Seth Rollins Says It's Cool to Hate Him, Defends His Behavior on Twitter

It's no secret that Seth Rollins has lost steam as Monday Night Raw's No. 1 babyface in recent months. Between his relationship with Becky Lynch getting brought up constantly and his questionable Hell in a Cell win over "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt, vocal fans soured on Rollins as the "top guy" and began criticizing every move he made, including his behavior on social media. Rollins has fired back numerous times at the fans he considers "fickle," and continued that trend during his appearance on WWE Backstage this week. After admitting that he had given up on trying to goad CM Punk into a return match, Rollins addressed how the fans had turned on him.

"You look at where I was sitting a year ago at this time, I was the guy. I was being positioned to go to the next level," Rollins said. "And in my opinion, and to the fans' opinion at the time, I thought I was very successful in that. I got all the way to WrestleMania, to Brock Lesnar, to taking the title. And then we shifted gears and I don't really have an explanation for why. If you guys have something for me [motions to the panel] please, I would love to know. I've been the same guy through and through."

Rollins, who has been teasing a heel turn in recent weeks on Raw, then pointed out that smaller markets don't boo him like the television audiences do.

"Let's be clear: this is not everywhere," Rollins said. "I go to Little Rock, I go to Germany, I do live events all over the world, and I'm not getting booed. It's not happening. There's a small contingent of our audience that's very vocal on social media. But you see that, you read that, you hear that, that affects you."

He also talked about how he wants to push back against critics, rather than counter them with positivity like John Cena or ignore them like Roman Reigns.

"So when you put so much into it, to feel like I get disrespected, I'm going to push back. I'm not a guy like [John] Cena, who's gonna put motivational quotes on Twitter, or like Roman [Reigns] and kind of hang back," Rollins said. "To each their own. To me, I'm passionate, I love this business, I love this place, I love what I do every single day. And if somebody wants to take a shot at me I'm not afraid to push back.

"It's the cool thing to do is hate me," he later added. "The cool thing is to hate the guy on top. I'm not going to say I'm the first. I'm not breaking ground. Roman before me; Cena was the same thing. He may have pioneered it. Bret Hart, maybe the same thing."