5 Best & 5 Worst Moments From WWE Raw's 3 Hour Era
8. BEST: Rollins Buys In
24 hours after The Shield had defeated Evolution in a gripping elimination six-man war at June 2014's Payback pay-per-view, one of the men in the match had left the company altogether and another had completely shifted the landscape of the company's main event scene with a shocking turn.
Earlier in the broadcast, Batista had walked out on Triple H, leading to Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose closing the show with a united front to prove their dominance over the fallen heels.
Triple H and Randy Orton swaggered out to confront them, with 'The Game' noting how he always had a 'Plan B'. It was the cue for Rollins to annihilate his two 'brothers' with a steel chair. So the story eventually revealed, at some point during the day, Hunter had paid off 'The Architect', and offered him an accelerated ascent in the ranks of the Authority. He took the opportunity.
Still a hugely over act, The Shield's destruction was one of the company's last truly great shocking heel turns, particularly in how little support it got for the newly-minted villain. Rollins was loathed for ripping the heart out of such a popular unit, and his subsequent feud with Dean Ambrose harnessed all that sympathy into an intially prosperous run for the 'Lunatic Fringe'.