Last night’s edition of Monday Night Raw kicked off with a Town Hall Meeting led by self-proclaimed locker room leader Seth Rollins, designed to make the crowd, as well as literally the entire Raw roster, turn its back on the big-headed “Kingslayer”.
Of course, given that the show took place at the Allstate Arena in Chicago, just one week after CM Punk’s debut on WWE Backstage, and the interactions between him and Rollins of late on social media, the Windy City faithful greeting Rollins immediately with loud chants for the former record-setting WWE Champion.
Rollins then doubled down on recent challenges he has made to Punk, stating, “Hey look guys, I tried to get him here. I’m sorry, he didn’t want to show up. He wants to sit behind a desk in L.A., talking about a change he’s too afraid to make himself.”
According to Dave Meltzer via Wrestling Observer Radio, Vince McMahon was “furious” backstage at what Rollins said. Obviously this is not the first time that Superstars have had to directly respond to Punk chants on live TV, but it’s no secret that McMahon has always been of the belief that you don’t tease something – and this would go double for a major match in a major hometown market – that you’re never going to deliver on.
Here’s the direct quote from Meltzer:
“Unless Seth and Vince worked it out, and Vince was working everyone backstage by being furious when this was going on, Vince was really upset about Seth responding to this. Vince’s rule is, on television particularly, is that you don’t push the idea of a match that you are not going to deliver. Unless there’s this super-secret thing that only Seth and Vince know, and Vince is trying to swerve everyone by acting furious – and I seriously doubt that is the case…”
For what it’s worth, the line about CM Punk was not edited off the truncated 90-minute edition of the show uploaded to Hulu this week.
