When news broke that Seth Rollins had torn his MCL in a World Heavyweight Championship match against Jinder Mahal on RAW, it sent the WWE Universe into an absolute tailspin.

Sure, Rollins tried to play things down during his promo segment on RAW, letting fans know that he'd be back in time for WrestleMania 40, where it seems like Gunther may be trying to come for his belt to become a double champion, but considering he was given a three-to-four month recovery timeline by folks in the know based on past return times, the “Visionary's” estimation felt generous, to say the least.

Well, as it turns out, Rollins' estimation might have actually been conservative as, in an interview with noted wrestling fans Daniel Cormier and Ryan Clark for ESPN, the “Revolutionary” let it be known that he's actually expecting to be back to full strength much sooner than expected and may even work a few matches before his World Heavyweight Championship match at WrestleMania 40 against CM Punk, Gunther, or someone else.

“WrestleMania is the big thing. That's the one. You want to do everything you can to get ready for that show. WrestleMania, especially this year, 40 years, it's going to be huge. I've never carried a World Title into WrestleMania. I've never even been a champion during the Royal Rumble. This weekend itself is especially important because I'm a prize. Myself, and Roman Reigns, we're a prize. For the first time ever. I've been in the Rumble, I've been one of the guys trying to get to that spot, but I've never been on the other side of it,” Seth Rollins told the DC & RC Show via Fightful.

“It feels very cool, in a way, to be on the sidelines. That said, rehab is going to be a pain. Dodged a bullet, the ACL is intact. The ACL is the big one. That one is good. The MCL will heal with time. We'll get in there, we'll do some stuff, we'll check out the PRP and do some rehab. I'm hoping to be back at full strength around a month. Around a month is my timeline. We'll see what happens. We're going to take it day to day. I'd like to be back in a month. I don't want to walk into WrestleMania and that be my first match in two or three months. That's not going to be good for me. I want to be able to get back in there, test the wheel out, and make sure we're in a good place. We'll see how it goes. I'm taking it day by day, and I'm happy we dodged a bullet, and it wasn't anything too serious that was going to put me on the shelf for six to nine months.”

Whoa, one month? So, theoretically at least, Rollins could return by the Elimination Chamber in Perth next month, or at least work a few tune-up matches on television against, say, Giovanni Vinci and Ludwig Kaiser before he gets the actual match out of the way against Gunther, assuming the rumors are true? If so, that would be a pretty incredible turnaround, considering the initial turnaround folks expected.

Seth Rollins fondly recalls breaking up The Shield.

Elsewhere on his Royal Rumble promotional tour, even if he isn't going to be taking part in the match, Seth Rollins stopped by GQ Sports to discuss 10 of his favorite things alongside Becky Lynch and, in the process, the decision to turn on Roman Reigns and Jon Moxley to break up the shield almost a decade ago.

Does Rollins, with the value of hindsight, feel bad about what happened? In a word: No.

“For me personally, the black chair changes the trajectory of my career,” Seth Rollins told GQ Sports via Fightful. “I swatted Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose with a black chair almost a decade ago now, turned on my best friends in a very devious moment. I do not regret breaking up The Shield. If you want to make an omelet, you gotta break a few eggs.”

While the decision was wild at the time, as few homegrown WWE factions have been as popular as The Shield, in hindsight, the decision was the right one, as it helped to create three of the biggest singles stars the industry has seen over the past decade, even if one of them did his best work outside of the company. For better or worse, sometimes you really do have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet, and the ones Mox, Reigns, and Rollins have made have all been knockouts in their own right, as their spots as one, two, and three on the PWI Top-500 wrestlers charts clearly proves.