The wrestling history books are littered with stables. For those of you not in the know, a professional wrestling stable is a group of wrestlers who come together and join forces. Sometimes this is done just to be a bigger threat to the rest of the promotion. The most famous stable in wrestling history is probably the Four Horsemen.
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| The Four Horsemen (Ole Anderson, Tully Blanchard, James J. Dillon, Arn Anderson, Ric Flair) |
The Horsemen came together in the old regional territory days. Ric Flair, who had debuted as a cousin of Arn Anderson and Ole Anderson, had surpassed both men in terms of popularity and talent. He was world champion. Flair and the Anderson’s terrorized everyone. Joining them was a brash competitor named Tully Blanchard. They acted as a unified front against Dusty Rhodes, the Road Warriors, and Magnum T.A. The name didn’t come about until an impromptu interview at a TV taping. Arn Anderson, commenting on the group’s dominance, said “The only time this much havoc had been wreaked by this few a number of people, you need to go all the way back to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!” And just like that, the name stuck.
Sometimes a stable is formed to combat a threat, such as the “Dudes with Attitudes,” an incredibly aptly named group from the very early 1990s, who formed to fight against the Four Horsemen. This group was comprised of some absolutely fantastic wrestler, and some utterly wretched wrestlers. Sting, Lex Luger, Paul Orndorff, and the Junkyard Dog comprise the former, while El Gigante basically holds down the latter. The Steiner Brothers were thrown in for good measure. El Gigante would soon leave for WWF, where he would become Giant Gonzalez, and give Undertaker his worst WrestleMania match ever.
Then, the idea of what a stable could do took on a different meaning. On a cold Sunday night in November of 2012, at a pay-per-view event called Survivor Series, a new group debuted for the WWE. Three of the top guys from WWE’s developmental series, NXT, appeared at ringside as security guards, and proceeded to beat one of the championship match competitors senseless. Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, and Roman Reigns made their presence known immediately.
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| The Shield (Rollins, Reigns, Ambrose) |
During a later interview, the trio referred to themselves as the Shield of Justice. Eventually, they took on the name of “The Shield.” While they claimed to be in favor of ‘justice,’ they only ever attacked babyface wrestlers. Their dastardly tactics even turned previously heel wrestlers, like Big Show, into babyfaces. For over a year, the Shield dominated everyone they faced. They took down several “super-teams.” These teams were basically just loose alliances of wrestlers trying to knock off the Hounds of Justice. The Shield, though, continued using their standard heel tactics to outnumber and destroy their opposition.
But a funny thing happened on the way to today…people started to cheer for the Shield. Never let it be said that WWE’s fan-base is not fickle. Try to shove a wrestler down our throats and we’ll turn on him in a heartbeat. Case in point: Batista at the Royal Rumble. (When the Rumble came down to Batista and the Shield’s Roman Reigns, almost everyone in the arena chanted loudly in favor of Reigns. Let that sink in. The fans would rather have had a guy just barely a year on the main roster main event WrestleMania than have a proven guy who had been champion in the past. That’s how over the Shield had become.) However, allow three incredibly talented guys to do what they do best on a daily basis and watch the fans turn to their side.
The individual members of the Shield started using moves that rallied the audience. Seth Rollins was willing to jump over any ring rope to land on someone. Dean Ambrose had the look of a very dangerous loose cannon. Roman Reigns, though, gained the most. He had always used the spear as a finisher, but he began adding theatrics that signaled to the audience the end was near. He also picked up a move called the “Superman punch.” Prior to the punch, Reigns squats in the corner, holds up his right arm and cocks it like a gun, then runs, leaps, and punches the person in mid-air. These are not the moves of a heel wrestler. These are the moves that fans can get behind.
But WWE won’t fail to capitalize on this changing momentum. About six months after the Shield had debuted, the WWE brought up the next trio from NXT: Bray Wyatt and the Wyatt Family. Portraying the character of a backwoods cult leader, Bray Wyatt has proven himself to be the best talker in the WWE. His promos are rambling ravings, maniacal in their intensity. The Family, made up of Luke Harper and Erick Rowan, are not shabby either. Rowan is probably the least progressed of the group, though he is the most physically imposing. Luke Harper has a style and personality in the ring that is reminiscent of Kevin Sullivan and Mick Foley.
