YMMV / Seth Rollins

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • His interactions with Stephanie McMahon in 2016 were loaded with this, especially after Triple H's betrayal and Seth's subsequent Heel–Face Turn. It's to the point people were jokingly suspecting the storyline would reveal that Stephanie and Rollins were having an affair and Triple H found out about it.
  • His on-and-off feud/partnership with Dean Ambrose runs on this. Of particular note is their reconciliation storyline in 2017, which looked more like build-up to angry love/hate sex than a tag team reunion.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Post-Face–Heel Turn, this applies to his Rage Quit that led to the Shield getting back on the same page. Depending on when he may have first decided in his mind that the Shield was to be over and done with, did he actually pull a Batman Gambit to get Reigns and Ambrose to put their egos aside, or did he simply claim that was the plan in an attempt to save face after seeing them do exactly that after he walked out on the team? Honestly, though, pretty much everything about Rollins, his thought processes, his relationship with his other Shield members, etc., before and after the betrayal, is dependent on the audience member.
  • Was his change of heart genuine? Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose could be seen as his Morality Chain if you think about it, since some time after Reigns was drafted to Smackdown and Ambrose left the company he quickly reverted back to his egotistical heel persona. His new Monday Night Messiah gimmick is not all that different from his past heel character who was also selfish and had an inflated ego focusing on titles and accolades. Especially considering Rollins' Fatal Flaw of Pride, one must wonder if Rollins was always at heart really a good guy or if being in The Shield and the kinship that brought was the only thing capable of keeping his monstrous ego in check.
• Alternative Joke Interpretation: Seth nicknaming The Rock "Diarrhea Dwayne" in the run-up to WrestleMania 40. Was the intent to mock The Rock by using the same type of petty insult that he used during the Attitude Era, or was it a genuine attempt at mocking him that simply came off as childish?
• Arc Fatigue: Seth's feud with Rey Mysterio and his son Dominik was fairly well-received when it began in May 2020, but come October, they're still entangled with one another almost exclusively and many fans are clamoring for WWE to have him move on to someone new. When Seth was announced as being drafted to Smackdown for the first time, there was hope for him to get a refresh... only for Rey and Dominik to get drafted there as well not long afterwards, meaning that the entire storyline was just transplanted from one brand to the other and leaving fans very exasperated. Fortunately, fans got a brief respite when Seth took several weeks off in anticipation of the birth of his and Becky Lynch's baby; when he returned, he went after Cesaro instead, and later started a dream feud with Edge that many fans have hailed as some of both wrestlers' finest work.
• Author's Saving Throw: The Raw after Survivor Series 2019, Seth had a Face–Heel Turn by berating the rest of the locker room for Raw losing at Survivor Series before eating a Stunner from Kevin Owens. People reacted positively to this for many reasons — because they genuinely enjoy him as a heel, because they thought his 2019 face run had made him bland, because they were bitter over Rollins' careless social media statements that had drawn a lot of ire from inside and outside the WWE fanbase, because they were still bitter about his match with the Fiend at Hell in a Cell, and/or they thought that after the severe X-Pac Heat Rollins had built up for all of the above, making him turn heel was WWE's best possible way of handling it.
• Badass Decay: After serving the Authority as a dangerous and ruthless enforcer as part of the Shield and after he became Triple H's Bastard Understudy, his time as WWE World Heavyweight Champion served to undo a lot of Seth's Villain Cred. Sure he'd eke out victories when he had to, but he was also such a Dirty Coward that he barely wanted to get in the ring, much less fight, and when he did, he usually lost. Making this worse was that John Cena was having the polar opposite experience as United States Champion; with his weekly title defenses and long list of credible opponents who looked good in defeat, Cena was making the US Championship and the midcarders he fought look like a million bucks, which only made Seth and the title he was holding look even weaker by comparison. In the end Seth's title reign ended not with a bang, but a whimper as an injury during the European tour right before Survivor Series forced him to vacate it. It took a lot of work for him to recover from this.
