Project THE SHIELD: (Over) One Year Later

[SirSmUgly]

As a jumping off point from the Summerslam thread, I thought that it would be fun, with what is left of my summer break, to do a little project that covers the Shield members' growth as singles competitors from their breakup in June 2014 to where they are now.

 

I want to do this in part because there is such a disparity in how people think of these guys not just here, but in general online, and in part because I have my own opinions about these guys that I want to re-evaluate. It's also always helpful to do this sort of exercise because it helps me to re-think what I really find important about pro wrestling and what my preferences are, particularly as they change with the more wrestling that I consume. 

 

On that note, I want to pare down a list of ten to twelve matches for each Shield member to watch and quickly write up. I have an idea of some of the matches that I want to see, and with the Network archiving RAW, SD, Main Event, the PPVs, etc., this should be an easy job to find matches that would best represent the singles/non-tag work of the Shield members.

 

I have an idea of some of the matches that I'd like to use to do this project, but I'd like to start by asking those of you who are interested in this idea to share what matches that you think I should look at, with show and date if possible. Some stuff is obvious that I won't really need suggested (Reigns: v. Lesnar at WM, v. Bryan at Fast Lane; Rollins v. Ambrose in all their singles matches), but there are probably numerous TV matches that have slipped through the cracks. Whatever you want to suggest - what you think showcases these guys at their best or worst or whatever - I would be grateful for.

 

I suppose that I should also mark down how I would rank each of these guys and my current perceptions of them before this rewatch in order to have it here for myself, at least. 

 

1. Reigns - He's a decent worker. I appreciate that he is willing to take a beating, but I don't think he's ever had a singles match outside of the Lesnar mauling that has transcended "quite solid," and that includes the Bryan match. He was awful right after the break-up, but he's definitely improved. He's passable at worst on most nights, generally. Sometimes he seems to get stuck and revert to signature spot spamming, but I'm encouraged that he seems to be getting better at a good pace. 

 

2. Rollins - I compared him to Dean Malenko in the Summerslam thread, and I think it's a fair comparison in that he does lots of crisp moves and is a great athlete, but his matches often look like a slideshow of a bunch of different nice moves with nothing that holds them together in the types of interesting narratives that make matches feel complete. Even working de facto face at Summerslam, he did nothing for me, but working like this as a heel, I find him almost unwatchable many nights. Maybe Neville in NXT until about the Tyson Kidd matches is a better comp. 

 

3. Ambrose - He has the biggest and most organic connection with the crowd to me in many ways, but he is the worst offensive wrestler in the company except for maybe some of the women who have never graduated past model-turned-wrestler status. Ziggler actually has better offense than this guy. He's so hard to watch and was actively dragging down that tag match he had at Summerslam in some ways. He can take a beating though and easily has the best facial expressions and sympathetic body movements of the three...but his offense is such a minus that I have to place him here. 

 

Anyway, I'm excited to dig deep into these matches again, and I hope that people are interested in this, even if you want to call my tastes in wrestling totally shitty or tell me that secretly I hold the company's booking of Bryan against Reigns (I don't, and actually, I like Reigns a lot and feel pretty badly for him that the crowd still kinda shits on him). Also, I love reading reviews other people do of matches, so if you wanted to chime in with your own, that would be cool. Hopefully, this thread takes off. 

[Go2Sleep]

Rollins vs. RVD (6/30/14), Rollins vs. Bryan (2/2/15), and Rollins vs. Neville (8/3/15) would be the Raw matches I'd recommend for the Rollins side of things. Obviously the Ambrose/Rollins FCA (8/18/14) too. I think you're underrating him a lot.

 

Roman's top matches are elite, but I think his average output is lower than Rollins overall. Not entirely fair to Roman, because Rollins has several years more experience working with high-end wrestlers. I like Roman's chances a lot more after Mania than I did going in, but he's still on the slow rise at this point. Writing did him zero favors as well.

 

Ambrose has definitely been the most underwhelming of the three since the split. Every once in a while, he'll pop up with a fun tv match, but his major programs outside of Rollins have been lackluster. Still a great promo and bumper, though. Right now he's like very poor man's early 2000s Mick Foley.

[John from Cincinnati]

For Roman, I'd love to hear thoughts on the Extreme Rules match against Big Show, the Battleground match against Wyatt, and the SummerSlam match against Orton. I loved the first, was surprised by how much I enjoyed the second, and found the third surprisingly solid on rewatch.

 

Rollins has a couple good SmackDown matches with Cesaro under his belt. I know, I'm shocked too. The dates escape me. I remember the table match with Cena being absurdly fun at the time and destroying my always meager expectations regarding singles table matches, but it wasn't really representative of anything.

