Seth Rollins shocked the pro wrestling world (or at least most of it) on Saturday when he revealed his reported knee injury wasn’t real. Despite most being under the belief he was legitimately injured, Rollins shed his crutches and leg brace before cashing in his “Money in the Bank” briefcase on CM Punk to win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in the closing moments of SummerSlam.
If it were up to Bill Simmons, the “Ruse of the Century” wouldn’t just be limited to the squared circle.
On Monday’s episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, The Ringer founder discussed the stunt, which saw Rollins fake an injury during a match at WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event in July with initial reports indicating that he would miss an extended period time to recover before he made his stunning return on Saturday. Echoing a sentiment he shared on social media following Saturday night’s SummerSlam, Simmons stated that he’d love for professional athletes to have the ability to perform the same stunt.
“It was the best injury swerve I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said. “And it made me think, I just wish this could happen in other sports.”
Seth Rollins just pulled off my favorite wrestling ploy – the long-play injury ruse — to steal the not-the-biggest title from Punk. We really need an NBA star to try this in the playoffs.
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) August 3, 2025
Simmons said that his social media post elicited several replies regarding Paul Pierce’s infamous wheelchair scene in 2008, to which the diehard Celtics fan admitted he didn’t have a comeback for. He also said that while some football teams do get creative with their injury reports in order to maintain competitive advantages, his preference would be for it to happen in a more dramatic fashion.
“It would be great if somebody was just supposed to miss the game and then all of a sudden showed up,” he said. “Like some playoff game. It’s like, ‘Josh Allen, he’s out, he’s been scratched, he’s gonna be the third quarterback.’ And then he just runs out a hundred percent healthy and just f*cks with the other team.”
Obviously, there’s a reason why professional leagues have rules in place against these practices and it isn’t hard to imagine a major gambling scandal arising from such a situation. Then again, if sports are just entertainment, it would be tough to argue against the potential for Josh Allen to show up at a game on crutches, only to ditch them in dramatic fashion.
In that case, why stop there? Let’s introduce an NFL version of the Money in the Bank briefcase — which gives wrestlers the ability to get a championship match at a moment’s notice — while we’re at it.
