6 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Oct 9)

3. Did WWE Give It Away?

Shield Reunion
WWE.com

In recent weeks, WWE has teased the much-anticipated reunion of the Shield, with fans left chanting for the three men to reunite, to no avail.

And then on Monday, Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns teamed up and reformed the Shield, finally calling the Miz’s bluff. And just like that, the paradigm shifted.

The Shield was a dominant force in WWE from late 2012 until mid-2014. They were undefeated in six-man competition for what felt like forever. They beat nearly every combination of main event stars WWE had to offer.

So was reuniting the Shield two weeks before the TLC PPV, and then having them wreak havoc on Raw, too much too soon? The threesome demolished Miz, Curtis Axel and Sheamus & Cesaro. They triple-powerbombed the near-invulnerable Braun Strowman through the announce table, making the monster look human after months of perfect booking.

And they have a TLC match at the PPV against Miz, Sheamus & Cesaro, and now Braun. Was Strowman added because no one would give the other three a chance in hell, or was it because WWE essentially gave away their original PPV main event in the opening segment of Raw?

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Contributor
Contributor

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.