If WWE Was Being Honest About The Shield
Reigns blasted Brock Lesnar for months. He wasn’t a fighting champion. And then, 24 hours after he won the Universal Title he insisted he would defend, against all comers, any time, any place, he orchestrated a plan to avoid defending the title against Braun Strowman. Strowman claimed contendership fairly, it should be noted.
Rollins meanwhile grew apoplectic at fighting the same stacked odds in his one-man war against Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre. Ambrose returned by his side in a rebalance of justice. And then, just seven days later, The Shield dealt Braun Strowman an injustice. This isn't good guy behaviour. It isn't bad guy behaviour. It's whatever Vince McMahon feels he needs to do to get Roman over as a babyface.
Braun Strowman is no mere man. He is, as we are reminded, the Monster Among Men, which might—but does not quite—excuse the three-on-one beat-down. Roman fought bravely against Strowman, one on one, just last year.
Strowman isn’t the babyface here, either. Somehow, we’re expected to receive his “face-to-face” cash-in declaration as an act of honesty when, in reality, he’s doing the exact same thing the cowardly heels have done for 12 years: he’s watching, and waiting, ready to prey upon a weakened opponent. Strowman is an indestructible force who thrives on competition. Very little of any of this follows the established narrative - so how are we to receive a more ambitious extension of it?
It’s all uneven and contradictory. And, because WWE elsewhere is so deadeningly simplistic, this doesn’t translate as a new frontier of nuanced, shades-of-grey storytelling. And that’s because it isn’t. It’s selectively muddled. Everybody can hear the Big Dog whistle.
The timing is as suspicious as the dynamic. The Shield so obviously didn’t reform as some autonomous choice. The faction reformed only to obscure Roman’s lack of popularity. WWE isn’t getting away with it. When WWE goes to such drastic lengths to remove focus from its focal point, how else are we meant to receive the development, other than smoke and mirrors? That is literally what this is, but in the process, with some irony, the magic is gone.
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