Seth Rollins has held every title in WWE and will challenge Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship in the main event of WrestleMania. However, his career could have been taken in a very different direction based on remarks from The Architect during a recent interview.
Sitting down for a chat with Edge and Christian for their podcast, Rollins revealed that while waiting to hear back from WWE about a contract, TNA dropped him a line and made an offer in which he was told he would become the new face of the company. However, despite getting a less attractive offer from WWE, Rollins knew where he wanted to be.
"Terry (Taylor) calls me and offered me a three-year deal to come to TNA for substantially more money and far less dates than what I was having to do in ROH and a much easier style. I was like, ‘Oh, this sounds fantastic.’ Dixie Carter is calling me and is like, ‘You know Tyler, we want to have you, we’re looking to revamp the whole division and the whole company and we want to make you the face of TNA.’ I’m like, ‘This might be okay. I have friends there and they are on TV.’ I get this contract from TNA and I basically agree to it verbally on the phone with Terry Taylor. They fax over the contract. Before I sign it, I call ROH and let them know what I’m interested in doing with TNA. ROH is being booked by Jim Cornette. He lost his mind when I told him I was going to sign with TNA. He was so irate. ‘Nobody gets over in TNA, they get under.’ He hated it. I sent him the contract to look over.
"I called Johnny Ace one last time, he doesn’t answer. I leave him a voicemail saying, ‘I got this contract from TNA. If I don’t hear from you, I’m going there.’ Ten minutes later, he calls me back. He makes up all these excuses and is like, ‘I’ll call you tomorrow around lunchtime.’ Cornette gets the contract back to me and changed some things in it. I send the new contract to TNA so they can re-write it and I’m waiting on this call from John Lauranitis. He finally calls me back, meanwhile, Terry is trying to force me to sign this contract. Lauranitis says, ‘We don’t give out jobs, we give out opportunities. We have this opportunity in Florida, it’s a developmental deal. Nothing is guaranteed.’ Immediately, I’m like, ‘I’m in.’"
It's fair to say that he made the right decision, especially as he would now be the face of a company that only manages to draw around ten thousand viewers a week on a network no one seems to know about. Instead, Rollins is one of WWE's biggest stars and a major draw.
Do you think it would have been interesting seeing what Rollins could do in TNA? As always, share your thoughts in the comments section below.