• Base-Breaking Character: Prior to his injury, Seth Rollins, during his world title reign, did have a small but very vocal segment of haters who believed Rollins was a vanilla midget who brought no credibility to the WWE title, but by and large, the majority of fans still liked his wrestling abilities and sympathized with him for WWE's booking of him as a chickenshit heel. After his return from injury, Rollins has become a much more divisive character than before. While he still has a lot of devoted fans, others feel is that he is overrated and nowhere near as good as people think he is, with some attributing that to his injuries slowing him down. Then there is the contingent that feel that he is an unsafe worker after Finn Bálor became the third wrestler to get injured wrestling him. Others feel Seth had gotten stale during his return since they refused to turn him face immediately and he stuck with the same chickenshit heel character he had before his run with no signs of changing for several months until the Bálor injury happened, then proceeded to turn him face with an unsympathetic motivation and a storyline that was held in limbo for several months. Much like Dean Ambrose, opinions are all over the place regarding him. That being said, both are still far more popular than Roman Reigns the majority of the time.
• Broken Base:
  • Rollins' Sell-Out Face–Heel Turn has elicited this reaction from the IWC. Some believe this is a logical booking decision that keeps the Evolution/Authority/Shield angle fresh, given that the Shield has already prevailed over the rivals twice and have no other stable to match them, as well as an opportunity for Rollins to go over as a singles star. Others consider it an illogical twist right out of Vince Russo's playbook that broke up one of the most popular stables in WWE way too soon. Others believe that the angle was done right, but that Ambrose or Reigns should've turned on the group and not Rollins.
  • Rollins' record and actions since becoming the WWE Champion (see Badass Decay) — Result of poor booking and writing, or him not being a credible champion on his own merits as opposed to, say, Brock Lesnar?
  • There has been a growing segment of the fanbase that has turned against Rollins based on the idea that he is an unsafe worker. In the span of little over a year, he broke John Cena's nose, dealt Sting a career ending back injury, blown out his own knee, and dislocated Finn Balor's shoulder, putting him on the shelf for potentially up to eight months. Bret Hart has been especially vocally critical of Rollins, noting that as the top guy it is his responsibility both not to injure anyone and to make sure he doesn't suffer an injury, himself. Rollins took this very hard, being a life-long fan of Bret's, and priding himself on how careful a worker he is. Rollins' defenders cite that it is simply a string of bad luck in a high risk business and none of the events can truly be seen as Rollins' fault, at least not completely — with even Sting himself claiming it was his own poor judgment in taking the move a second time that resulted in the injury, and praising Rollins as the best wrestler he's ever worked. Lance Storm takes a third option and attributes the injuries not to Rollins specifically, but just the faster paced, harder hitting, more athletic style of wrestling in the modern age being too dangerous by nature.
  • Seth's ring work since his return from injury. Most agree that he's a bit held back as the knee injury means he can't rush around the ring like he used to. Some think that he's fine regardless of the compromise in his ring style, while others feel he isn't the same old Seth Rollins from before and he puts on more average matches than good ones.
  • Everything surrounding Seth and finishing moves since Vince's ban of the Curb Stomp shortly into his 2015 title reign. Some agree with Vince's reasoning that it is too easily imitable by kids and even add that it may be a bit dangerous in execution, while others point out that most wrestling moves can be copied fairly easily and it's up to proper parenting and common sense to take care of that, plus the fact that it can be done to anyone is a good thing for the move and for Seth as a character, and claims of danger are often put down with stating that Seth has never legitimately injured anyone with the Curb Stomp. Him settling for the Pedigree afterward as a connection to Triple H, some say it fits because of the story being told, others say it doesn't look as good on him as it does on Triple H and in fact makes him look more like a hopeless lackey. Some wanted him to get away from the move as soon as he left the Authority, while others were satisfied with the reasoning he gave in a video at his wrestling school that it's a message to The Game. After he broke out God's Last Gift for the first time in years against Finn Bálor at SummerSlam 2016, many wanted him to go back to the Last Gift and the Phoenix Splash per his Tyler Black days, especially given that he's occasionally used the Phoenix Splash in big matches in WWE and the Last Gift was NOT the move that injured Bálor at SummerSlam. After WrestleMania 33 he deliberately teased the Pedigree only to stop in favor of doing a Kenny Omega-esque ripcord knee strike. While most no doubt like the shift back into his own identity, many have been decrying the move itself as not looking high-impact enough to be a finisher — especially the Last Gift, Curb Stomp, and Phoenix Splash fans — and being a poor man's ripoff of Omega's execution of the move against Kazuchika Okada at Wrestle Kingdom 11. Then he got the Curb Stomp back at the start of 2018 and all was right with the world again.
