Sierra. Hotel. India. Echo. Lima. Delta. Shield.
We supposedly heard these words for the last time on Sunday. Due to Dean Ambrose leaving at the end of April, Dean, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns teamed up for the last time, defeating Baron Corbin, Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley. After debuting at Survivor Series in 2012, the trio ran riot for almost two years, before breaking up and then reuniting several times before Ambrose decided to leave. With the Shield supposedly never getting back together, its time to ask: Are The Shield the greatest faction in WWE history?
They came along at a really critical time for WWE. The product had started to go stale, and fans were starting to turn off, so when three young stars from NXT injected themselves into the main event, it was a breath of fresh air for everyone. The possibilities were endless. As a result, there was a lot of pressure on Reigns, Rollins and Ambrose in their debut, a TLC match against Kane, Daniel Bryan and Ryback. Thankfully, the trio more than delivered, easily putting on the match of the night. Reigns in particular looked great, considering out of the six men, he was perhaps the most inexperienced. They continued to carve a path of destruction throughout RAW and Smackdown, attacking a host of superstars past and present, including Ric Flair, Tommy Dreamer, Randy Orton and a whole host of others. The fans loved it. Despite being heels, they were the hottest thing in wrestling at this point, and the fans loved them.
In my opinion, WWE missed a trick by not having any of them enter the 2013 Royal Rumble. They didn’t have to win, but a strong showing from them would have further emphasised just how dangerous they were. Thankfully, they did show up on the night, attacking The Rock during his match with CM Punk, although Punk did eventually lose.
2013 was a fantastic year for The Shield. They won their first championships at Extreme Rules, when Dean Ambrose won the United States Championship and Reigns and Rollins won the Tag Team Championships. They had an amazing feud with Cody Rhodes and Goldust and were undefeated for months, eventually losing an 11 on 3 handicap match to Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler and The Usos. They also became the muscle for The Authority, becoming a regular thorn in Daniel Bryan’s side. They had had one of the best debut years in WWE history. They looked dominant, were good wrestlers and had almost unlimited potential.
Towards the back end of the year they started to show cracks amongst The Shield, which back then seemed stupid but with the benefit of hindsight was a genius move. It allowed them to show off their often-underrated mic skills, and almost made them seem more human. They eventually reconciled but the seeds had been planted which, just a few months later, would come to fruition.
Their face turn at the beginning of 2014 was risky. Did they have the ability to connect with the fans and make them root for The Shield? Thankfully, they did, and they had one of the matches of the year with The Wyatt Family. Despite losing, they looked stronger in defeat, with Reigns again putting on a match-stealing performance. After quickly deposing of Kane and The New Age Outlaws at Wrestlemania, they turned their attention to Triple H, who had to reform Evolution with Randy Orton and Batista in order to combat them. They had one of the feuds of the year, with The Shield beating Evolution at two successive PPVs. First at Extreme Rules in a chaotic 6-man tag match, and then at Payback in a 6 Man No Holds Barred Elimination match, in which Reigns, Rollins and Ambrose performed a clean sweep on Evolution.
However, The Shield ended the next night on RAW. Seth Rollins shockingly turned on Reigns and Ambrose, seemingly ending The Shield for good. They would reunite twice, in 2017 and in 2018, but both times it had to be cut short. Ambrose got injured in 2017, and then Reigns announced he had leukaemia in 2018. Now it seems as though The Shield is over for good.
But is all this enough to consider them the greatest faction in WWE history?
In my opinion, it comes down to personal preference. There will be people who think that DX is the best faction in WWE history. For some it’s Evolution. For a lot of younger fans, its either The Shield or The New Day. For all their many faults, WWE have always been rather good at factions and a lot of their best stars have started in factions (Rock, HHH, Orton, Batista and Reigns to name a few).
Personally, The Shield are just pipped to the greatest faction ever by DX for me. The impact they had has not been seen since in WWE. The Shield, for all their many qualities, weren’t as good at the out of the ring stuff as DX were. Plus, DX were one of the reasons why WWE won the Monday Night Wars against WCW. If it was just down to in-ring action, then I’d put The Shield at number one. But for me, D-Generation X are the greatest faction in WWE history.
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