 

Ambrose is one of my favourites at the moment (second maybe only to Owens), but nothing you've said in criticism of him rings untrue. I loved the Big Show match from Raw a few weeks back. It was different. Maybe his MITB qualifier against Wyatt from last year is still good. I dunno. 

 

Roman has easily turned out to be the best of the bunch IMO. Of course a heel turn now probably gets him where they want him to be in the long run. 

[JCM]

Ambrose has always been my favorite Shield member due to having actual charisma which is a rarity in WWE these days. Him having to work WWE's go go go high spot heavy house style does him no favors at all not to mention the lame PG brawls. If mat wrestling and wild bloody brawls were still a thing Ambrose would have it made.

[Burgundy LaRue]

Anytime Reigns works with Luke Harper, it's worth a look.  Their match on the Raw following Battleground was really good. His Smackdown matches with Sheamus are also fun.

 

Reigns' Extreme Rules match against Big Show was the best of that night for me.  Show put himself where he needed to be, and Reigns worked at a pretty good pace throughout, finding the best places to create offense.  It would be interesting to roll back the clock on Show ten years and see what that version of him would do with Reigns.  I imagine it would be really good.  As it is now, they developed chemistry and worked a good match.

 

Reigns is better than you're giving him credit for.  He's still developing his moveset, but he's doing lots of little things that eventually will pay off.  His selling, using vicious forearms instead of the typical lariats--it's coming together.

 

As far as him being awful after the breakup, I suspect Reigns' injury had already popped up but he was trying to work through it.  He went down for the count in September 2014--just after his program with Orton. As bad as they say it was, I imagine he had nursed it quietly for some time.

 

His feud with Wyatt suffers because of the PG rating.  It needs to go really dark, but it can't be done under the current guidelines.  But as it is, they're doing well with it.

 

Ambrose was always going to suffer after the breakup, again because of the ratings.  He's restricted with what he can do.  I wish they'd give him the mic more, though.  He's got a cadence to his voice that makes for good listening.  His rebound lariat looks so lazy, too.  There's only so much he can do in the current landscape unless the writing team actually becomes creative (yeah, I know).

 

Rollins is interesting.  He's talented without question, a HBK-Jeff Hardy hybrid that can bump and sell like gangbusters.  Just average on the mic, but he gets by OK.  He can probably work with anyone on the roster and get a good match.  What will hurt his overall packaging for the public is his personal drama--obviously, I won't get into that here.

 

He's also likely near his physical peak as a wrestler.  He'll fine tune things, but I don't know how much Rollins can grow. 

 

Ultimately, Reigns has a major advantage, because he's already getting good but he hasn't reached his ceiling.  Ambrose is near his top too, but we haven't seen it on full display.  If we do, it'll be exciting to watch.

[Go2Sleep]

I have to completely disagree that Rollins has reached his peak in WWE. He hasn't even come close to a singles face run yet, which is the majority of his potential. He's just been sqeezing more and more out of his heel side than anyone thought he could.

[Burgundy LaRue]

I said he's reached his physical peak--as in his aresnal is pretty much developed.  He'll use what he has and it'll be great, but based on my admittedly armchair criteria, I think he's a fully formed entity in that regard.

 

Has he reached his peak as a performer?  No, none of them have yet.  But what we'll see from a face Rollins is what we would expect.  It'll be wonderful, but not a surprise.  Reigns is still growing and has the advantage of catching us off-guard with new tricks at some point.

[JCM]

If Rollins was turned babyface, and the crowd was really into him it would be a great angle to have Reigns forgive him and tease a Shield reunion only for Ambrose to say fuck him and turn heel. I don't think I ever want Ambrose and Rollins on the same side again those two are just natural rivals. They had some terrific matches in FCW with Ambrose working heel and Rollins working face.

[SirSmUgly]

I'm going to start this tonight, I think, after I compile an initial short list. Thanks for suggestions, BTW. I'm really interested to re-watch Rollins/Ambrose lumberjack, which people really loved and which I hated so much that I had it as the worst PPV match I saw last year. 

[DukeCaesar]

On a tangent, all now have questionable ring gear to some degree (Reign's gear looks like a kids' Halloween costume version of his Shield attire) but Ambrose's tank top and jeans combo is especially egregious and bush league.  The fact that he and Harper were rocking basically the same clothes in their mini-feud earlier this year was laughable.

[piranesi]

If Rollins was turned babyface, and the crowd was really into him it would be a great angle to have Reigns forgive him and tease a Shield reunion only for Ambrose to say fuck him and turn heel. I don't think I ever want Ambrose and Rollins on the same side again those two are just natural rivals. They had some terrific matches in FCW with Ambrose working heel and Rollins working face.

 

 

It would work really well by playing to Dean's natural paranoia and sense of being an outsider.  The now "bigshot" Rollins teaming with chosen "big shot" Reigns making Dean feel like they're looking down on him.

