Finn Bálor Remembers Telling Seth Rollins He Was Hurt At WWE SummerSlam 2016, Says Rollins Didn’t Want To Change Finish

Seth Rollins wanted to stick to the plan.

The Universal Championship match between Finn Balor and Seth Rollins at WWE SummerSlam 2016 is well documented. It was during the match that Balor suffered a shoulder injury. He finished the bout, won the title, but relinquished it the following day on Monday Night Raw.

Balor shared another story from the bout as he was speaking to Chris Van Vliet. He remembers telling Rollins that he was hurt and considered changing the finish. Rollins wanted to stick to the plan.

“No pain, but I knew there was a big issue, and it actually came out like three more times in the match, because any time I lifted my arm to hit the ropes, it came out,” Balor said about his shoulder injury at SummerSlam 2016. “I remember I got whipped to the buckle one time, it came out. So I don’t know if I’ve ever told this story, and I’m not sure if I should, but I remember at one point in the match — so me and Seth (Rollins) — I was very lucky to be in there with Seth when it happened, because Seth is an absolute pro, and we were able to communicate and I was able to tell him, ‘Hey, I’m hurt.’ So we were kind of calling the match on the fly and editing spots and changing spots and talking the whole time, so the match that we’d done wasn’t actually the match that we’d laid out.

I must give Seth credit, because there was a point, we were outside the ring and I was rolling him back into the ring, and I said, ‘Dude, I’m hurt. I don’t think I’m gonna be wrestling for a while. Do you want to switch to finish?’ And he said, ‘No, stick to the plan.’ I just rolled him back in, and we stuck to the plan. I often wonder what that would have done for my career if we had switched the finish.”

Rollins will have another opportunity to become WWE World Heavyweight Champion when he challenges Roman Reigns at SummerSlam.