During an appearance on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast, Seth Rollins addressed the controversy over his speaking out to defend WWE on Twitter. Rollins earned a ton of ink after posting a series of tweets defending WWE as the “best pro wrestling on the planet” and dismissed WWE’s critics as “idiots with no clue.”

Highlights from the comments are below, as well as the podcast itself:

On why he spoke up on Twitter to defend WWE: “Well, I mean you can only sit back and read people bashing something you love for so long, and sit there and take it and try and take the high road so to speak. You know, I’m real proud of what I do every single week. And not just Mondays, but every single Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays. I’m real proud of what I do and what our crew does, and the effort we put forward. And I’m not just talking about just the wrestlers, the guys and girls you see out in the ring. I’m talking about everybody from creative all the way up to Vince McMahon. We put a ton of effort into making a product that I think is pretty darn good, considering the amount of content we put out there. And the fact that people want to sit on there on their soap boxes on their stupid social media machines and talk down about it really speaks volumes about the generation and where they’re at. I figured if someone is going to fight back, it might as well be me since I am the Champion and consider myself the top guy in our company.”

On if he’s speaking up for the rest of the talent too: “You know what, I hope that I speak for the other talent. I’ve got a lot of friends in the locker room who we’ve had conversations like this before. I feel like, I hope that I’m speaking up. I’ve had people come up and talk to me about it. You know, I had Roman Reigns hit me with a hard retweet and exclamation point the other night as well. And I just feel like, yeah man, it’s time to stop taking it in the gut. To hell with it. If people want to talk, let them talk but it’s time to fire back. I’m just sick of it, and I hope it’s a rallying cry, and I hope it is something that the rest of our talent feels they can speak out about it. If they feel the same way, they don’t have to take this quote-unquote high road all the time. Or if they want to let me be their voice, I’m fine with that too. I’ve sat back and I’ve seen it all and I’ve listened to it all. And look, I’m a thinker man. I think about this stuff. I put the stuff in my brain. I run through it, I wonder, ‘Maybe I’m out of touch? Maybe I’m wrong? Maybe I’m right?’ I don’t know. But at the end of the day, it’s not frustrations that’s boiling over, these are the conclusions I’ve come to. You know, after watching what I’ve seen from other companies and other people and what they say and what they do, there’s just no one else on the planet in entertainment who do what we do. They just, they don’t do it. You can talk about these other guys and other promotions who think they’re the best in the world or offer a superior product or whatever, but they do not run 500 live events a year. Five hundred plus live events a year. That’s top talent working over 150 matches a year on top of all the travel, on top of all the media, on top of all the training trying to stay in the best shape so we look like wrestlers, not some jabronis in gym shorts who get into a ring and do high spots. What we do, no one else does. The level that we work at constantly no one else works at. I dare anyone, anywhere, any other company in the planet to challenge me on that.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The Sports Illustrated Media Podcast with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.