Seth Rollins Says ESPN Partnership Gives WWE WrestlePalooza Mainstream Credibility

WWE’s deal with ESPN has led to them debuting the Wrestlepalooza Premium Live Event, which will take place on September 20. Ahead of the event, Seth Rollins has explained why it’s such a big deal for Wrestlepalooza to be associated with ESPN.

While speaking to Sports Illustrated, Seth Rollins made it clear he is excited that WrestlePalooza is getting big attention on ESPN. He said joining ESPN for its new app launch helps show that wrestling is a serious sport and art, giving it more respect from the public.

The Visionary mentioned how WWE has worked hard to explain what wrestling is to people who don’t know much about it. He pointed to the WWE Unreal show on Netflix as proof that wrestling is reaching more mainstream fans. He sees the ESPN deal as another big step to show how talented WWE wrestlers are as athletes and storytellers.

“I think it’s super cool to be a part of the ESPN family to help kind of launch this new app and this new era of ESPN. I also think just being associated with a huge sports franchise like this really helps legitimize our art form and give it some credence a little bit. I think we’ve done such a great job as a company of explaining to people who don’t know what we do what we do.

Advertising

Advertising

You see the Unreal show on Netflix—being on Netflix in general—is a huge step for us. And so this is kind of just another step in really pushing what we do into the mainstream and showing how incredible our talent is as storytellers and athletes.”

Rollins also praised ESPN for aggressively promoting WrestlePalooza. SportsCenter recently featured a segment with Joe Tessitore and Kevin Negandhi about the event, and Monday Night Football included promos read by Joe Buck and Chris Fowler during their games.

“ESPN, they are not holding back in terms of promotion. They had SportsCenter at 6:00 last week with Joe Tessitore in studio with Kevin Negandhi to preview Wrestlepalooza. Last night on Monday Night Football, Joe Buck read a promo for Wrestlepalooza. Chris Fowler read a promo in the second game, the Chargers-Raiders game, for Wrestlepalooza.”

With ESPN giving the show major promotion, Rollins sees this as a chance not only to entertain fans but also to show that WWE superstars are top-level athletes and performers. So we’ll have to see how the partnership turns out in the end.

Please credit Ringside News if you use the above transcript in your publication.