No debut of NXT talent has had a bigger impact in WWE than in November 2012, when the Shield made its presence felt. The trio of Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns quickly became a dominant force that ran roughshod over WWE right up until the group dissolved a year ago. When the Shield debuted, the group immediately changed the landscape of the promotion simply by decimating everyone in its path. The group did not lose a six-man tag match (or really any match) for a good while. It didnt matter what combination of wrestlers were put in front of them John Cena, Randy Orton, Big Show, Chris Jericho, Ryback and Sheamus the Shield was virtually unstoppable. They captured the United States and Tag Team Championships as part of their dominance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbzNRGZuW2o That kind of booking led the members to become immensely popular and viewed as top guys, even individually. Today, all three members are at the top of WWEs card, with Rollins holding the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, Reigns viewed as an eventual champion and Ambrose a wildcard who could also wear top gold someday. Its difficult to consider them anything less than a total success.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
