Seth Rollins made headlines back in late July when, during a media conference call leading up to SummerSlam, he spoke about All Elite Wrestling (AEW) being WWE’s main competition in the world of professional wrestling. The former Universal Champion went so far as to say Jon Moxley, who jumped ship from WWE to AEW back in May, was now “trying to take dinner of my table.”
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“But, now he’s competition, now he’s the one trying to take dinner off my table so good on him but we’re going to do our best to continue to be the best here at WWE and those guys want to step up to the big leagues to give it a shot? Then by all means but we’re going to knock them dead just like we do everybody else,” Rollins said.
That idea of AEW being WWE’s competition was echoed by Vince McMahon during an investor’s conference call after the company’s quarterly earnings report was released.
“There will be something we do in terms of a direction of content — more controversy, better storylines, etc,” McMahon said while discussing WWE’s choice to remain a TV-PG rated product. “But at the same time, we’re not gonna go back to the quote ‘Attitude Era,’ and we’re not gonna do blood and guts and things of that nature, such as being done on perhaps a new potential competitor [AEW].”
But when asked about Rollins’ comments in an interview with Sports1 this week, Roman Reigns said he’s not buying the hype.
“I think [Rollins] is being generous in calling them a competition,” Reigns said. “I don’t want to get too deep into this […], I said it before: It’s an option and that’s great for professional wrestlers, pretty cool for fans. Before my family was WWE only, we’ve been a territorial family. You had to move, work with different promotions and territorys. I’m always gonna be ‘pro pro-wrestler’, but at the end of the day: WWE is my home, it’s what I represent and we’re so far ahead. You can see it in other shows: It’s not easy to have a clean production, you have to have a lot of experience. Our talent is top-notch, we’ve got main eventers for day, but it also is our crew. They’re busting their asses all night to get the show running. There’s so many people that make this place work. When you see other people out there tryin’ to do it, you see the flaws and it makes you respect what we do even more. It’s easy to complain and to say this and this on paper, but when it’s time to go out there and actually do it: Nobody will do it like WWE. Period.”
WWE’s next big event, SummerSlam, takes place this Sunday in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Meanwhile AEW’s next big pay-per-view, All Out, takes place on Aug. 31 outside of Chicago.
