2. The Shield vs Evolution - Extreme Rules 2014
WWE.comFor older fans who've since moved on from professional wrestling, there's a good chance they might've remembered Evolution. What made this feud, albeit still very recent, such a natural feud to do was the example of time and change. It wasn't just the absence of Ric Flair from the picture that distinguished this incarnation of Evolution from its original, it was seeing how much Hunter, Dave and Randy had changed. Yet, much as the performers change and the product adapts to the whims of any given mainstream audience of the time, so much stays the same. The ring, the music, pyro, commentators and, when the time calls for it, outstanding matches when the athletes put it all out there to entertain us, the fans. That deserves respect. What this match proved was that, whilst the performers change and new ones come in, the bedrock of professional wrestling- the wrestling itself- remains the same. It's much alike a long-running TV drama; it will have its highs, it will have its lows but unlike those same TV dramas, it will never jump the shark. Why? Because in pro-wrestling, the shark is the crowd and the shark is the athleticism and charisma of the performers. That will always be there, so long as there is a demand for it. The Shield are this era's Evolution, just like Evolution were that era's Four Horsemen. In a decade or so, there will be another group that will be that era's Shield. As CM Punk put it: the wheel keeps on turning, and that's a stable thought.