Seth Rollins is ‘under no illusions’ his title is as important as Roman Reigns’

Seth Rollins has had the new WWE World Heavyweight championship in his possession for about a month-and-a-half. He’s defended it three times on television, and in three times that many house show & dark matches.

Triple that number, and that’s probably how often he’s been asked to justify the belt’s existence or explain how it measures up to the Undisputed WWE Universal championship his old Shield-mate Roman Reigns has been carrying around for the last 1,000+ days.

It’s a subject that came up repeatedly while Seth was Ryan Satin’s guest on the latest episode of FOX Sports’ Out of Character. Rollins has a realistic view of the situation:

“I’m under no illusions that this title is the same as Roman’s title. That title has been around, there’s been so much equity put into over the past few years, it means a lot.

“You can’t just come in and pretend that all of a sudden this title is that important, no one’s going to buy that crap.”

But as he’s said before, he’s determined to travel with and defend the WHC as much as he can to make it “as big as it can be for myself and the rest of the roster.”

“If Roman was doing what I’m doing there wouldn’t really be a need for a secondary championship. There wouldn’t be a need for another world heavyweight title on Raw because we would have somebody who was doing those things.

“What he wants to do with his schedule and his title reign is not what I’m doing, somebody’s got to fill that void. We did our best with the United States Championship for a little while to do that but it never really felt like a world heavyweight championship. There’s got to be that person, there’s got to be that spot for everybody to get to, to try to fight for.”

He expanded on that more when Satin asked him how he responds to people calling his title a “consolation prize”:

“I mean, I understand where people are coming from. There’s no real right or wrong when it comes to what your opinion is on doing it [introducing the WHC], but I am a firm believer that it was a necessity, regardless of how you felt about it, or how we got into it, or where it ended up, or whatever. I just believe it was a necessity.

“So I wasn’t offended. I wasn’t annoyed or anything like that. If you’ve watched and followed, and saw how Roman has built up the title that he has, it only makes sense, I guess, for you to use the word ‘consolation prize’. But for me, again, it didn’t feel that way. It felt like a big deal and like I said, it felt like a big deal because there are so many guys who are able to be in the shoes that I’m in right now, and the fact that it’s me, makes it feel like a big deal to me, and I feel a lot of responsibility to represent them and the industry as well as I can, and help everything kind of move forward.

“It feels sometimes with Roman’s title reigns that, because there’s really only one challenger at a time — and often, only every few months — that we’re in a bit of a holding pattern. A lot of guys were in a holding pattern. So like I said, I am a firm believer that having a title available was a necessity. I feel a lot of humility and responsibility in being the champion that will be there and be available for our audience. So I wasn’t offended by it and I totally understood where people were coming from when they said that.”

Where do you stand on the WWE World Heavyweight championship at this point? How’s Seth doing in his quest to build the new belt up?