• Creator's Favorite: Not to the extent of his Shieldmate Roman Reigns, but apparently Triple H marked Seth out for greatness back in FCW and has been grooming him to be a main event talent ever since. This, in turn, informed Seth's kayfabe character once he betrayed the Shield and became the Authority's handpicked top star.
• Designated Hero: He got hit by this hard in late 2019. Despite being pushed as the top male Face on Raw, audience reaction became increasingly negative, partially due to his booking and partially due to his antagonistic interactions with fans and critics on social media, and the audience turned on not only the character, but also the man. It got to the point that when he attacked Bray Wyatt in the Firefly Fun House, many fans believed it was intended as a double turn. For once, WWE leaned into the crowd response and turned him Heel rather than stubbornly staying the course as they would normally do.
• Epileptic Trees: In the aftermath of his betrayal, heartbroken Shield fans took to desperately inventing theories that would explain Seth's treachery in a way that would allow him to rejoin his brothers. This usually took the form of him being a Fake Defector trying to bring The Authority down from within, or him being blackmailed into it by the Authority. A couple months down the line, though, this has mostly died off as Seth has been more firmly solidified as a heartless heel unlikely to have a sympathetic reason for anything he does.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Due to him being sponsored by Crossfit and the fact that he looks like the popular image of Jesus, the fans have given him the nickname "Crossfit Jesus". This especially fit when he wore white on PPV against John Cena. The name became more solidifed after WrestleMania XL where he gets hit by a chairshot from Roman Reigns — recreating the famous "There's always a Plan B" scene from a decade prior — and it looks like he was crucified to atone for his sins.
  • The white & gold tights that Rollins wore at SummerSlam & Night of Champions in 2015 are affectionately referred to as his “White Ranger tights” due to the color scheme & Seth’s penchant for cosplay-esque attires, despite not actually being such an attire.
  • "Iron Man" Rollins: WrestleMania XL has been nicknamed WWE Endgame due to Cody Rhodes fight against Roman Reigns being compared to Captain America versus Thanos. Rollins becomes Cody Rhodes' shield and dons his Shield uniform akin to Iron Man's armor and ends up sacrificing himself to Roman Reigns so Cody can get the pin.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Ambrollins. The sheer amount of tension between Dean and Seth is a sight to behold, especially when you think of all the Ho Yay that comes with it during their days as teammates. It is also more popular than his canon in the ring love interests.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: His Face–Heel Turn post-Shield gear was something of an acquired taste. When photos first leaked, the phrase "90s era X-Men knockoff" showed up a lot. This photo◊ of Wolverine in almost identical gear didn't help (though the photo itself was from 2009.)
  • His 2021 return has seen him appearing on Smackdown in an... interesting array of suits. Black leather, hot pink, green plaid, black and silver jacquard...
