WWE's Handling of The Shield After The Breakup Is An Injustice
The one injustice The Shield can't fix...
I remember The Shield aka the Hounds of Justice. Three "brothers" dressed in all black fighting to correct the injustices in the WWE.
They debuted at the 2012 Survivor Series as hired mercenaries for CM Punk. An insurance policy to help Punk maintain his reign as WWE Champion, before moving on to become a dominant force in the WWE running through any and everyone on the roster and even being an asset to The Authority.
I remember marking out when ever I heard Sierra, Hotel, Indigo, Echo, Delta and watch anxiously as the camera would pan to find where The Shield would appear in the crowd to make their way to the ring. I remember agreeing with their claims of injustices ie John Cena and The Rock. I remember caring.
First and foremost, I'm still not and wasn't at the time opposed to The Shield breaking up. They had a good run, held tag team titles, booked to look strong and had a badass entrance through the crowd. Plus who could forget Dean Ambrose's epic record breaking run as the United States Champ defending his title as much as Brock Lesnar as of late.
I enjoyed the teasing of the break up earlier this year (with Rollins being the peacemaker), their match of the year candidate with the Wyatts at Elimination Chamber in February, (though it was followed by a squash match at Wrestlemania against the New Age Outlaws and Kane) and their feud with Evolution (Triple H, Batista, and Randy Orton) was pretty entertaining as well.
But after their second match at the Payback PPV in June against Evolution, Triple H's "Plan B" to destroy The Shield found Rollins turning on his "brothers" to join The Authority.
Rollins went on to win Money in the Bank (MITB), and began feuding with Ambrose. Soon after Ambrose was written off TV to do what WWE calls movies and everyone else calls "why bother(s)" after SummerSlam in August and then Reigns realizing that he too was upset by Rollins actions got in the mix before he was sidelined due to an injury.
Luckily Ambrose was back to seek revenge on Rollins. In their Hell in a Cell match in October Bray Wyatt interference helped Rollins get the victory and Ambrose lose focus since now he and Wyatt have been feuding ever since, (next Monday they will have an Ambulance Match, can't wait to not watch that).
While The Shield was together everyone's relationship to each other was equal, meaning both Reigns and Ambrose wanted a piece of Rollins (though Reigns took a little longer to want his piece) instead of one feeling more hurt than the other. So Rollins has to fight both, but who cares? Rollins is a heel and going through two guys is usually helped when the one guy is face and the two guys he has to go through are heels. Instead of one man turning on two, it should have been two turning on one.
At the beginning of this breakup, Rollins turn was fueled by wanting to destroy his own creation to move up the WWE ladder. This prompted Ambrose to seek revenge and for Reigns to seek revenge as well.. wait no that's right, instead of going after Rollins Reigns set his sights on Triple H and Randy Orton.
How I would have booked it...
If both Rollins and Ambrose turned on Reigns, Reigns would have benefited from going through not one but two former friends. The build up would have been better considering Ambrose and Rollins could always attack Reigns two on one during promos. In matches Reigns would always have to watch for his former "brother" outside of the ring. Ambrose and Rollins could have cut promos on how they used Reigns as just dumb muscle.
People would have cheered for Reigns to beat those odds and it would have set Reigns up better going into Wrestlemania with a storyline of just a year ago he was here with his brothers and he had to be at both men just to get back here.
Heck if everything played out like it has, Ambrose going to do a movie, and Reigns taking time off to nurse an injury, this would have helped Rollins and The Shield break up even more.
Ambrose comes back just in time to save Rollins from Reigns, they attack him and have him out for a couple of months. Right when they think they have everything under control Reigns returns to take on Ambrose first and then moving on to Rollins (since he is the owner of the MITB briefcase). WWE could either book Reigns to win the Royal Rumble or have the briefcase at stake during one of the Reigns vs Rollins match. Have Reigns go over and cash in whenever he wants.
Book Ambrose and Rollins like Triple H and Shawn Michaels in the early DX days. Their friends, but they aren't a tag team. This way both men could display their heelish ways in singles matches and come together whenever Reigns found a partner to team up.
Rollins excels as cocky leader and would push Ambrose to his "lunatic fringe," building in a point for Ambrose to ultimately turn on Rollins leaving him all alone.
The sad thing about fantasy booking is you will almost never get to see your dream realized. Instead you will get to see WWE dropped the ball and watch Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins battle it on the last Monday Night Raw of 2014. With little fanfare, no heads up and and ending that ruined an otherwise solid match despite the odds. What WWE did on Monday was set up a match between two former teammates with nothing at stake. Rollins win or lose was still going to hold the MITB briefcase, and Reigns still had a chance at the belt since he is going to be in the Royal Rumble. The commentary didn't care, WWE didn't care, and neither did I.
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