Improvising was key for a memorable Seth Rollins moment.
Minutes after CM Punk dethroned Gunther as World Heavyweight Champion at WWE SummerSlam 2025, an opportunistic Seth Rollins returned to cash in his Money in the Bank briefcase, while simultaneously revealing his knee injury to be a ruse. According to Rollins, these scenes were specifically not rehearsed beforehand in order to maximize their shock value.
“I didn’t practice the crutches at all because we didn’t rehearse this because we didn’t want anybody to know what was happening,” Rollins told Omar Raja of ESPN. “None of this was rehearsed. Talked about it briefly. I can’t take all the credit for the crutch tossing. I’ll take all the credit when it’s my idea. The idea for the crutch drop was actually a Bobby Roode idea, who’s one of the incredible performers in our industry and now is a great producer backstage.
“Honestly, this came off smoother than I expected. The crutch drop, even the jacket, the handoff for the briefcase was smooth. Everything here was really, really clean. Punk and Gunther had just had a hell of a match. So [it’d] be kind of the icing on the cake, so to speak, felt really, really nice.”
As Rollins alluded to, his fake injury unveiling came in dramatic fashion as he let his crutches fall to the ground, then walked down the entrance ramp to cash in on Punk. This move ultimately proved successful as Rollins took little time to pin Punk and crown himself as the new-new World Heavyweight Champion.
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