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • When The Shield first debuted, frequent jokes were made about them being members of the Marvel Comics military organization, S.H.I.E.L.D.. Fast forward to 2014, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe's S.H.I.E.L.D. were revealed to have been infiltrated by HYDRA in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., with the HYDRA defectors/infiltrators in Winter Soldier including a minor character named Jack Rollins and one of the titular Agents in AoS being revealed to be a HYDRA defector/infiltrator several months before Seth Rollins did the same thing. Additionally, both Rollins and and the Agent (Ward) have had vocal fans clamoring for either a Fake Defector scenario or a redemption arc to bring them back with their teams, and a reunion has been teased on both sides, only for them to solidly cement themselves as villains. However, where Rollins' booking as champion pre-injury has slid him so far back into sympathetic territory that a Heel–Face Turn and reunion with his Shield became an entirely plausible notion well before it happened, Ward's character has completely slid past the Moral Event Horizon, with any reasonable hope for his return to the heroes' side all but destroyed, and indeed he died an irredeemable villain.
  • The "electric razor" incident in storyline. Some, erm…pictures of Rollins ended up on the internet a bit later, and…maybe Rollins was telling the truth about the electric razor the whole time.
  • He was shown at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn with his then-real life girlfriend Zahra Schreiber^note (First infamous as the catalyst for the spreading of the pictures in the example above) in what was probably supposed to be an Early-Bird Cameo. She was fired 9 days later with no on-screen appearances after…certain posts she made 3 years ago were uncovered. Doubles as Harsher in Hindsight, as the association has caused several fans of Rollins to change their tune about him.
  • His real-life love (well-established on-screen) of Game of Thrones made it all the more fitting when it was revealed that Rollins was dating Becky Lynch, a Fiery Redhead with whom he had previously traded good-natured barbs on social media, not unlike that show's character Ygritte, the girlfriend of Jon Snow who originated the "You know nothing, Jon Snow" meme. Bonus points for Becky actually having appeared as an extra on Vikings, a similarly-themed TV show.
• Ho Yay:
  • Quite a few fans picked up on some early on between Ambrose and Rollins, dating back to their FCW feud. While Roman Reigns did often spear people as part of his Big Brother Instinct towards his teammates, Seth was usually the first to leap in and defend Dean during matches. Dean and Seth also walked together to ringside during their entrances (despite Roman being positioned as Seth's tag team partner for awhile), pulled one another to safety after matches, and generally would hang all over one another. During one Ambrose match with Daniel Bryan, during which Bryan busted Dean's face open right under his eye, Seth Rollins acted like a concerned boyfriend, even trying to come to Ambrose's defense, risking both a DQ and a beatdown from Bryan's tag-team partner Kane. That the borderline-psychotic Dean Ambrose seemed genuinely fond and protective of Rollins is surely significant, as well. During the Shield's face run, Seth and Dean began doing stereo suicide dives, and even resorted to crazy dives to save one another from Randy Orton and Triple H's assault as the four fought increasingly further away from the ring during the six-man tag match at Extreme Rules 2014. It seemed they were developing into a first-rate tag team of their own while working alongside a burgeoning singles juggernaut in Roman. This only serves to make Seth's actions since defecting back to The Authority even more dickish, as he seems to be relishing in taking advantage of Ambrose's borderline Man Scorned rage in order to screw him over in matches. Note this line from Dean after getting Seth in a corner:
    Dean: I loved you, Seth! You were my brother!
  • Things between Ambrose and Rollins heated up even more during the summer of 2017 after both got into feuds with the Miztourage. After on-and-off teaming, bickering, and generally acting liking Tsunderes to each other, things culminated in the August 14, 2017 episode of RAW, which saw Dean and Seth acting like a pair of bitter, jilted, ex-lovers that both want to get back together but have burned each other so many times that they just don't know how to really forgive. The entire segment was dripping with Belligerent Homoerotic Foe Romance Subtext, to the point even male wrestling fans were telling them to screw already, lampshading their support of said homoeroticism by mentioning how much they wanted to see two guys "fisting" each other. Eventually, the tension boiled over and the two got into a brawl, only to finally reunite and "fist" after getting attack by Sheamus and Cesaro. The following Sunday, they won the RAW Tag Team Championship, which only fuels the fire even more. In fact, many wrestling fans commented that Ambrose and Rollins' reunion storyline was the second gayest storyline in 2017, after the reunion of the Golden☆Lovers Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi, whose entire gimmick is based on the Homoerotic Subtext between them.
