Seth Rollins Wants to Return to Ring Before WWE WrestleMania 40 amid Injury Rehab

WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins is recovering from a torn MCL, but he has made it his goal to be back in the ring well before WrestleMania 40 on April 6-7.

"I don't want to walk into WrestleMania and that be my first match in two months, three months, whatever it is," Rollins told Daniel Cormier on DC & RC (h/t Colin Tessier of Wrestle Zone). "That's not gonna be good for me. I wanna be able to get back in there, kind of test the wheel out and make sure that we're in a good place. So we'll see how it goes, but I'm taking it day by day, and I'm happy that we dodged a bullet and it wasn't anything too serious that was gonna put me on the shelf for six to nine months."

Rollins announced during this week's episode of Monday Night Raw that he will be sidelined amid his injury recovery, but he made it clear that he intends to be back by WrestleMania.

In addition to the torn MCL, Rollins also suffered a partially torn meniscus. While speaking to Cormier, he expressed confidence in being able to return to action sooner than prognosticators would expect.

"The MCL will heal with time. We'll get in there, we'll do some stuff, we'll check out the PRP and do some rehab. I'm hoping to be back at full strength in around a month," Rollins said. "Around a month is kind of my timeline, and we'll see what happens. We're gonna take it day to day. I'd like to be back in a month."

Recent reports have suggested that WWE's plans for WrestleMania 40 have not changed despite Rollins' injury, and he's still expected to defend his title against CM Punk, assuming Punk wins the men's Royal Rumble match at Saturday's premium live event. Rollins explained what it means to him to be a world title holder heading into the company's biggest show of the year.

"WrestleMania is obviously, that's the one, you know. You want to do everything you can to get ready for that show. This WrestleMania, this year especially, 40 years, it's gonna be huge. I've never carried a world title into WrestleMania," he said. "I've never even been the world champion during a Royal Rumble, so this weekend myself is especially important to me because I'm a prize, myself and Roman Reigns, we're a prize for the first time ever. Often I've been in the Rumble, I've been one of the guys trying to get to that spot. But I've never been on the other side of it. So it feels very cool, in a way, to be on the sidelines."

Rollins went on to add that he has a long road ahead as he continues his recovery, but he's thankful that his injuries weren't worse.

"With that said, yeah, rehab's gonna be a pain," he said. "But dodged a bullet, the ACL is intact. So anybody who knows anything about ligaments, the ACL's a big one, that one is good."