 

But it still has to culminate in Reigns doing an Arn-on-Pillman slap on Dean at some point when he's getting out of control. 

I would, like, faint with delight at that.

[Go2Sleep]

On a tangent, all now have questionable ring gear to some degree (Reign's gear looks like a kids' Halloween costume version of his Shield attire) but Ambrose's tank top and jeans combo is especially egregious and bush league.  The fact that he and Harper were rocking basically the same clothes in their mini-feud earlier this year was laughable.

 

Rollins gear got better when they added the gold trim at Mania. Looks great with the main belt. I am disappointed that he seems to be phasing the bleached streak out of his hair, though. That was such an awesomely douchey hair style.

 

I'm not sure what I'd do different with Ambrose. He's supposed to be a loner bar-fly or something so the beater and jeans work in that regard.

 

Roman definitely needs to ditch the Shield imagery, though. Not just the gear, but get new music too. I think that's playing a small role in holding him back because it just adds to the forced-ness about him. Both other guys moved on and embraced their new characters, while Roman's entrance might as well have "HEY REMEMBER HOW YOU LIKED THE SHIELD? WELL THIS GUY WAS A PART OF THAT SO YOU SHOULD LOVE HIM!!!" scrolling across the tron and ringside LED panel.

[SirSmUgly]

Seth Rollins vs. Dolph Ziggler (WWE Main Event, 6/10/2014)

 

Seen it before?: Maybe. It was this or the Smackdown match they had around this time. I don't remember having any concrete opinions about it. 

 

These are two of my least favorite guys in the company, so I have low expectations. I'm going to get really sick of hearing Rollins's entrance music here over the next few weeks that I write these up. HATE IT SO MUCH. Rollins with a bit of stalling at the start as he tries to work heel, and I would have liked to see him work that a bit more before going right to the headlock. One of the things that I think is an issue with both of these guys is that they work SO quickly. Heat segments get blown through, babyface shine is blown through, the opening stalling was just for a bit. I forgot that Rollins was using such a clear face spot like Eddie's Three Amigos. That's a dumb thing to do as a heel because it generates those EDDIE chants. There are some things he does that are fine, like talking shit to Ziggler during an eye gouge spot near the camera, but he works too quickly, does face offense as a heel, and rushes through everything. Sure, this was a Main Event match, but they still got some really good time, so there was no need to run through everything so quickly at the beginning. Ending sequence is counter-heavy, but it's worked just fine except for Ziggler whiffing on the Fame-ass-er. Not bad, but I do feel like this opening match raises some of the issues that I have with Rollins. 

 

Roman Reigns vs. Bad News Barrett (WWE Friday Night Smackdown, 6/13/2014)

 

Seen it before?: Nope.

 

This is a short match, but I think that Reigns looks pretty explosive here. He's trying to figure out his offense, but he has some nice spots that the crowd gets into like the ten-count corner punch -------> clothesline over the top rope. We come back from break with Reigns fighting up out of a chinlock; he's got some good energy coming up from underneath and also has some decent facial selling of Barrett's offense. I think the limited match time helps Reigns because he doesn't have to figure out what to fill time with before he goes to his comeback, which is likewise explosive and gets the crowd chanting for a spear until 3MB comes in and causes the DQ. I wonder if they ever had Slater bump in a one-on-one match for Reigns's offense. I'm going through Cagematch, so I'm hoping that I run into a Slater/Reigns match on Superstars or Main Event in the next couple weeks of watching. Anyway, Reigns looked solid, and I wonder if there will be a gap between his TV output and his PPV output early on in terms of quality. 

 

Dean Ambrose vs. Bray Wyatt (WWE Friday Night Smackdown, 6/13/2014)

 

Seen it before?: Nope.

 

These two had awful matches against one another just a few months later on. Bray can throw a wicked lariat and a nasty right hand every once in awhile. The crowd might be tired out because I liked the spot where Ambrose raked Bray's eyes across the ropes a couple minutes after Bray did it to him, but then again, they're pretty loud otherwise. Maybe it just didn't translate. Ambrose is such a theatrical seller and IMO has the tools to be a better "never say die" face even than he does to be a sleazy heel. His offense is shitty, decent DDT aside, but he does the little things like trying to slam his shoulder that Bray has been working on back into its socket. I used to love when Perfect would start striking his knee after it gave out, so I am a sucker for that type of selling. Bray is better when cutting a pace than he is when he's being methodical. His offense goes straight to shit. Ambrose is really great at garnering sympathy physically, though, and I appreciate him sticking to the selling of the shoulder. He uses headbutts instead of punches to block a superplex, for example. That rebound lariat always sucked, though. It looks stupid here, too, so contrived. He drops selling his shoulder to do it, then goes back to selling his shoulder. Really, except for his terrible offense, I dig Ambrose as a scrappy face. He's got all the other tools to be great in this role.