How Seth Rollins pulled off the biggest injury ruse in WWE history

FIVE MINUTES, 10 SECONDS.

That's how long CM Punk held the WWE World Heavyweight Championship on Aug. 2 at SummerSlam after defeating Gunther.

During Punk's celebration, Seth Rollins emerged on the entrance ramp on crutches alongside his manager, Paul Heyman. For a moment, it appeared that Rollins was sending a warning shot to his rival to watch his back. But as Rollins turned to make his exit, he paused to add to the drama.

"Honestly, I didn't know how the crowd was going to take what I would consider a double moment," Rollins told ESPN. "When you hear the music of the guy who's got the Money in the Bank briefcase, your immediate reaction is, 'Here comes the cash-in.' But when you see somebody come out on crutches, you wonder what's happening and if we're setting up for something down the road."

With his back turned to the audience, Rollins dropped the crutches, which fell perfectly at his sides. He swiftly removed the knee brace and ran to the ring to the deafening roar from a surprised 53,161 fans at MetLife Stadium who realized what was happening.

The "Ruse of the Century" was complete. Rollins cashed in on Punk to reclaim the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

A decade and multiple world championships since his first memorable Money in the Bank cash-in at WrestleMania 31, Rollins had done it again.

This time, however, he raised the bar by fooling the audience, family and WWE colleagues into thinking he was dealing with a serious knee injury.

"When you have the greatest cash-in of all time, it's pretty hard to follow that up," Rollins told ESPN ahead of his intergender tag team match with wife Becky Lynch against CM Punk and AJ Lee at Wrestlepalooza in Indianapolis on Saturday. "Following myself up was my biggest concern. I had to find a way to do it differently, still create a huge moment but be able to separate the two in a way and make them equal."

At WrestleMania 31 in 2015, Rollins pulled off what has been called the "Heist of the Century" when he cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase during the main event match between Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar. The one-on-one match at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, became an impromptu triple-threat match and Rollins would win his first WWE World Heavyweight Championship to close the show in stunning fashion.

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Seth Rollins relives winning championship at WrestleMania 31

WWE superstar Seth Rollins looks back on the moment he cashed in his Money in the Bank contract and won the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania.

To one-up that moment, Rollins faked a knee injury during a televised live event and fully committed to being sidelined to later shock the wrestling world three weeks later when he made his return.

"Seth had already been so good for so long, but what do you do to go up another level when you're already that good," Hot 97 and WWE personality Peter Rosenberg told ESPN. "And the second [he pulled off this ruse], I was like, 'He did it.'"

NORMALLY, A FAKE injury angle takes place off-screen and the deception is short-lived. But for this to work, Rollins had to make the injury look like a real-life accident and commit to the hoax full time over the next several weeks, wearing a knee brace and always using crutches.

Rollins has dealt with a history of injuries, most notably a torn ACL, MCL and medial meniscus in his right knee in 2015 that forced him to vacate his first world title reign and sidelined him for six months. His injury history made the idea of this plausible and, if done correctly, would deliver a monumental payoff.

"When I was approached with the initial idea for the injury about a month or so in advance, I wondered if we should go in this direction," Rollins said. "It quickly became apparent to me that it needed full commitment. And if everybody involved was able to commit fully, it would become an epic moment."

According to Rollins, fewer than 10 people were aware of the angle, and everyone involved had to be tight-lipped. The first person who needed to buy into the ruse fully was Rollins' wife, fellow WWE Superstar and Women's Intercontinental Champion Becky Lynch.

"I can't lie to save my life," Lynch told ESPN. "So, when everybody, including my manager and other wrestlers, asked how he was doing after the injury, I became a twitchy weirdo. I was stumbling off my words and not finishing full sentences. His dad, aunts and uncles were texting me, all of our friends and colleagues were wishing him well and I tried not to lie. But then they'd give me follow-up questions about if he was having surgery and had he gone for an MRI. It became very difficult and, honestly, I did not like it."

The first act in pulling this off was Rollins' "Saturday Night's Main Event" match against LA Knight on July 12 in Atlanta, where Rollins faked the injury when he appeared to land awkwardly during a moonsault attempt. Rollins immediately fell to the canvas and communicated to the referee that he was injured. Knight had to improvise and hit his BFT finisher awkwardly to pin Rollins for an abrupt conclusion that fooled just about everyone watching, including people who worked for WWE.

"The way the match ended cemented it for me," said Rosenberg, who routinely works the WWE postshow. "That made it look even more solid to me because no part of me thought that Seth Rollins was supposed to lose to LA Knight in that spot."

The ruse was off and running.

"The way I injured myself was something I came up with on the day of and felt like it needed to be something benign and not obvious because that tends to be how injuries happen," Rollins said. "Obviously, I've had trouble with my knees in the past and so I felt like the knee was the obvious way to go. I've had real injuries before and know exactly what I would do in those situations.

