The WWE likes to refer to The Shield as perhaps the most dominant faction in WWE history, but that just flat isn’t true.
There can be no denying that the group – made up of Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins – was a powerful force in the company during their rougly 19 months together. Still, their actual legacy is much less impressive than the other groups with whom they could be compared.
To recap, The Shield had two championship runs as a group, a roughly five-month run as tag team champs for Reigns and Rollins and a lengthy but uneventful United States title run for Ambrose. Many would argue that their dominance of the company went beyond titles, and that’s true to an extent. The list of men involved with or against The Shield reads like a “who’s who” of recent WWE history – Triple H, Kane, Big Show, Daniel Bryan, Randy Orton, Batista, CM Punk and Bray Wyatt, to name a few.
That said, while their opponents and allies, were main-eventers, The Shield brothers were not. In fact, they only main event any of them participated in while they were together was the final event before Rollins famously turned on Ambrose and Reigns, a six-man elimination tag team match at Payback 2014 in which the Shield swept Evolution.
To be fair, it could be argued that The Shield was broken up for a reason, to preserve the legacies of other groups like Evolution or DX, both of whom had WWE executive and part-time performer Triple H as a member. That theory is supported by the fact that Triple H was so instrumental in the on-screen aspect of the Shield’s demise.
Here’s a look at a few other groups The Shield could stack up against.
Evolution
Evolution is almost an unfair comparison for The Shield, but if the latter is going to be regarded among the most dominant, the conversation needs to be had. Ric Flair and Triple H had a combined 30 career world titles between them, and Randy Orton and Batista also spent time at the top of the heap.
Restricting their titles to just the time they were together doesn’t really make it that much closer, though. Triple H was World Heavyweight Champion five times during the group’s formation and existence, and Orton held it once himself. Orton was also Intercontinental Champion, and Batista and Flair were two-time tag champions. Batista also won the Royal Rumble during the group’s run.
On top of that, all four men spent time in the main event scene as individuals, something the Shield couldn’t say.
D-Generation X
Counting championships for DX can be tricky due to several break-ups and re-formations, but they certainly won a lot of them. Just during the group’s initial run during the Attitude Era, members held essentially every championship at some point. On top of that, both Triple H and Shawn Michaels were part of a crowded main event scene while members of DX, and the New Age Outlaws were mainstays atop the tag-team division.
Beyond that, DX was one of the driving forces behind perhaps the company’s most successful era, a factor that should definitely give them an edge over other groups like The Shield.
NWO
The New World Order’s peak period didn’t happen in the WWE, but the group did make an appearance there. And since the WWE has absorbed WCW’s history, it’s probably fair to compare The Shield’s dominance to the NWO, and the comparison isn’t close.
Much like DX, counting the NWO’s titles can be difficult because so many men floated in and out of the group’s various forms and stables. But even if you just look at the “black and white” version of the NWO during its original run, you find multiple World Heavyweight Championships for “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan and various mid-card title runs for other members like Curt Hennig and Konnan. On top of that Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were a dominant tag team force and won individual gold as “The Outsiders.”
The NWO had the numbers advantage, but they also completely took over the storyline of a company and bled over into WWE action once WCW went away.
Ministry of Darkness
The “Ministry of Darkness” isn’t commonly regarded among the WWE’s most dominant or historic groups, but they were perhaps the most terrifying. Led by The Undertaker, the group included Viscera, Mideon, the Acolytes, Gangrel, Christian and Edge at various times.
Despite only being in existence for about six or seven months, the Ministry had a world champion in Undertaker, a mid-card champion in Mideon and two tag-team championship runs by the Acolytes. On top of that, Undertaker was a clear main-event superstar, and the group managed to feud with the top stars and groups in the company at that time. So the Ministry was able to match or exceed everything the Shield did in a much shorter time frame.
But what does all this mean for The Shield?
Conclusion
Even if you disregard the NWO as a WCW faction, it’s clear that The Shield would rank either third or fourth just among modern WWE groups. That means that WWE announcers’ claims that the trio was perhaps the company’s most dominant stable are at least a little bit exaggerated.
But that doesn’t have to be the final verdict on The Shield.
Since the group broke up, Roman Reigns has becomes one of the company’s top stars with three world titles and a current United States title run. He could become a double champion if he beats Universal Champion Kevin Owens at the Royal Rumble, and he also won the Rumble match in 2015. Seth Rollins was already a double champion after SummerSlam in 2015, and he’s a two-time world champion. Dean Ambrose cashed in a Money in the Bank briefcase to end Rollins’ second run just a couple minutes after it began, and he’s also won the Intercontinental Championship.
With all those accolades and recent booking in mind, if these three men got back together, they’d likely pile up the championships and main event wins. In fact, since the group broke up, one of them has been a part of nearly every pay-per-view main event. Rollins and Reigns have begun to put things back together on Raw, and if they were joined by Ambrose, The Shield might finally live up to the hype given them.
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