• Hype Backlash/Mis-blamed:
  • Not towards Seth himself, but his betrayal of The Shield has actually done a great job of quelling this trope in regards to former teammate Roman Reigns, who was getting plenty of this due to the perception that he and Dean Ambrose were being used as stepping stones to Reigns' ascension to the main event with no consideration for their own careers. Even now that said fan dissatisfaction towards Reigns and his push has spiked up to eleven, Rollins' rise as one of the company's top heels and his potential to cash in and either beat Reigns to the title or cut off his run is arguably one of the few things keeping it from reaching a pitch of utter revolt.
  • That said, Seth the character has gotten such intense hatred from vocal Shield fans since the betrayal that it could almost be mistaken for misblaming the performer—especially when they sank to ineffectual death threats.
• Love to Hate:
  • Fans embraced him as one of the most effective traitorous heels wrestling had in years after he turned on his brothers. This was especially true at Cageside Seats, where mock hatred and nicknames such as "Traitorface" and "Sith Rollins" are quite common whenever he comes up in the conversation. Being booked as an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain for over half of his own World Heavyweight Title reign undermined this, though. During the worst days of his X-Pac Heat, some fans and commentators said he should go back to being a heel, and even that it suited him better than being a babyface.
  • His run as the Monday Night Messiah started hot and only got hotter as things went on. Seth received a lot of love for giving underserved wrestlers like the Authors of Pain, Buddy Murphy and Austin Theory direction and major presence on the card, playing a charismatic Dark Messiah perfectly and showing dramatically-upped ruthlessness towards his opponents on a regular basis. He is often considered one of the most despicable yet entertaining villains on Raw.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Three words: BURN IT DOWN! ^note Starting in 2017, Rollins entrance music was accompanied by this phrase in the transition between the drum intro and the guitar chorus.
  • Did you know that Seth and Becky are in a relationship?^note The announce team's constant (and sometimes unnecessary) remarks about the couple led to many people in the IWC parodying them.
  • "I hate football" ^note He would tweet this whenever something bad would happen to his favorite team the Chicago Bears.
• Moral Event Horizon: On the last episode of Raw of 2014, Rollins forced John Cena to reinstate the Authority by threatening to break Edge's neck (the implication being that this will paralyze Edge at the very least, if not kill him). While Cena tried to talk him down, Rollins only screamed at Cena about how he'd made his life hell, and went into great detail about the fact that Edge would never be able to hold his child again and that it would all be Cena's fault. Cena gave in and agreed to bring the Authority back. Rollins laughed wildly, then stated in a very calm voice that Cena should know him better than this, and "I'm gonna kill him anyway." Which he very nearly did, if Cena hadn't been quick enough to stop him just in time. We've known for a while that Rollins is selfish, arrogant, and opportunistic - but attempting cold-blooded murder? That's a whole other level of villainy. It looks like we're starting to see what a dark, disturbed individual Rollins truly is.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • "BURN IT DOWN!" These three words are enough to spark a frenzy in the crowd when Rollins enters the ring.
  • The choir singing in "Visionary", which is guaranteed to get the crowd following.
  • Seth Rollins' Evil Laugh, highlighting his maniacal, chaotic personality and fits his Practically Joker persona perfectly.
• Never Live It Down: 2019 Hell in a Cell's main event went down being seen as one of the worst main events ever with Seth getting the brunt of the backlash after the idiotically-booked finish that sent his already-faltering main event run cross into full-blown X-Pac Heat that saw a quick rematch at Crown Jewel crowning The Fiend as Universal Champion and a Face–Heel Turn as a desperate pair of Author's Saving Throw to try to contain the damage.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • As part of The Shield before they turned face. He and Ambrose each had followings from before hitting WWE; and upon their debut, their immediate course of action was to defend their ultra-popular fellow former indy star CM Punk from transparently pro-establishment babyfaces the likes of John Cena and Ryback. They were practically asking for this to be the case.
