One of the most iconic moments in WWE history was when Seth Rollins cashed in his Money In The Bank contract at WrestleMania 31. Recently, he reflected on the cash-in and why he knew it had to happen when it did. While speaking to Chris Van Vliet on his Insight Podcast, Seth Rollins reflected on the moment he ran in and cashed in the MITB contract.
“There might be camera footage of this somewhere, but I’m just sitting in this chair right outside of the curtain in Gorilla. This was a smaller Gorilla at the time, we hadn’t expanded it to this big one yet. I remember Michael Hayes is in the producer seat and Hunter and Vince are on the far side. I want to say there was panic about the time because we were still on pay-per-view, so we have to be off at this time. It wasn’t like an option to overrun like on Peacock, they want a certain time period.
“With streaming they’re awesome because of that, you get a little window and you’re not strict, because the advertising model is a little different. So it’s like, by the time we had to be off, done. So I remember sitting there and thinking oh shoot, they’re not going to make it, we’re going to have to do this tomorrow, that’s what I was thinking. I was just if it doesn’t work, we’ll just do it tomorrow, just hoping that my idea doesn’t go up in smoke. So fortunately, they are professionals, and they hit their cue when they needed to and the rest is history.”
Seth Rollins shared that it was his idea to cash in at WrestleMania
“The idea to cash in the contract at WrestleMania was my idea. I had put it into the ether probably two months prior or so, because you remember I win this thing in July or June. Immediately when you win it you look at the landscape and you go okay, when can I cash this in? At the time, if I’m not mistaken, there was only one World Championship and the champion was Brock Lesnar. You looked at it, okay, Brock wrestles twice a year. When are you going to cash this thing in on Brock Lesnar? Is Brock Lesnar going to allow you to cash it in on him? What circumstances would be the best for this? Then you start to go down the months and you take off all the shows that Brock’s not going to be on.”
Seth Rollins remembers his Triple Threat Match against Brock Lesnar and John Cena
“So you look at SummerSlam, probably not going to happen. You look at Survivor Series if he’s there, and then it’s like, maybe Rumble or Mania. Then you’ve got that little window after Mania where maybe, so you start to plot it out in your head. The major point for me as I was kind of going along with that was the Royal Rumble earlier that year. I did a triple threat match with Brock Lesnar and John Cena. I kind of had to, I don’t want to say weasel my way into that, but that was initially meant to be John vs. Brock, they were in a series of matches and the audience was kind of getting a little tired of it.
“Not to say that those guys aren’t incredible, they are, but you do the same thing and Brock wasn’t around to sell the story that much. He just kind of showed up, and when he did he was a huge attraction, especially at that time, but I think the audience was getting a little bit bored of it. And I was like well what does it hurt, I don’t need to be in the Rumble because I’ve got this briefcase.
“That doesn’t make any sense. I don’t want to be off the show. I’m like, just throw me into that triple threat, I can mix in there good, change the whole dynamic of the thing up and see what happens. We ended up having a really great triple threat and a really good dynamic. That was the first time I think I worked with Brock, so he got to see how my mind works a little bit. So got to kind of create some little touches of respect there.”
Royal Rumble 2015 was the moment Seth Rollins knew he had to cash-in at WrestleMania
“Then later that night Roman wins the Royal Rumble to a chorus of boos, even The Rock comes out afterwards to try to endorse him and it just did not matter. I was like oh, this isn’t good. You don’t want to give him this title at WrestleMania. If he gets booed out of the building there when he wins the title the first time, that’s not good. So I’m a hated, hated, hated villain at this time. If I win the title, then we can give the audience time to understand the story of who the good guy is supposed to be against me. I’m not cool at all at this point. I’m like, let me be the guy. Let me be the heel that can get what we want out of this change.
“So I pitched the idea, I let it sit in the ether for a while, and then still even the day of, obviously, I was doing the story with Randy Orton, leading up to WrestleMania, even still until the till after my match with Randy was the first confirmation I had gotten that we were gonna go in that direction. I don’t know whose idea the triple threat part of it was. I think my idea was just a cash in after the match. But somebody came up with the triple threat idea in the interim once it was floating in the ether there and it was a brilliant, a brilliant kind of way to do it that I’d never even considered,” Seth Rollins said.
What do you think is the best cash-in of all-time?
