Seth Rollins Says He Was ‘Ready to Strangle’ Vince McMahon Over Hell in a Cell 2019

Seth Rollins’ match with The Fiend at Hell in a Cell 2019 didn’t go over well, and Rollins has acknowledged that he was initially pretty livid over it himself. The now-infamous Hell in a Cell match, which was marred by the booking as well as the red lighting production choices, was roundly criticized when it went down in October of that year.

During his appearance on Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions, Rollins discussed how he originally envisioned the match going and how angry he was after the match, including being “ready to strangle” Vince McMahon over it. You can see highlights from the discussion below, courtesy of Fightful:

On how he imagined the match going: “My vision for what that match was going to be was a lot different than what we had to go out there and do. We went out there and did what we were told to do to the best of our ability. Obviously, as it was ongoing, I felt…you watch it back, it’s boos piled upon boos piled upon boos and at the end of it, the reaction when the audience didn’t get the result they wanted, that’s a real tough pill to swallow. It sucks. It’s a sucky feeling. You go back to it now, we talked about the Drip God character, that character doesn’t exist without that match. That’s really the catalyst for what happened later that year. That happened in October, by the time December and January roll around, I’m no longer ‘Burn It Down’ Seth Rollins, I’m a totally different being.”

On being pissed about the match immediately after the fact: “Things happen for a reason, they happen the way they’re supposed to happen. It was what it was, but here we are. Where we are now doesn’t exist without that match. put a positive spin on it now because I can look back a year and a half later, but at the time, I came through that curtain and I was ready to strangle Vince McMahon. I’m not kidding you. TJ Wilson was there to hold me back. I stared right into Vince’s eyes, I looked at him, he looked at me, we didn’t say a single word to each other and he walked out.”

On resolving things the next day: “I sat down with Paul Heyman [that night], who was creative director at Raw, I sat down with him and we had a conversation. He ‘Paul Heyman’d me,’ if you will. The next day, I went into Vince’s office, I was much calmer, and I said, ‘Let’s talk about this. We need to figure out what we’re doing here because that can’t happen again.’ It was civil, but it took me a night. I was ready to go. If somebody wasn’t there making sure I was okay, my temper and the adrenaline. In my head, if you go back to the match, I’m convinced that if it would have went our way, it wouldn’t be (voted Worst Match of the Year in the Wrestling Observer).”