Welcome, reader, to week 11 of my year-long WWE characterisation project. Quick recap – in this series, each week I read the characters of Seth Rollins and Jade Cargill. I offer ‘cold’ analysis based on what’s presented to us on-screen, plus any relevant paratexts, such as social media. In doing this, I try to avoid pro-wrestling fandom traits of fantasy booking and criticism of booking decisions. I am solely interested in the different ways character is presented to us, and how character arcs emerge.
Seth Rollins – Raw
On this week’s Raw, with the Vision “behind Rollins”, how will his character evolve from the collectivist and penitent tendencies that culminated in professional success at Night of Champions?
Rollins not only interrupts World Champion Roman Reigns before he can speak, but his usual call-and-response ritual with the crowd is also more muted than usual, clarifying the character’s seriousness. Rollins’ promo quickly displays my focus this week – how history, competition and opportunity combine.
After calling Reigns “brother”, Rollins says:
“for everything you’ve done, you owe me. For everything that you are, I own you.”
I want to let this line stand on its own, to highlight the poetic balance, the repetition of not just words, but syntax. Rollins artfully mirrors the past with the present in the first clauses (you’ve done / you are), and debt with ownership in the second (you owe me / I own you). While the first sentence lands on the first person (me – Rollins), the second lands on the second person (you – Reigns). This reversal in subject, but repetition in syntax draws attention to the climax of the statement – the idea of ownership, as in competitive advantage. Rollins has Reigns’ number in the ring. It also mirrors the nature of a promo exchange – ending on ‘you’ implies Reigns must eventually respond. And, as a whole, this poetic structure elevates the importance of Reigns and Rollins’ history.
Rollins continues, “I have owned you since the day I put a steel chair in your back… and ended the Shield.” Note, that within this language of competition, the redemptive Rollins we’ve seen in previous weeks is lost. His historic act of betrayal is no longer a sign of character defect, but is rewritten as gaining a competitive advantage. Likewise, “I took your main event.” What we’re seeing here is a narrative of history and competition putting Rollins at an advantage. Rollins uses this plus a gesture towards their retirements – “I’m going to be real with all you right now … this may be your last chance to close this loop” – to suggest opportunity for Reigns. At the same time, he’s downplaying his own goal, to reclaim the World Title. In other words, on one level he is emotionally manipulating Reigns; on another, there’s a transactional language of mutual opportunity at play. This is a shift from Rollins’ redemptive arc in previous weeks – at the core of Rollins’ character still remains that competitive, ultimately individualist, desire.
Credit: WWE
Jade Cargill – SmackDown
This week, Cargill competes in a six-woman tag team match. She gains the pinfall in this bout via underhand tactics plus physical dominance. There’s little new to analyse here, so I wanted to discuss the topic of repetition. In literature, a relatively common structure is to set a narrative pattern and repeat it while escalating it, until this pattern can be escalated no further, and the story must end. To offer a slightly lame example, Jeff eats ten of the same thing every day – first ten anchovies, then ten potatoes, then ten steaks, then ten full cows, and eventually, well, he makes himself extremely ill and dies, and the reader learns something about, say, greed. But in Cargill’s case, there’s no evidence of escalation, just repetition. Still, this repetition suggests a pattern that must be broken. Without escalation, the narrative may not eat itself, meaning Cargill’s Achilles’ heel may not bring her down alone. Instead, it may need a decisive outside force to break the pattern – a heroic babyface. In the weeks that follow, will Charlotte Flair be the one to humble Cargill, and force her to question her inner self?
Work Shoot Confessional 
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