Seth Rollins refers to wrestling outside WWE as ‘rinky-dink’, and he knows exactly what he’s doing

There was a time when it made sense to criticize Seth Rollins for heaping praise on WWE and/or implying other wrestling companies were substandard.

But not anymore, baby!

Rollins is much more self aware these days. He’s integrated his confidence and pride into his character in self-deprecating way. That (and healthy dose of compliments to what folks outside WWE are doing) makes the boasts and jabs part of a joke we’re all in on, instead of a lecture we’re forced to sit though.

Case in point, his answer when James Delow of Gorilla Position asked him who he’d like to see follow Cody Rhodes to WWE:

“Anybody who wants to come work in the big leagues [cackles]. I said it to him last night, I said it before, this is the premier professional wrestling company on the planet. I know, ‘Oh, don’t say professional wrestling’ — doesn’t matter. We have the best in the world, and now we have Cody Rhodes on top of that and he is joining that club. So if you want to be the best, don’t go play rinky-dink. Come here, do your thing here. We are the best, top notch, across the board.

“And I’m not taking anything away from anybody else who’s anywhere else. I love it, do what you do, you guys are tremendous, there’s great talents out there, but this is where you are the best. This is where you find out if you can hack it on the top, top, top-top level.”

Does Rollins believe that? Sure, why wouldn’t he? Lots of other folks do, too. They may not all follow wrestling online, but they’re out there. Seth’s just figured out how to play to both audiences.

Like when Delow points out the video will do well because he called wrestling outside WWE playing “rinky-dink”, and Rollins replies:

“The internet’s gonna be pretty mad at me. They don’t like when I say words.”

He gets it now.