Seth “Freakin” Rollins made history on this week’s Monday Night Raw by defeating ‘The Dominator’ Bobby Lashley for the United States Championship to become a two-time Grand Slam Champion.
He entered the night as a four-time world champion, a two-time Intercontinental Champion, and a six-time tag team champion, but he had only ever held the US championship once, taking it from John Cena at the 2015 Summer Slam event and losing it to Cena a month later.
Seth Rollins challenged Bobby Lashley for the United States Championship a couple of weeks ago but due to an interruption by Riddle caused Rollins to lose the match. Last week, Rollins took revenge on Lashley by curb-stomping him after their match. Following the encounter, WWE scheduled a match between the two superstars for the United States Title.
Prior to the scheduled match, Lashley cut a promo, however, before he could finish he was interrupted by a returning Brock Lesnar. The beast incarnate assaulted him and severely injured his arm with a kimura lock. Rollins then stormed out and insisted that the match should start no matter what the condition of Lashley was.
The champ chose to compete regardless and nearly won with a spear, but Rollins was able to attack the wounded arm and pin “The All Mighty” for the championship.
https://youtu.be/eFaBcmJ8Q8c
Rollins asserted that in order to preserve himself for the US Title match against Bobby Lashley, he tapped out to Matt Riddle in the Fight Pit match. He stated, “What I need everyone in the world to understand is that was a strategic move.
“While everyone else is out there playing checkers, I’m playing chess. I didn’t need to be in the hospital for two days. I knew I had the US Title match coming up on Monday and I needed to be healthy. I needed to beat Bobby Lashley and that is exactly what I did. And that is exactly why they call me a visionary”
.@WWERollins is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers. #RAWTalk
▶️ @peacock pic.twitter.com/EO9XblUFcg— WWE (@WWE) October 11, 2022
Rollins became the 11th man in WWE history to win the Grand Slam under the current rules, joining The Miz as the only wrestlers to accomplish this twice.
