Seth Rollins is the ACE of the WWE roster

By this point in his career, Seth Rollins perhaps doesn’t at all need an introduction to most of you, dear readers. He has proven himself in the ring and outside it and is enjoying, what I believe is his greatest run to date. I’d say it’s safe to assume that he is the ACE of the WWE roster, and in this piece, I’ll set to proving why exactly that is.

The emergence of Tyler Black

Before we spend a minute on his rise amongst the ranks, I’d like to say that I wasn’t exactly sold on Seth Rollins at his start in WWE. Before you get upset, give me a second to explain myself.

I found that in WWE, he paled in comparison to the Tyler Black persona I saw whenever I saw him in the ring at Ring of Honor. His countless matches with Claudio Castagnoli (Antonio Cesaro), and so many others as well on that brand were epic, to say the least. Admittedly, I actually still go back and watch a lot of those matches, but hey, writing about professional wrestling (among other things) is what I do for a living, so I can be forgiven the guilty pleasure, I’m sure.

But if you haven’t seen him in his early days at Ring of Honor, which lasted from 2007 until 2010, you definitely need to. You can surely find them online, and the Fight Network is always playing back countless older ROH and TNA/Impact stuff, so do yourselves that favor, friends. . To say that they were definitely the golden years of this talented pro wrestler’s career would be putting it way too mildly.

But it would be in 2010, that he would be ushered on to what many in the industry call the grandest stage of them all, WWE.

Seth Rollins…on his way to “Burning it down”

It was in 2010 that he would be signed to what is known as a developmental contract with WWE. And of course, like so many others in his age group, he of course went to wrestle and train at FCW.

So many came from that developmental territory that is still enjoying runs in WWE and other promotions, today. Big E, Cesaro, Sheamus, Bray Wyatt, Jon Moxley, AJ Lee, Brian Myers, Drew McIntyre, Jimmy and Jey Uso, Jinder Mahal, Naomi, Miro…we’re sure you get the picture we’re trying to send.

Essentially, FCW did for WWE what OVW did for the company just before and during the Ruthless Aggression Era.

And of course, it was there that the man in question in this piece, Seth ‘Freakin’ Rollins himself, made a definitive name for himself, ushering in a new beginning in a business he had already dominated on the independent circuit. All that was left to do, was prove what he could do on a much larger platform.

Shaky ground

For me, The Shield was just alright. As a long-time wrestling fan, two out of the three had a lot to prove to me; right at the time that they reunited in 2017, I was getting into the pro wrestling journalism game as well, so there was always something to write and critique.

In Seth, I saw someone struggling to find himself, as were the other two.

In Ambrose (now Moxley in AEW), I saw it more predominantly and second in Reigns, who had a lot to work on—promo-wise and in the ring.

And with Seth, I was just so disappointed, because he paled in comparison to the man I’d seen in ROH and he needed to find a way back to that same delivery and execution for me. It wasn’t going to work for either of them in The Shield and that was evident, and to them as well.

Their breakup led to them all having incredible careers as it stands right now. For Moxley, that needed to be outside of WWE, as he was definitely stifled under the WWE regime. Just look at him now—a top contender in AEW.

Reigns, as I’ve already written, is soaring high in his new incarnation, having his best run.

And Seth, in my opinion, is enjoying that right now. In the ‘selling’ department, he’s there; in his execution in the ring, he reminds me of the old Tyler Black, and he has had some of the best feuds of his career, if you ask me, in the last year for sure, since his return on SmackDown at the Royal Rumble (2021) in the 29th spot.

His feud with Cesaro and most recently Edge proves why he is the ACE over there right now.

An epic style

And hey…I had to talk about the suits, didn’t I? What did ZZ Top say about a sharp-dressed man?

"Clean shirt, new shoesAnd I don’t know where I am goin’ toSilk suit, black tie (black tie)I don’t need a reason whyThey come runnin’ just as fast as they can‘Cause every girl crazy ’bout a sharp-dressed man-ZZ Top"

Indeed they are, and every fan as well. But in all seriousness, he’s hilarious and can switch at the drop of the dime. When he was feuding with Cesaro and we saw that close-up of his eyes in that one spot where he attacked his old nemesis, he reminded me of Charles Manson himself.

And he backed it up in the ring every time out.

I must be clear: Rollins has always been an epic wrestler. But now, I find that he’s covering all bases and will no doubt be headed for the Hall of Fame for sure, being one of the greatest heels the industry ever saw.

In his current role, I see him “making” a lot of younger guys, getting them ‘over,’ and on the way to doing that, perhaps he can secure another title reign as well.