Seth Rollins Should Not Be Held Accountable for Sagging TV Ratings

At a time when WWE's television ratings are sagging, per Wrestling Observer (h/t CagesideSeats.com), it is only natural that the company would take a look at its shows and try to assign blame for an audience that has reached a low of 3.19 million viewers.

As the one man that appears consistently over the course of every three-hour episode of Raw, and is routinely part of SmackDown, Seth Rollins would seem to be the target of said blame.

But should he be? Should the lead heel in WWE, the character the shows are built around, be the one who assumes criticism for nearly record-low ratings?

In short, no.

Instead of so desperately searching for someone to blame for their ratings shortcomings, management and the Creative team should take responsibility for their own inability to craft an entertaining show that fans want to watch.

Truth be told, Rollins has been one of the few saving graces of WWE programming over the last year. Has he been overexposed? Absolutely. Has he been booked so questionably that it has drawn harsh criticism from fans questioning exactly what the endgame is with him? Of course.

But the man behind the character has taken everything given to him by Creative and done everything in his power to make the best of it.

He has proven adept at playing the cowardly heel, the cerebral and dangerous villain and the arrogant champion. It is not his fault that, on any given week, WWE's crack writing staff may opt to focus on one of those elements at the expense of the others. Their inability or unwillingness to book Rollins more consistently should not lead to the condemnation of the performer.

From an in-ring perspective, few have worked as hard or as often to deliver the best wrestling possible than Rollins. His schedule has been insane, one of only a handful of stars expected to play key roles on both Raw and SmackDown, yet that has not hurt the quality of his performances between the ropes.

He has proven capable of delivering fantastic performances against a variety of performers. Whether he shares the ring with Neville and Ryback or Dolph Ziggler and John Cena, Rollins has earned the trust of fans who believe he is every bit as good as his character professes.

The problem with WWE's television ratings has little to do with Seth Rollins.

Over the last two or three years, the company has done such a poor job of creating compelling characters and stories that it has driven away fans who tune in specifically for those two elements. There are few personas fans can legitimately invest themselves in emotionally, and the lack of interesting stories leaves the audience walking away unsatisfied.

The most intriguing characters on the show are those part-time performers the company leans so heavily on to help bring back viewers in time for WrestleMania and SummerSlam.

Brock Lesnar and advocate Paul Heyman are, arguably, the best characters on WWE programming thanks to their simplicity. Heyman is that yapping dog who talks up his client, and Lesnar is the wrecking ball that smashes fools stupid enough to oppose him.

No other character on the show approaches the popularity of that act right now, and the fact that WWE has not been able to maintain the momentum of the NXT competitors as they are called up to the main roster does not help matters.

If the company spent the same amount of effort and energy fixing what is broken rather than finding someone to blame, both Raw and SmackDown would improve exponentially and even become destination viewing once again.

Rollins is not the problem. If anything, his own credibility has been hurt by his willingness to go along with whatever the writing team comes up with.

It is, instead, WWE Creative's willingness to be mediocre, and Vince McMahon's reluctance to change the infrastructure of the team, that should shoulder the blame.