  • There's also a small degree of this from people who are looking forward to seeing a guy in Rollins' mold (who were more or less locked out of main event chases until 2011-2012 when guys like CM Punk and Daniel Bryan basically kicked the doors in) cash in and win the championship. Actually, the fact that this hasn't been nearly as much the case for him as it's been for previous young Ensemble Dark Horse briefcase holders speaks to the effectiveness of his heel work. Naturally, the crowd went ballistic when he not only cashed in, but did so in the middle of the main event of WrestleMania 31 to take out both Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns to finally get the title.
  • Happened again during the build to SummerSlam 2015 and the match itself; since if John Cena won he would tie Ric Flair for most world title reigns (as recognised by WWE anyway) the crowd was almost universally in Rollins' corner.
  • Rollins got this a lot during the latter half of 2015 due to being booked as an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain despite being the champion. The only people they're willing to really boo him against are perennial Arch-Enemy Dean Ambrose (who's gotten screwed over by Seth and the Authority about as much as Daniel Bryan has), and Ensemble Darkhorses like Cesaro.
  • Rollins' return following Extreme Rules 2016 had him insult the crowd for cheering him and welcoming back after they spent so long booing him during his world title reign. And there was only room for one man on the Seth Rollins bandwagon, and that was himself. This still hasn't stopped anyone at all from cheering Rollins against the hotly controversial Roman Reigns. The fact that WWE released a documentary detailing Seth's road to recovery from his ACL tear only helped him get over with fans despite his status as a heel. Again, the only time the crowd boos him is when he goes against Ambrose and Ensemble Darkhorses. Otherwise he's one of the most popular performers in the company
• Shocking Moments: The June 2, 2014 episode of Raw concluded with Rollins stabbing his own "brothers" In the Back by beating them with a steel chair and rejoining The Authority as Triple H's "Plan B" ("Plan A" being the failed Evolution reunion which Batista had just put an end to). Because Seth was regarded as both the brains and the heart of the team, nobody saw it coming—especially not Ambrose and Reigns.
• Signature Scene:
  • Turning heel on Reigns and Ambrose, joining The Authority and marking the end of The Shield as a group.
  • Cashing in his Money in the Bank briefcase during Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar's championship match to win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 31.
  • Ending Lesnar's second run with the Universal Championship at WrestleMania 35, with the help of a nutshot. Even moreso, beating him for the title again later that same year in the main event at SummerSlam, clean this time!
  • The birth of his Monday Night Messiah persona, which returned him to his heelish ways and turned around many people's opinions of his TV work.
  • Being the shield for Cody Rhodes and being hit with a steel chair by Roman Reigns in the same way he betrayed Reigns and Ambrose a decade prior at WrestleMania XL.