"All you really need is to get people to ask ['Is it real?']. If you can get a good portion of the audience to wonder what they're seeing, that's the magic of professional wrestling. A fake injury isn't new in our business, but this was a new way to do it."

Rollins had to take it a step further to continue the ruse and carried out a previously scheduled appearance on "The Rich Eisen Show," where he was set to fill in for Eisen as the host four days later on July 16.

"I reached out to see if he was going to appear and the initial reaction was like 'Absolutely, he's going to do this,'" Eisen said on his show following SummerSlam on Aug. 4 after figuring out he was used as part of the ruse. "I asked if he didn't mind sharing an update on what's going on with his knee. He said absolutely, and I said that's great, he's a pro."

Little did Eisen know that his show would play a significant role in convincing everyone that Rollins had suffered a debilitating injury.

Rollins used the appearance to address the injury, which further validated its credibility.

He appeared on the July 16 show and went into detail about the injury, stating that he traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, to meet with medical specialists where it was determined his knee was "a little too swollen" for a proper diagnosis and that he would be out for an "extended period of time." The clip turned out to be the No. 1-watched video on "The Rich Eisen Show" YouTube page for July and had drawn the entire sports world into Rollins' ploy.

"I saw it as a perfect opportunity to be able to chase this narrative," Rollins said. "If I was really hurt, I probably would still do it because it's such a big opportunity. I had to really crutch around his facility and fool his whole team into thinking that I was hurt. Rich had no idea. He texted my manager the night that it happened because he thought I was going to pull out. He was very thankful that I still wanted to do it so he could go take his vacation. They didn't have to make alternate plans."

The scheme extended to their home life, where Rollins and Lynch had to bring their 4-year-old daughter, Roux, in on the hoax. However, it nearly backfired because Roux wanted to let people in on the family game.

"Well, she didn't keep it a secret," Lynch said. "She went to her teacher at school and told her, 'My dad has a boo-boo, but it's only pretend.' Thankfully, Ms. Joy was tight-lipped about the whole thing. [Rollins] would go to [Roux's] friends' birthday parties in full gimmick, which left us wondering if people were going to ask and if she would say anything. But she kind of forgot about it and didn't say anything."

THE COUPLE MANAGED to keep the ploy under wraps until the weekend of SummerSlam, where their plan would finally be unveiled. However, they still had to navigate the New York area without tipping their hand. It made sense that Rollins would be in town for his wife's match. However, Lynch's title defense against Lyra Valkyria was scheduled for Night 2 and Rollins had to be present for Night 1, which led to the couple having to keep up the charade just a little longer.

"I got a call from my manager, who represents both Rollins and Lynch, and he asked if I wanted to go to dinner with them," Rosenberg said. "We met at an Italian restaurant in New Jersey and in walks Seth on crutches and it takes a minute for him to sit down. It never crossed my mind he wasn't hurt. People found out that we were at the restaurant and pictures were taken. There are definitely photos of fans with Seth the night before SummerSlam and he's on crutches."

The day of the match, Rollins had to be sneaked into MetLife Stadium, where he hid on a bus for hours until it was time for the big reveal.

"The day of was brutal, man," Rollins said. "When you're on the bus, it feels like you're detached from the event. There's something going on outside, but it doesn't really feel like you're a part of it. You don't feel the energy and the buildup and the anticipation. It's just you and the bus. So I drank a lot of coffee, played a lot of video games, talked with my producers and some of the top creative in the company who was aware of what was going on, and that was it. Hung out with my wife."

The time finally came when CM Punk defeated Gunther for the World Heavyweight Championship in a grueling match that saw Punk finally get his hands -- albeit briefly -- on a WWE world championship for the first time since 2013.

Rollins and Punk have had a long-running feud in and out of the ring that has kept fans wondering if there truly is bad blood between the two. On this night, the rivalry's intensity ratcheted up.

"I didn't know we were in really good shape [with the ruse] until I stopped on the ramp," Rollins said. "I stopped for quite a while and then I kind of could hear almost like a calm, a quietness hit. I was like, 'OK, I think we're good.' And then everything came off really smooth after that. The crutches dropped perfectly. The jacket came off without a hitch. The pass between me and Heyman was great, and I didn't trip on the run down the ramp. These knee braces came off Forrest Gump style. No rehearsal and everything went as smoothly as you could ask for."

Rollins beat Punk down with the briefcase before cashing in, hitting his Curb Stomp finisher. The feud with Punk will continue Saturday in the family feud tag match, but, as of today, his rival was on the receiving end of one of the greatest professional wrestling stunts of all time.

"It was a master class," Lynch said. "Whatever way you want to rank it, my husband's cash-ins at WrestleMania and SummerSlam are No. 1 and 2. But everything we do, we do it as the greatest pro wrestling couple of all time. If you try to dispute that, you're an idiot."