Seth Rollins’ World Heavyweight Championship reign is no doubt its safest when “The Visionary” is backed by the Vision — Bron Breakker, Bronson Reed, and Paul Heyman — and as such, much had been made out of the fact he would be without them heading into the main event; Reed, beaten by Roman Reigns earlier in the night, and Breakker worked together to incapacitate the “OTC” after he had himself incapacitated Heyman, prompting them to be ejected from the venue. 

That further stacked the odds against Rollins, who was already facing three challengers in the form of LA Knight, Jey Uso, and his arch-rival CM Punk — though if we are being honest, it was unlikely he was going to drop the title so soon after stealing it from Punk. So the stage was set for Rollins to come close to losing his title, and it was yet to be seen what they would do to keep the belt on him. Would he somehow fight against the insurmountable odds? No, that’s a babyface move. What he did instead was what you would expect from a man called the “The Architect”: making the obvious into a surprise and bringing his wife Becky Lynch into the mix. 

At the end of the action that saw table spots and steel chairs aplenty, Rollins had everyone beat with stomp after stomp after stomp, almost letting his obsessive hubris cost him as he sought to end Punk’s career and snap his head in a steel chair. Punk let Rollins snap his own leg into the chair, hoisting him up for the GTS, and was mere seconds away from winning his title back. But Lynch appeared, masked and incognito, to deliver a shot below the belt and hand her husband the title retention. When Lynch and Rollins first teamed up it didn’t really come off well because both were babyfaces and it felt forced; this time around it just makes sense. Both are in their villain arcs, both rely on contorting the rules beyond perception to keep the gold they stole in the first place. This time, it feels like the right choice. And it just adds another layer to the ongoing Rollins and Punk saga, and a reason for a certain former WWE women’s veteran to return to the fold and help her husband. Nothing wrong with that.

Written by Max Everett