his perspective because he’s been in my shoes many times and most certainly been in situations he didn’t want to be in or asked to do something he didn’t want to do creatively or maybe taken off a show when he was advertised when he was healthy or maybe not booked. He probably understood where I was coming from. Didn’t like that I was throwing pie in his face in his first week, most likely, and rightfully so. We talked about it and hashed things out. I respected his position and understood where he was coming from. I think he understood where I was coming from. We sort of agreed to disagree and just move along when it came to this situation.”
In the end Seth Rollins and Matt Riddle got more time to build their feud leading up to Clash at the Castle where Rollins was able to secure a victory over Riddle.
H/T Fightful