• Strangled by the Red String: While Seth/Becky Lynch was a popular ship way before they actually started dating each other, the implementation of their relationship in kayfabe didn't come without problems. For starters, the two were shoehorned together just because of the real-life relationship with no attempt to build to it and push their characters together through storyline. This created an awkward mess of stilted-looking interactions with the two where Seth looked like a chump who Becky led around to make herself look fierce, pushing the Badass Decay of both claimants to "The Man" even further (Seth even picked up the godawful nickname "the Man's man"). And then then there was the build-up to Extreme Rules 2019, their first official feud as a couple on the shows, and they were set to feud with… Baron Corbin and Lacey Evans, a feud very few people cared about.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: How a lot of people felt about the company not taking advantage of his popularity and giving him a Heel–Face Return, especially since then-top face Roman Reigns was not getting over as a face and was instead widely despised by the audience. Just about the only reasonable excuse for not doing a Face/Heel Double-Turn with Rollins and Reigns is because of the loose ends that still needed to be tied up in regards to The Shield's break up — specifically, those regarding Dean Ambrose, whose character arc still needed to be completed (getting revenge on Rollins and breaking into the main event on his own), and who was arguably more popular than both of them (Ambrose is over with the smarks (who hate Reigns) and casual fans (who hate Rollins since he's a heel) thanks to being a face). The problem is that there was no sign of that really happening thanks to the company being so focused on Reigns all the time. Then Reigns violated the Wellness Policy and the brand split was reintroduced — Ambrose won the Money in the Bank ladder match and later on that night cashed in on Rollins to win the title, finally getting his revenge on his former brother and Arch-Enemy. He pinned both of his former Shield teammates clean to retain the title and cement his new main event status, and was the only one of the three to be drafted to WWE SmackDown to become the face of that show. Now that Ambrose and his popularity is no longer a factor and Reigns is seemingly dropping down the card as punishment for his violation, many are hoping that Rollins will turn face, as there is a growing sentiment that he's in danger of becoming stale otherwise.
  • They did turn him face eventually, partly out of necessity as Finn Balor's injury (which, ironically, Seth caused or at least aggravated) altered the RAW main event picture. Somewhat problematically, they've got him in an angle with Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho, both heels that nonetheless draws some pretty strong cheers from most crowds. Owens has been a dangerously cool heel whenever he's been a heel for years even before coming to WWE and is currently drawing accidental sympathy similar to Rollins as the champ last year due to not even being the main star of his own title reign; while Jericho, a future Hall of Famer, has arguably built up too much goodwill with fans to be booed outright and plus, he's extremely entertaining as KO's sidekick. As for Seth, they've failed to book his character to have any hint of epiphany or adjust his promos to contain even a touch more valor, creating the impression that his face turn is simply him being bitter that he's not in the circle of favor anymore. So while a lot of people want Rollins to win, it's not as many as it could be due to the flawed characterization, and they also don't necessarily want Owens and/or Jericho to lose.
• Tough Act to Follow: Sure, the Kingslayer, ripcord knee, and that Faceplant DDT are cool finishers, but they're not the Curb Stomp.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Seth's face turn can basically be explained as Seth being mad Triple H chose Kevin Owens to win the Universal Championship over him. When a character's motivation for turning into a good guy is "I'm pissed off that I'm no longer the corporate favorite", needless to say it's not gonna be a shock when a lot of fans claim to have found it hard to sympathize with him feeling cheated out of a title when his reasons are him whining that he isn't the Authority's number one pick anymore. Two other factors that don't help are that:
  1. Triple H has been nowhere in sight for months after turning on Seth, since the turn was made in August 2016 for a feud possibly set to first collide at the next year's WrestleMania, hence Rollins' already unsympathetic character motivation in the storyline has been stuck in a tiresome limbo.
  2. Rollins has been regularly teamed with Roman Reigns since the turn as well as had Shield reunions including Dean Ambrose because Vince McMahon realized Shield teases are the best way to keep Reigns from getting booed.
  • In-universe this reduces babyface Rollins to being the guy that throws insults at Stephanie, helps Reigns against Owens and Jericho, and is Easily Forgiven for all the crap of the last two years despite the fact that he never learned anything nor apologized to anyone he betrayed or hurt in the first place. Out-of-universe his character direction has been frozen in place and he's been turned into a glorified sidekick and heat shield for the man who's replaced John Cena as the most hated top main eventer. This has taken a dump of cold water on Rollins' face turn, as while he still gets good cheers, the palpable excitement of when he first returned to action or when he first acted as a face is all but gone.
