*Hi friends and Happy Shield Day! I found this old article in my drafts and decided to clean it up! Plus, the boys are all doing amazing things right now.*
Sierra. Hotel. India. Echo. Lima. Delta. Shield!
From their debut at Survivor Series 2012 until their breakup in the summer of 2014, The Shield were a dominant force in WWE. As soon as the phonetic alphabet started to play in the arena, fans excitedly looked around, eager to catch a glimpse of the Hounds of Justice surveying their surroundings before descending the stairs down to the ring. When Seth betrayed his brothers to join the Authority, the WWE Universe was heartbroken. After the chair shot heard around the world, fans delighted in the matches between Rollins and his brothers. And sure these matches were awesome, but there was always one match in the back of the minds of the fans: the triple threat. It had to happen. All three brothers were stars. All three brothers had been World Heavyweight Champion. At some point or another, their worlds were bound to collide again.
And collide they did. At Battleground 2016.
Now to their credit, WWE did do a fantastic job hyping up The Shield’s triple threat match. It was built as the centerpiece of the pay-per-view. Multiple video packages aired, showing the trio’s history and driving home their brotherhood. This was it, a culmination of the past two years of animosity finally blowing off in a triple threat match.
Only one thing stood in the way of this match: the brand split. Happening shortly before the Battleground pay-per-view, the brand split separated the Shield members. Dean Ambrose, holding the title at the time, was drafted to Smackdown Live while Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns, serving a 30-day suspension, were drafted to Raw. This meant that whomever won the title at the pay-per-view would be taking it back to his respective brand. With another set up, this would’ve been a fine added implication to this match. However, it damaged what was being presented as a feud blow-off match.
As the brand split took center stage in the triple threat match for the title, it began to feel as if Seth, Dean, and Roman’s brotherhood battle had fallen into the background. It went from being about the storied history of the Shield to playing into the petty brand politics of the McMahon siblings and their brand general managers. They even came to sit ringside during the match, pulling even more attention away from the atmosphere.
The match itself was okay, though it was over a bit too quickly. Roman took the pin, possibly a final jab from management for getting suspended. Dean left with his title reign intact, officially claiming the Heavyweight Title for Smackdown Live. Commissioner Shane and then-general manager Daniel Bryan rushed into the ring to congratulate him and the backstage cameras showed the rest of the roster celebrating his title win.
The Shield triple threat should have been a show-stealing match, the type of feud-ending fight that puts a bow on the metaphorical present. Instead, it played second-fiddle to a sibling war. What could have been an amazing match in the Shield’s anthology was ultimately failed by the brand split’s bad timing.
