Booker T was a guest on Raw Talk following this week’s Monday Night Raw and made a comment about Seth Rollins that wound up angering “The Visionary.” While talking about the rivalry between Rollins and Cody Rhodes, Booker said, “Of course, Seth Rollins needs this win more. Cody Rhodes is 2-0 heading into the rubber match. And I must say, Cody Rhodes, he’s not one of those guys that had that easy route. He had to work for everything. Seth Rollins is a guy that made it to the top relatively easy. I must say, he had a lot of help. Cody had to break himself down and rebuild himself. That’s the Cody Rhodes we see today.”
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By “help,” Booker was likely referencing Rollins’ time in The Shield when he first arrived on the main roster and his time working with Triple H and Stephanie McMahon as a member of The Authority. Rollins pushed back by talking about his time on the independent wrestling scene as Tyler Black, where he built up a name for himself in various promotions (most notably Ring of Honor) before signing a WWE developmental deal in 2010.ย
“This narrative is false. I started wrestling at 18 years old in back rooms of bars, in pole barns, at UAW Halls, the occasional parking lot. Lost money. Broke bones. Drove countless hours alone just to build a name that got erased the second I walked in the WWE door,” Rollins wrote.ย
Rollins gave an interview with Gorilla Position last month where he talked about how, in order to be considered one of the best wrestlers in the world, you need to come to WWE and succeed. He said, “Anybody who wants to come work in the big leagues, I said it to [Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania], I’ve said it before, this is the premier professional wrestling company on the planet. I know, ‘don’t say professional wrestling,’ doesn’t matter. We have the best in the world and now we have Cody Rhodes on top of that and he is joining that club. If you want to be the best, don’t go play rinky-dink, come here, do your thing here. We are the best, top-notch, across the board. I’m not taking anything away from anybody else or anywhere else, I love it, do what you do, you guys are tremendous and there are great talents out there, but this is where you are the best. This is where you find out if you can hack it on the top, top level.”
“The internet is going to be pretty mad at me. They don’t like when I say words,” he later added, fully aware that his statement was going to get pushback (and it did).ย
