Seth Rollins injury: WWE World Heavyweight Champion to vacate title, out for up to nine months

The 29-year-old was injured in Ireland

Seth Rollins was injured in Ireland (WWE)

WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins has suffered serious injuries during a bout in Dublin and will be unable to defend his world leading status.

“We were in Dublin, Ireland, first night of the tour and I was in the main event. I was setting up to do something I’ve done a million times — flipping over my opponent while he was standing on the second [rope],” Rollins told WWE.com. “I landed underneath him and then picked him up for a powerbomb. And for whatever reason, I just landed on the inside of my right foot, instead of flat with my feet and my knee gave.

“If you’ve seen the video, you know it looks pretty graphic. It didn’t feel as graphic though. It just felt like my knee dislocated and then kind of popped back in. So, I hustled back up and got underneath, made sure my feet were steady and delivered the Powerbomb.

“Then, I did a self-evaluation real quick to see what was going on. I realized my knee was pretty unstable and noticed that it felt like it was flopping around. I didn’t feel like I had a lot of control under it. I was able to move around enough to finish the match, hit a Pedigree and get the win.

“Afterwards, I just laid there and [tried to] figure out what was going on. Again, I wasn’t in a whole bunch of pain, I just felt like my knee wasn’t right. I wasn’t really sure of the extent of the damage until the next morning when I got the MRI.”

As a result of being unable to defend his title against Roman Reigns at the upcoming Survivor Series, a tournament to determine a new champion will instead take place at the event, it was reported.

Seth Rollins holds up his WWE World Heavyweight title (WWE)

As first reported on Twitter by ESPN, Rollins suffered the injury at a WWE Live Event in Dublin on Wednesday evening.

He is expected to miss six to nine months of action because of the injuries to his ACL, MCL and medial meniscus, WWE.Com reported.