I think Seth Rollins might really be upset about Becky Lynch being ‘The Man’

Previously on Cageside Seats is all in on Becky Lynch as WWE’s top star, the SmackDown Women’s champ and Raw’s Intercontinental titleholder Seth Rollins got into a playful Twitter back-and-forth about who was “The Man” in WWE. Rollins seemed to have accepted their employer referring to him as a “A Man” and moved on to focus on other (probably Dolph Ziggler-related) things.

But this week, pushed too far by a fan tweeting at him about how great Lynch’s social media game is, Seth fired off this. And I’m not entirely sure it doesn’t betray some genuine frustration regarding the nickname and the unexpected upheaval in the WWE power rankings (literally, and in terms of general audience excitement):

To be fair, this may have been one of many such tweets Rollins found himself tagged in informing him that, in the eyes of the WWE Universe, he’s officially lost one of his several nicknames. Maybe he was just having a bad day. And, of course, there’s always the possibility he’s working - that the tweet was designed to make us think he’s upset about Becky winning the nickname despite his workrate excellence and not having recently missed any time due to injury, I guess? I’m not sure what the point of such a work would be, seeing as the company isn’t booking a straight up intergender match any time soon. But we’re talking about pro wrestlers here, so we can’t take it completely off the table.

It is interesting and worth noting that, as Seth notes, a key component of Lynch becoming “The Man” has been excellence in the use of social media. Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and the like are constant presences in most of our lives, whether we personally use any of those services or not. Our favorite shows (including WWE ones) routinely promote themselves via social media and use it in storylines; elected officials from the President on down use them to get their message out.

The internet is the one place where Vince McMahon & his team don’t control how much time a Superstar gets, or completely script their message. We’ve known for a while how effective it is in creating a bond between a wrestler and the fans. There are a number of factors to Becky’s rise, but how good she is at using Twitter and Instagram to get folks buzzing is a key component.

Does Seth resent that?

I’m honestly not sure. But whether he’s really upset and regardless of the exact cause of his agitation about not being “The Man” - he’s really not going to like this meme. Which surprisingly, didn’t come from Lynch:

Don’t worry, Kingslayer - you’re still the Architect. And you’ll always be The Champ on UpUpDownDown, even if that undefeated streak is no more.

Chime in on who you think is “The Man”, whether or not Seth is really shaken by possibly not being “The Man”, and/or how important a wrestler’s Twitter game is in 2018 in the comments below, Cagesiders.