Seth Rollins On Brodie Lee: “He Was A Hero To Me”
After news of Brodie Lee's passing shocked the wrestling community, many fans and athletes joined forces to pay homage to "The Exalted One." For Seth Rollins, he created a CrossFit routine that incorporated similar workouts he and Lee used to do together. During his interview on WWE's The Bump, Rollins reflected on Lee's admirable qualities he possessed both in and out of the ring and how Lee's passing made him adjust his outlook on life.
"Oh, wow, I wasn't expecting to talk about Brodie at all. That one hit me really hard," Seth Rollins said with ruefulness in his voice. "I was kind of away being a dad when his passing came through; sudden would be an understatement – untimely, to say the least. His family, I love them, and I loved him. I enjoyed every single second I got to spend with Brodie.
"Yeah, we made a workout in his honor. CrossFit has a history of, you know, creating workouts in honor of heroes, and Brodie was a hero to me, especially as a new dad. We created the workout with some of the things he really liked, which were heavy deadlifts. He liked sitting on a bike, and I think we added some pushups in there as well because he was a big body guy. Despite him, I put in one burpee in there because I knew that would get under his skin 'cause he hated burpees a lot!"
Since his wrestling school, Black and Brave launched several years ago, Rollins inspirited many of his trainees to become the next big stars. A prime example would be 22-year-old Ben Carter, who's currently tearing it up with an undefeated streak on WWE NXT UK every Thursday. The panel asked Rollins to describe his thoughts on Carter signing with WWE and what other astonishments fans can expect from his trainees.
"Oh, it's great, man! I'm so proud of him," he exclaimed. "And how quick it happened for him as far as getting signed and coming on the scene in NXT UK just making a huge impact right out of the gate is extremely impressive. I spent two years in WWE developmental before I even had a chance to do something like that. So, it's really impressive to see. I'm so proud of him.
"That's just the tip of the iceberg. We've been running our school for 6-7 years, and we have graduates who are just right there on the cusp, so you're going to see a lot of them in the independents as well. But man, I've got a lot of talented men and women here, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they can do in the future."
You can watch Seth Rollins' full interview here. If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit WWE's The Bump with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.