Seth Rollins Talks Doubting Himself After His Knee Injury

– Seth Rollins recently spoke with The Cage (transcript via wrestlinginc.com), here are the highlights…

On what point in his career did he have the most doubt about himself: “Probably after my knee injury. It was a pretty devastating knee injury with the ACL, MCL, meniscus all getting ripped and having to be surgically repaired. There’s a lot of doubt as far as where do I fit in when I come back? Can I physically handle the wear and tear of what we do? Am I going to be the same performer I was before? Am I going to be skittish? A lot of confidence needed to be rebuilt from a lot of different areas, and I’m still working on that, but at the same time I do think a lot of those questions have been answered so for me that was probably the one time in the last six, seven, or eight years where I’ve really been like ‘can I go compete at the level I want to compete at?'”

On what it was like getting in the ring again after his knee injury: “First time you get in the ring is kind of by yourself practicing in a warehouse running all over the steps, so there was a good bit of trepidation when it came to doing that because it came out of nowhere. We had a clearance date and then all of a sudden I’m ready to go, I had to get in the ring and test everything out, so it was a little strange to fall on it for the first time or try and jump on it as high as I could. Whatever I needed to do to get myself in that sort of condition that I was before. Once I got out there in the ring and was ready to have a match it was a completely different story. I felt the rush of adrenaline and that got me through pretty much everything. It gave me all the confidence I needed, it was like riding a bike again.”

On which arenas can he feel the special history of when he performs: “Honestly, anytime we’re in Carolina it feels kind of like special because of all the history that has been there, the lineage between The Horsemen, Ric Flair – anything that’s gone on there over the past 30 to 40 years, it always kind of has a little bit of an aura to it. When we come to Carolina in particular it always has a good vibe and the fans are always wild and ready to go, so I’m expecting nothing less then that on Friday.”