WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins won a Fatal 4-Way Match
BALTIMORE — WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins is nothing if not an odds beater. The Authority’s golden boy has repeatedly faced the impossible since snagging the title — be it a showdown with an angry Brock Lesnar, or a Steel Cage Match against Randy Orton — and somehow he has always managed to keep sports-entertainment’s most cherished prize around his eight-pack abs.
At WWE Payback, Rollins faced his biggest challenge yet, a Fatal 4-Way Match against Orton, Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose — the three co-presidents of the “We Hate Seth Rollins Fan Club” — where Seth could have lost his title without even being involved in the outcome. On top of that, Rollins’ much-loathed Authority cohort, Kane, lurked at ringside, weighing his options on whether he wanted to help Seth win and maintain his role as WWE’s Director of Operations, or crush the kid like a bug and happily accept his pink slip from Triple H.
Rollins had a better shot at winning the Preakness than he did at leaving Baltimore with his WWE World Heavyweight Title. Yet, there he was at the end of the night, stumbling to the locker room with the championship in his gloved hands and a pained look of disbelief on his face. How he got there was just as incredible as it seems.
Twenty minutes earlier, Rollins had been an antelope on the Serengeti, hungrily eyed by the lions that were Ambrose, Orton and Reigns. Before the trio could sink their teeth into him, though, J&J Security swarmed, dragging the challengers out of the ring and starting a skirmish on the arena floor. Bodies collided with mosh pit aggressiveness as each competitor disappeared into a blur of swinging fists and stomping feet. Ambrose took the first risk of the match, launching himself out of the ring and onto Rollins and Orton. Then, it was Reigns, who took a running start and fired all 265 pounds of himself over the top rope like a Samoan scud missile.
The champion became a prized punching bag in these early minutes. Reigns was the first one to get his hands on Rollins, rattling his bones with a beautiful tilt-a-whirl slam. Ambrose was in next with a big elbow for his onetime friend. Next, it was Orton, who broke up Dean’s pin attempt and started a fight with The Lunatic Fringe. The Viper looked for his RKO, but ended up with Ambrose’s arm nearly collapsing his larynx with a stiff clothesline.