  • After being screwed out of his Royal Rumble spot by Triple H's music in a match against Sami Zayn, Rollins lost all patience and started going out of his way to goad Triple H into coming out to fight him. First by raiding NXT Takeover: San Antonio on January 28, 2017 and demanding Triple H come out and break into a main roster fight during a major NXT event, which caused Triple H to simply eject him from the arena with security and Stephanie to ban him from the Rumble event itself the next night. Fair enough on both sides. Two nights later on Raw, Rollins called out Stephanie and did his best to goad Triple H into finally confronting him by threatening to interrupt a Board of Directors meeting…or even to show up at the Helmsleys' front door and have their kids see him (presumably to come in and beat up Triple H in front of said kids). The latter statement bombed badly to a lot of TV viewers: if it wasn't offensive because he brought up the kids in any manner beyond calling Stephanie and Triple H horrible examples, it was stupid for giving away a potential plan for what could've been an intriguing segment on a future Raw episode. To make things worse, Stephanie's ensuing I Lied moment where she stated that Triple H was indeed on his way to deal with Rollins, which seemed to imply that Stephanie had gotten so enraged that she was actually calling off her previously-stated request for Hunter not to show up but disguising it as a lie, turned out to be 100% true when Triple H appeared…and set up Rollins for an attack by the debuting Ensemble Dark Horse Samoa Joe. So Rollins' raging call-out and audaciously stupid giveaway of what to some was a morally questionable plan to begin with was not only completely unnecessary by this point to get what he wanted, said prize came with a setup for an attack at the hands of one of the most popular and respected wrestlers in the world. Not surprisingly, the assault was met with cheers, "This is Awesome" chants, and a chant for Joe's name — and it took the final Coquina Clutch for proper heel boos to even join that.
  • It took him being legitimately injured in that segment and recovering from that for the storyline to actually hit its points of resolution where Rollins would admit to remorse for falling away, confess to wanting to get back the man he was before Triple H corrupted him, actually start acting like a true face with a purpose, and then finally beat Triple H at WrestleMania.
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • In the lead-up to Seth's Universal Championship match against Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam 2019, he and WWE had to deal with the problem that, unfortunately, people didn't like Seth much any more. A combination of poor booking during Seth's initial run with the Universal Championship (most prominently his overly-long and stagnant feud against Baron Corbin, which did neither of their careers any favours and which also utterly butchered the in-series adaptation of his Real Life relationship with Becky Lynch), poor character writing in the lead-up to the Brock rematch (including an abysmal promo where they had Seth trying to do "Cena material" and poorly-thought-out actions that made him look like an idiot) and some real-life blunders on social media that made him look like a corporate kiss-ass had completely cooled most of the audience off on him, to the point that at the start of the match against the widely-hated Brock, Seth was the one getting booed! And yet, over the course of that brutal 13-minute match (a far cry from their 2:30 Groin Attack-based Curb-Stomp Battle at WrestleMania earlier that year), Seth managed to win the entire crowd over bit by bit until the entire arena was cheering for him and exploded when he pinned Brock cleanly to reclaim the Universal Championship. While in no small part a reminder of how good Brock can be when he actually cares about a match and is willing to put in the effort, it was largely hailed as a testament to the sheer in-ring talent of Seth Rollins as a performer.
  • His late 2019 Face–Heel Turn. After the infamous Hell in a Cell match and further blunders on social media had completely ruined his babyface image, WWE began writing Seth as slowly becoming more and more unhinged and rude, culminating in him finally snapping in the weeks after Survivor Series, becoming a Knight Templar and recruiting the Authors of Pain as his muscle. Seth's new Monday Night Messiah persona was hailed as exactly what the doctor ordered to fix his career trajectory.
• The Woobie: The night that Roman Reigns announced his leukaemia diagnosis was the same night that Dean Ambrose finally snapped and turned on Rollins, immediately after they won the Raw Tag Team Titles. In the space of three hours, Seth lost both of his brothers in The Shield.
• X-Pac Heat: Gained this during the later half of 2019 in which fans have started to boo him despite being a face. This is because of a bad combination of questionable booking during his Universal Championship runs and comments he made in real life. The heat is so bad that it was often compared to the heat Roman Reigns had before he announced his leukemia reemergence.

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