Will Seth Rollins Vacate The WWE World Heavyweight Championship on Raw? History With MCL Tears Explained

Seth Rollins’s WWE WrestleMania 40 plans are in jeopardy. Rollins successfully defended the WWE World Heavyweight Championship against Jinder Mahal this past Monday on WWE Monday Night Raw, but his victory did not come without consequence. The 37-year-old wrestler was noticeably slow to his feet and subsequently limped to the backstage area. While initial reports indicated that Rollins was optimistic about the physical setback, the coming days revealed that he indeed suffered a torn MCL and partially torn meniscus. This diagnosis is just the latest in Rollins’s lengthy history of MCL issues, as he has torn his medial collateral ligament twice before already, in November 2015 and January 2017.

Will Seth Rollins Vacate His Championship?

The clock is ticking on WWE’s decision regarding Seth Rollins’s future.

Tonight’s WWE Monday Night Raw will open with Rollins addressing what comes next for him as WWE World Heavyweight Champion. Fans have already pointed out that WWE labelling the segment “addresses his future” typically yields bad news, as similar headlines preceded Edge’s (AEW’s Adam Copeland) 2011 retirement and Roman Reigns’s 2018 cancer revelation. Both men also vacated their respective championships, the World Heavyweight and WWE Universal Titles.

Rollins finds himself in a familiar position, but one that his history with has brought him down two very different roads. 

In November 2015, Rollins tore his ACL, MCL and meniscus during a freak landing on a sunset flip powerbomb. At the time, Rollins was WWE Champion. Rollins required surgery and a significant recovery period, leading him to vacate his title and spend the next seven months on the sidelines, missing WWE WrestleMania 32 in the process.

In January 2017, Rollins tore his MCL during an attack segment with Samoa Joe.

“There was no heat or anger or upset about it. It was just really a freak thing. Foot gets planted, just perfect the right way, pressure’s going back and I’m falling on my back,” Joe reflected on how the brawl with Rollins went wrong. “The knee gets caught up and there it goes.”

This time around, Rollins remained on his road to WWE WrestleMania 33. He elected to rehab his knee rather than put himself out for surgery. Rollins would face Triple H at the Showcase of the Immortals and re-cement himself as a regular weekly competitor in the months that followed, remaining fairly active ever since.

In January 2024, Rollins is at a crossroads. He could go down the path he traveled in November 2015 and get surgery, which would shelve him for the foreseeable future, or he could revisit January 2017’s route and strictly rehab in favor of making that destined WWE WrestleMania 40 main event against CM Punk.

Rollins’s future will be revealed tonight on WWE Monday Night Raw, airing at 8 PM ET on the USA Network.