KB’s Review: Still, He Is Eerily Like Diesel

The top story on this week’s “Monday Night Raw” was the tease of a Shield reunion. This has been teased for a good while now but, barring a big surprise, there’s a strong reason to believe that it’s actually going to happen. There are two options for opponents in the Miztourage and the Miz/Sheamus/Cesaro (PLEASE let it be the latter) who are doing the Shield pose, the fans are begging for the Shield, and there was that whole thing where they looked at each other to end the show. The question now though is what does all this mean in the grand scheme of things.

First of all, it would be huge. Like, really huge. The Shield was one of the biggest things to hit WWE in several years and there’s a real case that they’re one of the best factions in the company’s history. All three are far bigger stars now, including at least one World Title each. They would combine to be the top faction in the company by several miles and it would be a challenge to find another trio to realistically challenge them. The Shield getting together again would be a major change of pace and has the potential to take the company by storm.

Here’s how they teased it:

Former members of The Shield convene backstage: Raw, Oct. 2, 2017

However, it might not be that simple. Assuming this is going to be a long term idea, I really don’t see how they can stay good for all that long. Shield is going to be so dominant that there’s no reason to believe that many people are going to be able to give them a real fight. Odds are their best fights would be against an all star team, though aside from someone like Braun Strowman, Brock Lesnar and Samoa Joe, who else is going to be able to give them a real fight?

Back in the Shield’s original run, they were able to defeat teams like the Wyatt Family, Evolution and various other combinations of top level stars. Really, who could give them that kind of a challenge today? Shield is a group of A-list talent who all work well together. That doesn’t leave a ton of options, especially when you have Roman Reigns, who has proven that he can beat a monster like Strowman on his own already. That doesn’t leave a ton of options.

Speaking of Reigns, there’s also a major possibility for this whole thing: there’s a good chance that it’s little more than a way to build Reigns up for his big showdown against Lesnar at “Wrestlemania XXXIV”. You know that’s where Reigns is going to wind up and there’s not much that’s going to stop it at this point. At the end of the day, this is Reigns’ company and anyone that gets in the way of him being the undisputed top star needs to step aside and get out of his way because there’s not much that is going to stop him from here.

Now that’s not a bad thing. If we’re stuck with Reigns as the big hero of the company (or however they seem him anymore), putting him back in the group that made him so popular in the first place is a good idea. However, it still brings up the same question that Reigns has always had: do fans care about him because he’s him or because he’s coming out to the Shield music along with Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins? That’s been a problem for Reigns for years now and I see no reason for it to not still be the case.

So assuming it’s all just a way to help get Reigns ready (and there’s not much of a reason to believe it’s much else), how do they go about doing it? Well first of all, just have Reigns spear a lot of people while Rollins and Ambrose do the rest of the work. Those two are almost guaranteed to be as over as free beer in a frat house and there’s no reason to believe that Reigns coming in there and running over a variety of heels isn’t going to work all over again. Just don’t let him talk much other than snappy catchphrases or threatening lines and he’ll be fine.

How good were they?

WWE Network: First Look - Destruction of The Shield preview

Now, if that’s the big end game that the company has in mind for this whole thing, what does Shield do in the meantime? We’re roughly six months away from “Wrestlemania XXXIV” and you have to assume that Reigns is going to need to start his latest singles run around January. That gives us about three months to play around with the trio, which should let them avoid running out of opponents in the span of just a few weeks. Just come up with some trios for them to fight, some of which can have the same members, and everything should work out just fine.

With just about three months to keep the team together, there’s not much you can do to screw it up. Despite the team only being together for about a year and a half and now being apart for three and a half years, the power of nostalgia should be more than enough to carry them for most of their time together. If they can have some awesome matches, which they’re more than capable of doing, the reactions should be even stronger than they were for the fans wanting them to get back together in the first place. In other words, this should be almost impossible to screw up.

Therefore, let’s figure out how WWE can manage to screw this up. First of all, they can have Reigns talk a lot. Ambrose and Rollins might not be elite speakers, but they’re better at it than Reigns. Time has shown that Reigns really isn’t great at the long form speaking thing and is going to be much better off just looking intimidating and saying a few words at the end. It worked in the first place and it would make sense to do the same thing again. However, WWE has never shown the ability to do the logical thing with Reigns so you can expect him to be reciting some monologues as soon as they’re back together.

The other big mistake would be to have the team break up in a similar fashion to how they did the first time. Putting them back together for a few weeks for the sole sake of splitting them up (save for MAYBE turning Reigns full blown heel) would be a big waste of time. The fans already aren’t wild on Reigns, so why in the world would they want to cheer for him if he turned on the two more popular members of the team? It wouldn’t make sense, but I could easily see WWE trying it for the sake of giving Reigns another rub.

Stuff like this was fun.

The New Day, The Club and The Shield stand face-to-to-face: Tribute to the Troops, Dec. 14, 2016

The key to this whole thing is it needs to be fun. Shield was at their best when they were out there running through people and doing cool spots along the way. The big idea behind the team was that they were just so awesome that it was hard to not like them. As long as they’re not doing stupid things for the sake of doing stupid things and having the focus all be on Reigns, it should be really hard for WWE to screw this up. Shield is as popular as anything has been in the last five years other than Daniel Bryan and they’ve been built up since the split. There’s no reason this shouldn’t be a big success.

I’m not entirely sold on the idea of a Shield reunion, but there’s no reason for it to be anything but fun. It should give WWE a nice and much needed shot in the arm. I don’t like the idea of advertising the reunion this strongly (I’d find it far cooler to have them just appear together instead of announcing it in advance) but there’s a good reason to be excited for what might be coming. Even if it’s just there for the sake of setting up Reigns as the top star all over again, the Shield being back together should be a blast. Just please don’t screw this chance up WWE. You might not have another chance to really pull it off again.

 

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