10 Wrestling Face/Heel Turns That Shouldn't Have Worked (But Did)

Every great stable must come to an end eventually, and The Shield were no different. Sooner or later, one of Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns, or Seth Rollins would turn on his brothers, obliterating WWE's strongest modern faction, and sending all three off on successful single careers.

Most fans expected one of Ambrose or Reigns to pull the trigger. The former was electric as the group's leader, and someone WWE could've easily pushed as a smart, psychotic heel, while Reigns' power and presence lent him to a more brutish role. Rollins, meanwhile, was deemed too flashy and sympathetic to play the bad guy, and the thought of him being the one to stick the knife in his brothers' backs was almost unthinkable.

That's what made Seth's eventual betrayal so shocking. It was a perfect moment, and while many fans feared for him as a heel, Rollins absolutely thrived. He reached new heights as a cowardly corporate-sponsored bad guy, and eventually captured the WWE Title - making him the first former Shield member to do so. His reign was undone by flurries of Authority-related nonsense, but Seth himself was delivering his career's most memorable character work.