Seth Rollins Reveals Why Vince McMahon Decided To Ban The Curb Stomp

Former WWE World Champion Seth Rollins recently detailed the conversation he had with Vince McMahon when the latter decided to ban The Curb Stomp.

Rollins was flying high in 2015, having cashed in the Money in the Bank contract in the main event of WrestleMania 31 and pinning Roman Reigns to become world champion. However, the celebration didn’t last long, as he was informed by McMahon on the following episode of Monday Night RAW that his signature move was being banned.

In a recent conversation with Complex Sports, Seth Rollins gave a detailed account of his conversation with the WWE Chairman, revealing what prompted McMahon to ban the move and Triple H’s reaction when he suggested using The Pedigree as his finisher.

“Ah, it sucked! I was given no heads-up, and it was right after I won the World Title for the first time, with that move that I’d been using for years as a finish and that had built up a ton of equity, and then all of a sudden, ‘I mean, so I don’t think we’re gonna use that anymore.’ ‘What the—!’ ‘You know, it’s too dangerous. I know you’re not dangerous. Very safe.’ If anybody can tell, it’s my Vince McMahon impression. ‘Kids can do it too easily at home.’ I don’t know what happened. Somebody got in his ear and said it was a problem. I’m like, ‘Dude, it’s wrestling! If any kid imitates any wrestling move, they’re gonna hurt. So I thought it was so silly, but whatever, you know? It was on a whim. Literally, I did the move Sunday, won the title, beat Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar, and then fly to New York from San Francisco, did The TODAY show, pet a couple of dogs, say hi to Katie and Matt, fly back to Santa Clara to do RAW, and I go and Vince is like, ‘Come in. I gotta talk to you about something.’

“He’s like, ‘Ah, we’re not gonna do that anymore.’ I was like, ‘Well, what do you want me to do?’ And then they wanted me to do a Flog Splash, and I’m like, ‘Absolutely not. I’m not doing that every single night. I like my knees, and I like my elbows. It’s not happening.’ So then it was the process of trying to figure out a new finisher, and thankfully, J was in the mentorship of Triple H at the time in The Authority and no one else had ever used the Pedigree as a finishing move, and he was not an active performer at the time, so I was like, ‘I think this would be perfect.’ He was hesitant about it, too. He didn’t like it. I think he really hates it now because people kick out of it sometimes. Yeah, fully, fully diluted it, but I think it worked for the time being. It got the desired reaction, and it already had 20 years of equity to it, which is the hardest thing to do with a finisher because anything can be a finisher. You just have to beat people with it for a while.”

Check out his comments below:

WWE eventually lifted the ban on The Stomp in 2018, and since then, Seth Rollins has consistently used the move to capture several titles. Elsewhere in the interview, Seth provided an update on his recovery status amid his ongoing injury-related hiatus. You can check those comments HERE.

Please credit Complex Sports’ YouTube channel and give an H/T to 411Mania for the transcription if you take quotes from this copy.