Seth Rollins made his return to in-ring competition last night at SummerSlam and he proceeded to successfully cash in his Money in the Bank briefcase to become the new World Heavyweight Champion.
Rollins' status over the last several weeks has been a constant topic of speculation as WWE played up his knee injury as something significant that would keep him sidelined for a long time, while there were whispers that the entire thing was a ruse to set up a surprise cash-in situation.
Rollins initially "injured" himself at Saturday Night's Main Event in a match against LA Knight that ended abruptly with Rollins taking a loss despite being scheduled to win. When he returned backstage, medical personnel as well as WWE producers attended to him as if the injury was legitimate.
Speaking after the event, even WWE CCO Paul Levesque acknowledged the severity of the injury and noted that an early diagnosis didn't look good. Rollins for his part played up the charade as he didn't immediately get back to people close to him who were concerned about his well-being. When WWE held Evolution the following night, Rollins showed up in crutches backstage, which WWE was sure was going to leak to the online media.
John Pollock of Postwrestling.com first reported that he had from a source that WWE was going to run an injury angle with Rollins and when it happened, the knee injury being a work (or at least blown out of proportion) picked up considerable steam despite WWE's best efforts to play it up.
Fightfulselect.com reports that in the days after Saturday Night's Main Event, people who would normally be talking went silence, which also raised red flags as to the legitimacy of the injury. Rollins then appeared on the Rich Eisen show and by then, many in the company became convinced that the entire scenario was a work for storyline purposes. Despite this, WWE never specifically told producers, backstage personnel or even other wrestlers that it was a work and so these people assumed it was a possibility. The report adds that WWE even worked trainees at Black and Brave, Rollins' wrestling school.
The plan for Rollins to cash in his briefcase was an idea first floated around even before Saturday Night's Main Event, however, in order to keep the surprise element intact, it wasn't listed any internal rundown sheets and backstage, nobody was expecting a cash-in. It was only when Rollins emerged during the Punk-Gunther match that everyone backstage realized it was going down.
Fightfulselect.com also reports that in a similar type of situation, WWE is keeping the developments around the main event of Night Two with Cody Rhodes taking on John Cena also very close to the vest so there would appear to be anticipation that another big surprise may be in the pipeline for that match.
