WWE’s Shield faction killed it for over a year in the company. Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, and Roman Reigns all made big names out of themselves due to the faction. All three were able to do things that few factions have done: succeed. We’ve seen more factions end up sucking than doing well in Pro-Wrestling. They were brilliant and stood out as stars in WWE. What is so cool is that they did it all under the age of 30. All three are now on their respective singles run. However, this group could have been completely different.
In the now infamous CM Punk podcast, which exploited several issues in WWE, Punk expressed that The Shield was his idea.
“So, and this, I don’t know, this will probably blow some people’s minds and then some people will be like ‘oh, you’re full of s***’ but I don’t f***ing care either way: The Shield was my idea. What happened was, at the time the head writer was Eric Pankowski. He called me up one day and he was like ‘okay, uh, nobody knows you’re going to turn heel but we want to stick a stable with you. We want to give you Big Show as your heater.’ I immediately groaned. I love Big Show to death but that’s not a good idea. They wanted to put Daniel Bryan with me. I groaned. I said ‘Daniel should be kept as far away from me as possible because, if anything, me and him should be like Bret (Hart) and Shawn (Michaels).
“We can be far apart and then we can come together when you guys need a f***ing program for two or three PPVs, and we can always do it, and it will always be quality. There idea was a stable with me, Big Show, Daniel Bryan, and the only name they ever mentioned was Seth Rollins but they kept saying ‘a guy from FCW.’ So I went to Pankowski and I was like ‘I don’t like the idea. I’m willing to do the heel stable thing but why don’t we pick three guys from FCW that are ready instead of using two guys, you know what I mean? They would just be treading water. Who cares? How many times are these guys going to turn?
“So I took the idea to Hunter, I took it to Vince, they agreed. Vince was immediately like ‘who do you have in mind?’ And I said ‘(Dean) Ambrose, Rollins, Chris Hero, or Kassius Ohno.’ Hunter shot down Hero. They wanted Roman Reigns. They came to me and they were like ‘what about Leakee?’ I didn’t… it wasn’t my hill to die on. I said ‘sure’ because it made sense to me. Oh, they want their guy in, he’s the pretty guy, but that’s good because this guy can learn from working under me.
“The idea was they were supposed to be my group. Things f***ing change. They like to take other people’s ideas, make it their own idea, and then tout how awesome they are. So it then became Hunter’s idea and up until the PPV they were like ‘oh, we were told we might not be with you.’ And I was like ‘this whole entire time you’re supposed to be with me’ because the idea was they’re with me, they’re with me, they’re with me, I go on to fight Undertaker, and then I have these three guys to work with after WrestleMania…. I pitched all that, they loved it, things got changed, I didn’t really care. Those three guys got called up, they’re all f***ing doing fantastic right now, mazel tov to them.”
This was shocking to hear. We never truly got in depth word on how The Shield came to be. Usually any references to how were always vague. However, comments made by Seth Rollins sort of lead us to thinking Punk was telling the truth.
Rollins was quoted in saying…
“The Shield idea never really got pitched to us. It was like just… One day I did… when I was NXT champion, I did… they booked me for… they did a tour of Egypt, which was just Cairo for three days, and there were like some rumblings when I got back from the tour that they were going to do something with me, or there was going to be three of us, or four of us, they were talking about calling up at the same time. So, finally we got to Survivor Series and the whole concept was sort of explained to us and stuff like that. It was just… Literally, I think initially the idea, and I don’t know exactly how it got pitched, but I believe the idea was that initially we were supposed to be a security force for Punk”
It was vague even still, but points to what Punk was claiming in the podcast.
What we can assume is that Punk spoke with WWE regarding The Shield. However, the idea ended up being changed. While that happens in WWE, it seems weird that they sort of stuck with it for a short time, only for it to end up going nowhere. The Shield/Punk relationship was hinted at early, then as soon as it started, it ended. The concept was clear to Punk, but changes in the group and what they wanted to do with Punk shifted things, it appears.
Punk had their help at Survivor Series , and even leading up to The Royal Rumble . However, after WrestleMania , he didn’t work with them. It was kind of weird. Many could assume that WWE didn’t have him work with them after WrestleMania 29 because he left for a bit due to injury. He made his comeback at WWE Payback in Chicago, and was there until he left in January of this year. Meanwhile, The Shield stuck around and did a variety of other things.
CM Punk didn’t really need The Shield, and The Shield didn’t need him. However, it would have been interesting for him to have lead the group. This could have been why there was never a real leader for the group until around this first of this year. There could have always been an open thought of having Punk run the team. It was not until the end of 2013 that it became clear The Shield would never join forces with Punk.
The fact that WWE sort of played things up and never gave Punk credit for the formation of the group is a bit weird. Clearly The Shield members know Punk had something to do with making them, as they were hearing stories of working with him from the beginning. At the end of the day, it still worked out for both parties. The Shield did fantastic, even Punk admits to that.
We can also take from the comments made by Punk that the real star of The Shield from the beginning was always going to be Rollins. He was the guy from day one, and now we see that being played out today. Rollins is liked by Triple H, so clearly we are going to see more of him.
Punk ended up doing just fine, but of course a major storyline with him and a group might have helped to keep him out of some of the matches he never needed to be part of. If he worked with The Shield, could he have been healthier? Potentially. Would he have potentially had another WWE Title run? That is possible as well. Literally thousands of possibilities could have gone down in WWE if this happened. However, we saw what we did. This being Punk’s idea, in a way, sort of tells us that he knew what the people would like. So we have to give him some credit here.
[IMG Credits: WWE.com, WWENews.net]
[Transcription Credit: Cageside Seats]