WWE’s Seth Rollins has addressed the passing of PAC (Benjamin Satterley), reflecting on his legacy in pro wrestling and his memories of their friendship.

On September 27 the wrestling world was rocked by the news that Benjamin Satterley – known as PAC in AEW and Neville in WWE – had passed away suddenly at the age of 40, with his cause of death later ruled to be bronchial asthma.

Tributes poured in for “The Man That Gravity Forgot” from all corners of the wrestling world, with AEW hosting a special episode of AEW Dynamite dedicated to his memory on Wednesday, September 30 and WWE posting a video to their official YouTube channel featuring some of PAC’s former colleagues and friends sharing their memories of the late star.

One of PAC’s former opponents in WWE, Seth Rollins, was not one of those who had the opportunity to speak about PAC in that video, but now – in a new interview with TJ Jefferson – he has spoken about what PAC meant to him as a professional wrestler and as a friend.

Rollins said:

“This is the first time that I’ve kind of talked to anybody about Ben on camera at all. It’s hard to really put into a concise statement what sort of person he was. I think that’s the place that I always start. He was just an awesome dude.

“He was so funny and so unique, but he was also super loyal and he was down to earth. He was kind of just one of those people that – and I don’t know if he knew this or not – a lot of us who were his friends – at least speaking for myself – we looked up to Ben. We admired him, I think because he was so incredible at what he did in the ring but he was also so humble about that part of his life and the way he treated people with kindness and love, there was a warmth about him. He was just an awesome dude.

“I’ve known him for – I met him, I want to say it was 2007. We were in Europe, it was my first time in Europe and I was on this tour, maybe Germany or Austria, or somewhere in that neighbourhood – I saw him wrestle for the first time and I was blown away. This was 2007 so I would have been 21, and I remember thinking I’m an athletic guy right? And then I saw Ben and I was like ‘Oh, okay I got to figure something else out because I’m never going to be able to move the way he moves.’

“He was such a unique person but he was also just a great human, like top to bottom fantastic. And I hope his legacy in the wrestling world would be one thing, but his legacy amongst the people that loved him and knew him was just that he was an awesome, awesome human being.

“And my heart goes out to his family, his parents and his wife who are everything to him. A lot of people who make it big in the States like he did they move and they stay here permanently, but his home was Newcastle. That’s just where his heart was. And I think him moving back there and wanting to be there kind of said everything in one little piece about who he was and what was important to him in life.”

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Rollins would then reflect on his match with PAC (then Neville) on the August 3, 2015 episode of WWE Raw – which saw Rollins defend his World Heavyweight Championship against the recently called up former NXT Champion – as well as the famous near fall towards the end, which saw PAC come close to pulling off one of the biggest upsets in WWE history.

Crediting Triple H with coming up with the idea for that spot in particular, Rollins said:

“I remember Ben, he had gotten called up from NXT – he had a great run in NXT, kind of put that brand on the map – and everybody was kind of waiting like ‘When’s he gonna get called up?’ Because he was a world champion down there, he had lost the title and the writing was on the wall, like ‘When’s he gonna get called up? What’s gonna be his position? When’s it gonna happen?’

“So he gets called up and I remember very early on we got this opportunity to have this match and it was Triple H who had given me the go ahead like ‘Hey, this is what we want to do with Ben, with Neville.’ I was so excited to have a match with him on Monday Night Raw – someone that I admired his work but we had never actually been in the ring together in a singles match so I was really excited to get the opportunity.

“I was in a place where I was a world champion so I had an opportunity to really give him a platform to show the world like ‘Hey, how awesome is this guy?’ And so I remember being excited to put the thing together and to just give everything I could to him so that the world would know this guy’s the best wrestler on the planet, I want everybody to see that.

“We put the match together with that structure in mind, obviously knowing what we were gonna do at the end of it. I didn’t think it was gonna be as good as it was. I can’t take sole credit for the idea, the idea actually came from Triple H himself to do the Red Arrow and then on the cover for Ben to pull my foot onto the rope. Obviously the execution was really important and I think we nailed it, but the idea was from Triple H and he believed in Ben as much as all of us did and he wanted to make sure that it looked like he was on the level that we all knew he was, but we wanted the audience to get that experience as well.

“It’s one of those things, there’s not very many moments on Monday Night Raw that continue to get replayed and live in social media meme form or people’s memories for years and years and years; that’s one of those that every 12 months, 18 months, it starts to come back up. I’ll remember that time, it was a really awesome moment and I was happy to be in there and share the ring with Ben. I think hopefully it helped a new audience experience him.

“Obviously what he ended up becoming in AEW with PAC and his success globally even after he left WWE, I hope what we did that night was something that maybe opened some eyes to how great he really was.”

If you use this transcription or any portion of it please credit WrestleTalk.com and link to this page.

Readers can view highlights of the aforementioned Rollins vs. PAC match – and it’s famous near fall – below this story.

We continue to express our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Benjamin Satterley.