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Former WWE world champion Seth Rollins suffered a catastrophic injury last week taking the WWE title off of him and losing his spot on the biggest WrestleMania ever. The ex-champ has finally broken his silence and is talking more like a babyface than the despised heel we last saw on RAW.

WWE.com landed the first interview with former WWE champion Seth Rollins (rightfully so) and the champ had some interesting things to say. For starters, Rollins explains exactly what happened and how he injured his knee in Dublin, Ireland in a match against Kane.

“Let’s see, we were in Dublin, Ireland, first night of the tour and I was in the main event. I was setting up to do something I’ve done a million times — flipping over my opponent while he was standing on the second [rope]. I landed underneath him and then picked him up for a powerbomb. And for whatever reason, I just landed on the inside of my right foot, instead of flat with my feet and my knee gave. If you’ve seen the video, you know it looks pretty graphic. It didn’t feel as graphic though. It just felt like my knee dislocated and then kind of popped back in. So, I hustled back up and got underneath, made sure my feet were steady and delivered the Powerbomb. Then, I did a self-evaluation real quick to see what was going on. I realized my knee was pretty unstable and noticed that it felt like it was flopping around. I didn’t feel like I had a lot of control under it. I was able to move around enough to finish the match, hit a Pedigree and get the win. Afterwards, I just laid there and [tried to] figure out what was going on. Again, I wasn’t in a whole bunch of pain, I just felt like my knee wasn’t right. I wasn’t really sure of the extent of the damage until the next morning when I got the MRI.”

For an athlete that lost everything he has worked his entire career over in one night, he appears to remain motivated and focused on a comeback.

“You know, overall, I think I’m in a pretty good spot. Physically, my knee doesn’t hurt. Like, one thing people don’t understand, a common question is, “How much pain are you in?” The ligaments don’t have nerve endings, so, that’s a good thing and a bad thing, but I don’t feel any pain, it’s just a lot of instability in the knee capsule. So, I’m doing a lot of compression to kind of reduce the swelling and stuff like that. Emotionally … could be better. Obviously it’s a tough spot to be in. I’m mostly just looking forward to getting the surgery done and getting better every day.”

In a strange twist, Rollins spoke more like a babyface in his interview than the villain he has portrayed for 2015. Rollins was asked about who he wants to see as the future WWE champion and gave somewhat of a sympathetic answer.

“No. You know, for me, over the last seven months I really put my stamp on that title as mine. I’ve defended it against literally everyone that has come at me and done it successfully, so for me to have to vacate the title like that, I’m not afraid of whatever happens at Survivor Series. Whoever happens to come out with the championship, as far as I’m concerned, they’re an interim champion and kind of just holding on to my title until I get back. They can look at it however they want, but for me, I’m the best and I’ve never lost my title. So, when I get back, I plan on picking up where I left off.”

I do like the idea of Rollins playing it off as an “interim” champion, a term taken right out of the UFC. Instead of the cowardly heel that Rollins has portrayed, he appears to be a hero ready to pounce when the time is right to take his title back. This isn’t the kind of an answer you’d expect from the character of Rollins.

Rollins makes the guarantee you’d expect him to make. Again, Rollins not only comes off sympathetic but actually acknowledges the fan support he received.

“Well, you know, for someone who is as universally despised as I am, I was pretty overwhelmed with the amount of love that I received from all of the fans in the WWE Universe. All of the well-wishes and, just in general, all the concern that everyone had for me as a person and as a performer. So, I don’t do this very often, but I would like to extend a thank you to them. Their support means a lot to me and it’s going to go a long way in my recovery and help me mentally get back to where I was at. So yeah, it’s very interesting to see how quickly people’s minds can change when it comes to something like that — it says a lot about the human condition. I’ll be back stronger and better than I was before. That’s a guarantee. You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Is Rollins positioning himself for a babyface return? I think in this situation you almost have to go with a babyface turn here for Rollins. No matter how much his character is disliked, it’s hard not to find sympathy for a guy that lost his title and WrestleMania spot the way he did. Reading the interview, you’d certainly think the tide has changed on Rollins.

If so, it brings up some questions about the next 6-9 months. For Rollins to come back as a strong babyface, he’d have to have a strong heel to feud with. It would also make sense for that heel to be the WWE champion. It would certainly seem that the top heel spot has opened up for Roman Reigns to become that heel champion. If not Reigns, the other logical choice here would be Triple H which sets up for a nice SummerSlam match between the two.

Regardless, it will be very interesting to see if the same Seth Rollins who spoke to WWE.com is the guy we see the next time he appears on WWE television.

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