Seth Rollins had one heck of a three-day period between WWE's 2022 running of Extreme Rules and 11:01 PM ET on Monday, October 10th, when RAW officially went off of the air. He lost a Fight Pit match to Matt Riddle with long-time fan David Cormier in place as the special referee, watched from the back as Brock Lesnar beat up Bobby Lashley before his United States Title match, and parlayed that moment of serendipity into his first singles championship win since August of 2019, when he bested Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship.

He went from main event loser to champion in a matter of hours and in the end, is much better off than where he found himself on the go-home edition of RAW the week prior, but what if I were to tell you that this was all a part of Rollins' plan? What if he lost to Riddle intentionally at Extreme Rules, or at least didn't give his full effort and instead saved himself for a match with Lashley that was assisted by the return of Lesnar? Well, according to the man FKA the “Monday Night Messiah,” that might just be the case.

Add chess master to Seth Rollins' list of WWE accomplishments.

Appearing on RAW Talk after his big win, Rollins described how he intentionally lost his match to Riddle at Extreme Rules, comparing his mental games to chess while the rest of the WWE Universe is playing checkers.

“Well, first of all, I want to address Riddle, I want to address the Fight Pit, I want to address the fact that I tapped out but what I need you to understand, what I need everybody in the world to understand is that that was a strategic move, because while everybody else was out there playing checkers, I’m playing chess,” Rollins asserted. “I didn’t need to be in the hospital for two days, I knew I had the US Title match coming up on Monday, I needed to be healthy, I needed to beat Bobby Lashley and that’s exactly what I did and exactly why they call me a visionary.“

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Wait, did Rollins actually just say that? Is “The Visionary” really asserting that he intentionally dropped his match to Riddle at Extreme Rules in order to stay relatively fresh for his bout with Lashley? Did he decide to take the foot off the gas when the match got out of hand, presumably after Riddles sick Bro Ton off the top of the cage? Or did he instead simply go through the motions of the match in order to give the fans a good show, even though he never had any intentions of putting it all on the line to secure a win? Or, or, or what if this is all just a classic case of Rollins revising history once it's already written to paint himself in a more flattering light? Fortunately, he did have a bit more to say in the interview.

“Now as for how I’m gonna celebrate?” Rollins continued. “Well, we are in Brooklyn, the sight of my very first match actually here in WWE nearly 10 years ago – The Shield, Team Hell No, Ryback, it’s a classic, look it up on the Peacock, but I’m gonna celebrate the same way I celebrated that night: pizza, and beer, and sing-alongs all night long.”

So… yeah; no more insight, no more interesting tidbits of information, just a match recommendation and an endorsement of New York pizza, beer, and sing-along. Mr. Rollins, you will never change.