WWE: Seth Rollins on Plenty Of Main Roster People Don’t “Really Have A Love For Wrestling Necessarily”, Aleister Black on WWE PLEs Having Fewer Matches, Ethan Page on Wanting to Abolish The Phrase “Main Roster” & View of NXT Being Lower Brand

Seth Rollins Comments on Plenty Of People on Main Roster Don’t “Really Have A Love For Wrestling Necessarily”

A recent episode of the Something’s Burning with Bert Kreischer show featured Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Rollins thoughts about his belief that there are plenty of people on WWE’s main roster who do not have a love for wrestling.

“I don’t think anybody stays in it for a career if they don’t love it because it will wipe you out. I mean, it is a painful — as you see — physically and a mentally draining experience. Now, the schedule’s way lighter than it used to be. We still travel every week but we’re not doing nearly as many shows so back in the day when I was — (Becky Lynch) and me — we were doing 200 matches a year, that would weed people out very quickly if they didn’t love it. They would just get exhausted. Burn out so fast they’d quit but yeah, there’s plenty of people I would say now on the main roster that don’t really have a love for it necessarily.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

---

Aleister Black Comments on WWE PLEs Having Fewer Matches Than Before Being Good Thing

WrestleRant held a recent interview with Aleister Black. One of the topics discussed included Black’s thoughts about the cards for WWE Premium Live Events being smaller now than his first run with the company.

“Yeah, I think having less matches on PLEs, especially because they’re a lot more frequent, makes a lot more sense. Even back when I worked in Japan a lot, that was kind of like the given, five, six matches a night, because it keeps everything a lot more special. The second you go above, in my personal opinion, above the level of seven or eight matches, you’re going to wear out the crowd a lot. We live in an age where attention spans are very limited. Everything is a lot of gratification. So the longer you let something go for the sake of having people on the card, because you want to put people on the card, per se, that might be at the detriment of the product with the perceived experience by fans, and I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing, because there will always be people that are absolutely enjoying it from start to finish. But I think that I can say that having match cards that are excessively big will eventually work in the detriment of the, like I said, perceived experience itself. I think that WWE made a right call with limiting the matches a little bit because, again, like I said, it makes it easier to digest, gives you more time to divide your attention on the things that you want to pay attention to in terms of storytelling, and match quality. You know, even back then, like, yeah, there were moments where there were nine matches on a card, for instance, and, yeah, some people would get three minutes because time is short and we only have X amount of spots and stuff like that, where, yeah, I mean, you can make a case that it’d be harder to be on a PLE, but at the same time, the frequency of the PLEs has also increased. So I would say it evens itself out a little bit, but I definitely think that that is… in my personal opinion, always been the way forward where less is more.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

---

Ethan Page Comments on Wanting to Abolish The Phrase “Main Roster” & View of NXT Being Lower Brand

A recent episode of the Getting Over: Wrestling Podcast featured current NXT North American Champion and AAA Mixed Tag Team Champion “All Ego” Ethan Page as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Page’s thoughts about how he wants to abolish the phrase “main roster” in WWE due to him not viewing NXT as being lower than any other brand.

“I want to abolish the phrase ‘main roster.’ I think it’s demeaning. It spits in the face of what I personally have and continue to accomplish in NXT. I believe that when one of these other promotions, Raw or SmackDown, goes out of their way, because they need me, to come steal me from Shawn Michaels, then it will be a lateral move for me career-wise because I already am a ‘main attraction.’ I don’t think there is a level up. Right now, Shawn Michaels has the best wrestler in the WWE on his roster. I just play for a specific team. I’m not in the B league. I play for a different team in the NFL, MLB, NHL. I win a lot for my team. I will end up being traded, I’m sure, but for me, it will be a lateral move. The word developmental pisses me off, too, because I believe, and many others do, too, that I am the best wrestler in the WWE, currently. How on earth are there wrestlers on this so-called main roster, who aren’t as good as me? Maybe they need to develop. Maybe they are developmental wrestlers because they need development. I do not. I am one of the best wrestlers in the WWE, if not the best. I carry my brand with pride, very well. Weekly, as a professional, my paycheck is very good. Wherever I go, I promise it’ll be a lateral move. Let’s abolish this main roster talk. I’m better than everyone on Raw and SmackDown. This is not a step up if I go somewhere else. I’m being traded from one team to the next. This is not a developmental brand. We have our own network, seen weekly.”

Page also gave his thoughts about if he was “forced” to work in WWE’s NXT brand when he joined the company.

“What do you mean forced? I could have said no. I was not forced. I was looking for employment, and Shawn Michaels offered me a spot on his roster. It turned out to be a perfect position for me to grow into the performer that I am today, and WWE is very lucky that Shawn Michaels hired me for his roster, because now I am under the WWE umbrella. How I came here and where I started means literally nothing. This belt right here [NXT North American Title] has the WWE logo right in the center. I am a champion in the WWE. So good that they sent me to another promotion [AAA] that they just acquired and now I’m a champion [AAA Mixed Tag Team Champion] there, too. I don’t think there is a normal trajectory for Ethan Page. I think I’ve outgrown every position I’ve been put in, in every company, which is why I’ve left every promotion on my own, because I knew I needed to grow. Now, here I am, I’m growing and growing. I don’t want to put some kind of ceiling on me or my career because other people think a certain way. I’m breaking the mold. I’m breaking this whole developmental crap. It’s not real. It’s a facade. These ‘main rosters’ like Raw and SmackDown want to continue the facade because it helps them separate themselves from me. Me, specifically. Maybe not the locker room, but me specifically. Everyone on Raw and SmackDown knows I’m coming for them, and they are genuinely worried, so they like to throw words like ‘developmental.’ I don’t like it. I’m over it.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com