How Seth Rollins Almost Became The Face of TNA Impact Wrestling

Over the last few years, Seth Rollins has became one of WWE‘s biggest stars. This year, he’s set to challenge Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania 35, four years after winning his first WWE World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 31.

Little did we know, Rollins almost made a decision in 2010 that would have rendered all of this just a non-existent dream.

Rollins was a guest recently on Edge and Christian’s podcast (E&C’s Pod of Awesomeness) and recalled the story of how he was very close to signing with TNA (now Impact Wrestling) following a successful run with Ring of Honor that would have made him the face of the struggling company. At the time Rollins was wrestling as Tyler Black and had been a ROH World and Tag Team Champion and TNA was looking to build their company around him if they were able to get him to sign. The push to get him to sign the contract included a personal call from TNA President Dixie Carter that included some big promises.

“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,” Rollins remembered. “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.’”

In the end, Rollins certainly made the right decision. Although nothing was guaranteed when he took himself down to Florida Championship Wrestling (which eventually became WWE NXT), he made the most of his opportunity and has become of this generation’s biggest stars in WWE. Had he gone to TNA instead, his career arc would have followed a much different path.

That’s not to say that he wouldn’t have ended up with WWE eventually, but just try to imagine The Shield without Seth Rollins.