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| The Wyatt Family (Luke Harper, Bray Wyatt, Erick Rowan) |
The Wyatt Family had danced around fighting with the Shield for some time. Just as it seemed infighting would begin tearing the Shield apart, Bray Wyatt lead his soldiers to the ring. The Wyatts played mind games with the Shield, stepping up to the ring apron, then backing away. Staring down the Hounds of Justice. Bray Wyatt spewed venomous promos that tried to get inside the heads of the Shield. Luke Harper chimed in with one of the best promo lines I’ve heard in some time: “You reap what you sow…you three boys…picked a beautiful hill…to die on.”
The groups finally faced off at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view. Their match was a show-stealer. The Wyatts claimed victory, but in typical booking fashion, it was a victory aimed at keeping both groups strong. Bray Wyatt eliminated Dean Ambrose by fighting him into the crowd and leaving him. This “abandonment” created dissension within the Shield.
On Monday Night Raw, the groups would face off again. Rollins would carry the workload in this match, and when he finally looked for a tag, Ambrose and Reigns were away from the corner fighting the Wyatts. Ambrose finally tagged in, and after some back and forth action with Luke Harper, Ambrose turned for a tag. Rollins, though, dropped of the ring apron and walked away. Reigns confronted Rollins on the walkway, and Rollins claimed he could no longer be the glue holding the Shield together.
Reigns went on a rampage, knocking out all three members of the Wyatt Family. It wasn’t enough, as the Wyatts once more beat the Shield. But the cracks had fully formed. The Shield was primed to splinter and go their separate ways. That is, until the Authority stepped in.
The Shield had a brief run-in with Director of Operations Kane on Friday Night SmackDown. This did not sit well with the Authority. Kane confronted the Shield on Raw and the Shield confirmed to him that they were united. On that same Monday Night Raw, Kane called out Memphis legend Jerry “The King” Lawler as being behind Daniel Bryan’s hijacking of the previous Raw. Kane called out the Shield to dismantle Lawler. The Shield forced Lawler into the ring. Rollins grabbed a microphone. He told Lawler that the Daniel Bryan wasn’t coming to save him…and that the Shield would always do what was best for business. Rollins dropped the mic and slowly all three members of the Shield turned to face Kane. Kane tried to dissuade them from what they were doing, but the Shield proceeded to beat down the Director of Operations, leading to a triple powerbomb.
On SmackDown, the Shield would find itself in a precarious situation, as Kane brought reinforcements to the fight. The Shield was decimated like never before, as Kane, the New Age Outlaws, the Real Americans, and Ryback and Curtis Axel beat them down. Which brought us to last Monday. The Shield exacted retribution as only the Hounds of Justice would. The interrupted Ryback and Axel’s match to crush Ryback. Later in the evening, the Shield was put in tag team action against the Real Americans. Rollins and Ambrose took on Cesaro and Swagger in what proved a really good match. Rollins was his usual leaping self. At one point, Cesaro kicked Ambrose to the ground and slapped him. Ambrose, looking quite like the maniac he is, goaded Cesaro to hit him again.
As the Shield won, Cesaro attacked Rollins, bringing Roman Reigns into the fray. Reigns hit a superman punch, then speared Cesaro outside the ring. Ambrose and Rollins took apart the announce table and Reigns powerbombed Cesaro through the table.
So what does all this mean? It means the Shield has been given new life. Sometimes a babyface turn is a quick process. A heel wrestler watching another heel beat down a babyface may suddenly turn and help the babyface. Other times, like the one written about here, you get a slow burn babyface turn. It took the Shield about a month to truly turn babyface. The seeds were planted long ago, as their moveset changed. Rollins was always a natural babyface. Reigns has the look of a wrestler who could play the heel or the face easily. Ambrose, on the other hand, is a heel through and through. I expect he’ll turn on the group at some point. For now, though, the Shield still exists. They have a high-profile match at WrestleMania XXX. And they have the fans behind them.
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