Seth Rollins once again went one-on-one with "The Beast" Brock Lesnar at WWE SummerSlam, and once again emerged with the Universal Championship. One of the common complaints made by hardcore fans about WWE is the company's lack of commitment to creating new stars in the modern era. So many big main event names emerged from the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, but unfortunately, WWE seems all too willing to rush back to those names from the past whenever ratings or buyrates dip.
Case in point was Goldberg's inclusion in a match with Dolph Ziggler at SummerSlam, as well as Trish Stratus going one-on-one with Charlotte Flair. However, one superstar who's truly become a top card draw in the current era is Seth Rollins. Of course, a big part of that is just how well WWE booked The Shield faction of Rollins, Roman Reigns, and Dean Ambrose, having them beat anyone and everyone as a team before eventually all becoming decorated world champions. Ambrose of course now plies his trade in AEW, while Rollins and Reigns continue to work main event feuds in WWE, despite Reigns somewhat bizarrely not being part of the SummerSlam card.
While Reigns is off selling the various seeming attempts on his life over the last few weeks on Raw and SmackDown, Rollins got a chance to shine on SummerSlam 2019's main event. Rollins famously defeated Lesnar by pinfall at WrestleMania XXXV in April, winning the Universal Championship. Lesnar then used his Money in the Bank contract to recapture the gold at Extreme Rules in July. Now, "The Architect" attempted to slay his most dangerous rival yet again, and to the surprise of many, once again did so. Rollins is now a two-time Universal Champion, and a four-time world champion overall in WWE. Check out some gifs and a clip of the match below.
The Rollins vs. Lesnar main event at SummerSlam proved to be a pretty wild affair, topped off by a frog splash from the top turnbuckle by Rollins through a prone Lesnar on the announce table. That said, outside of creating a high-profile Universal Championship match for SummerSlam, one wonders why WWE felt the need to hot potato the title between Rollins and Lesnar, or even have Lesnar win Money in the Bank at all, since that result was widely despised by WWE fans.
Now, one assumes Lesnar will go back on hiatus for a bit, although he'll likely be back for SmackDown's big FOX debut in October. The network will surely want WWE's star power firing on all cylinders that night in order to get SmackDown's new home off to a good ratings start. Many fans had wondered if Lesnar had won back the title from Rollins in order for him to jump to SmackDown and be world champion on FOX, but that theory has now officially been dismantled.