Shades Of Grey In Status Of Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens Losing To Goldberg & Lesnar In One Week, Undertaker Retirement Tease?

Courtesy of the Pittsburgh Podcast Network

Every Wednesday is a new episode of “Wrestling Reality” audio podcast presented by TicketKing.net. Free to subscribe and download. Here’s some highlights from the latest episode with transcription courtesy of @PeterBahi:

Justin LaBar: Seth Rollins is back—almost. There’s shades of grey that is hard for people to wrap their heads around after seeing him this past week on Monday Night Raw. Great surprise comeback in that main event segment; but with Rollins coming back and a brace on his knee, and then getting physically involved with Triple H, it brings out the natural—well, this has all been a work Justin. The injury was never real. No, no, no, that is wrong. Seth Rollins was hurt. The pictures we saw of him in the hospital room with the gizmo and gadgets and everything wrapped around his knee—that was real. They didn’t just decide for Samoa Joe blindside him and have him out for this amount of time. That was not a part of the plan. This is a match, a story with Rollins and Triple H that they have been trying to wrap up and culminate for two years. This was not part of the plan, but as it is to happen on live pro wrestling—you have to work with whatever happens, you have to adjust, which is what WWE did. WWE did a good job adjusting. They did a good job navigating the detour to not make it seem all that awkward, not make it seem like a Plan B, and the goal was to make you feel like it was all that it was supposed to be. It’s supposed to look and feel natural to you. So when you say, ‘Justin, Seth was never hurt, it was all a work.’ No, that just means they did a good job working you. The difference between working a spot like Seth did on Raw and working a match is a confident mind. It’s that feeling and knowing, if you are Seth Rollins, that you can go in that ring and do anything that you need to do. Whatever spots are called. Any trained pro wrestler, no matter how low level or high in the world, any trained pro wrestler will tell you this—you cannot tense up. You cannot freeze up and you cannot overthink things. Your body needs to be loose, and have nice fluid motions. The moment you tense up and think about things is the moment you increase drastically your chance of hurting yourself or somebody else. Seth can go in there and deal with strikes and boots, and deal with the basic motions that we saw him do. There’s a difference between doing that and trusting that your knee and mind is ready to go in and perform at WrestleMania level with Triple H. At WrestleMania you will have the gun fight that probably won’t be advertised as a match at WrestleMania, most likely a showdown. They might have to dress it up as surprises or returns. Take your pick: is it Finn Balor that comes back, or we always need to have a nice spot for your [Steve] Austin’s or The Rock, and dare I say Hulk Hogan to show up and make their impact felt at the biggest show of the year.

On Kevin Owens being beat by Goldberg and Lesnar in one week and how anything else wouldn’t make sense, for Owens or for almost anyone:

Justin LaBar: You have the right to boo or cheer whoever you want. They like Owens so much, they think he’s very good in the ring, and he is. He has a legitimate skill set for his size, but for the most part, but there are some of you to please try to let go of your emotional attachment that you have for Kevin Owens or for any wrestler, and just step back to look at the big picture. How do you actually find it conceivably logical that Kevin Owens can have a 10 minute match against Goldberg? How does that even make any sense? Even if you have seen John Cena in the ring with Brock Lesnar for 10 or so minutes, what has the match been? I was there for the first one when Brock came back in 2012. It was the next month after Mania, in Chicago where he fought Cena at Extreme Rules. For the most part he just whooped Cena’s ass. Then all of a sudden there was a ‘Super Cena’ moment and Cena won, but that was the most professional wrestling match that we have seen from Brock Lesnar. From that point on, he did have some matches against Triple H, also professional wrestling type match. When I say that, I mean the, ‘suspend your disbelief’ ‘do some wrestling holds’ ‘okay, this is a true real fight, Brock would have knocked this guy out.’ Then he breaks the Undertaker’s streak. He then fights Cena again, then we started getting into a true formula of what works and the birth of Suplex City was born where he just annihilated John Cena and suplexed him I don’t know how many times. From that point on, they have held true for a real booking formula that only works with Brock and come to find that it works with a guy named Goldberg, who if you look at a guy who some may say is rusty, but in reality is he was gone for 10 years and is being protected, he wasn’t losing the last 12 years, he’s been gone and kept him protected and allowed him to come back where he has a legacy of being 173-0, it allowed him to come back and beat Brock Lesnar at the moment. It’s just not logical; we’ve seen Kevin Owens have to sell to guys like Sami Zayn and other guys who are below .500 in record, so how do you think it’ll be logical for Kevin Owens to get into a 10 minute fight with him? It’s just not logical. It makes you wonder—after this WrestleMania season is over, who is on the level to face Brock Lesnar? That is why the title on Brock and with a guy like Braun Strowman, who has also been protected, is like the only guy—even Roman Reigns it just doesn’t seem right. Roman has been going through the .500 reign. Even he has been working matches and doing ‘pro wrestling’ matches. Only a guy like Braun Strowman can take the title from Goldberg and Lesnar. I don’t know what is left for Brock to do. I’m not saying it’s Brock’s last match, but I really don’t know what is left for Brock to do after this match.

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