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It's no secret that The Shield's reunion on The August 20th episode of Monday Night Raw was that rare mix of nostalgia running wild and giving fans the payoff moment of a lifetime, but it ultimately comes at a cost. Unfortunately for The WWE Universe and their favourite superstars, that price is becoming more and more noticeable by the minute.
Not only is that evident by the myriad of changes WWE has already made to The Monday Night Raw landscape after The Shield Reunion, but also by the people these changes have hurt in the process. If nothing else, WWE seems desperate to turn Reigns into a big deal at all costs and while one would think they would have some kind of backup plan in the process, that looks to be less and less likely.
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With that being said and all these abrupt changes in mind, here are five things wrong with The Shield reunion so far and how to fix them. As always, let us know how you feel about these problems in the comments below and tell us whether you think they are actually fixable or not. Furthermore, tell us how you would ultimately choose to fix them.
#8 Using Dean Ambrose For Comic relief
While Dean Ambrose is usually a very funny person on and off camera, that doesn't mean that WWE should be using him for comic relief. Unfortunately for Ambrose and his fans, that is exactly what they did during a backstage segment on Raw last week by having him do a segment with Jinder Mahal.
Mahal did his usual gimmick of trying to bring Ambrose to inner piece, but during a meditation session, Ambrose talked about kicking his ass. This led to a match between the two later on in the night, which Ambrose won after a little back and fourth. Interestingly enough however, the match was meaningless largely meaningless and didn't help Ambrose either.
In the end, this was due to lack of a qualify opponent, especially after how much Mahal has fallen down the card lately, and only served to make Ambrose too tired to really fight back in the main event segment. With that being said, it would have been so much better if it was anyone else on the Raw roster.
#7 Making Reigns an anti hero
There's just something about how WWE is toeing the line between babyface and heel with Roman Reigns that is absolutely sickening. He can somehow go from defeating Strowman in a one sided three man beat down, but somehow WWE still somehow tries to make it look like Reigns is justified.
Not only is that going to wear thin extremely quick, especially when The WWE Universe sees the contrary happen every time someone gets the upper hand on Reigns, it also makes Reigns's title reign look illegitimate as well. What makes it worse however is how Reigns still tries to parade around as a fighting championship, which is outright lying at this point.
In the end, WWE can't have their cake and it eat too. They either need to make Reigns and The Shield The Defacto heels or do things that actually make them look babyface. If not, its only going to lead to convoluted and confusing storytelling that only makes Reigns getting pushed look worse and worse by the week.
#6 Throwing Finn Balor out of the title picture
While Finn Balor might be an afterthought by now after losing to Roman Reigns in a Universal title rematch, WWE only made things worse by having Balor lose Baron Corbin a week later. Of course some will say that this has nothing to do with The Shield Reunion, but it is pretty safe to say that if the faction didn't reform, Balor would still be in the title picture.
Maybe that's wishful thinking, but there would definitely be more room in the title picture for Balor if The Shield reunion didn't take the absolute piss out of his title match last week. In fact, Balor might have finally have summoned The Demon and faced Reigns inside Hell in a Cell, but WWE ended that possibility too abruptly in favor of Bruan Strowman
#5 Confusing logic
While WWE has worked hard to make Roman Reigns out to be the good guy in this whole thing, they have employed some very bizarre logic in the process. Not only is that evident by the abrupt way they turned Strowman heel after he got one of the biggest babyface reactions only a few weeks ago, but also by how they tried to make Strowman look like the good guy for weeks, only to ruin it by having him align with Ziggler and McIntyre.
If nothing else, WWE has made a very confusing mess of all this and are very lucky that Roman Reigns still looks somewhat like the good guy here. Either that, or The WWE Universe's minds are so warped by the nostalgia of the Shield reunion that they won't dare to question what The WWE does.
#4 Turning Strowman heel
Speaking of confusing logic, WWE had been making Bruan Strowman out to be the company's biggest babyface, but then have him turn heel on a whim during the main event event of Monday night Raw. Of course the swerve achieved its desired result and turned the fans on Strowman, but at what freaking cost?
Strowman was by far one of their greatest babyfaces and they do this to him after building him up as a straight man? Why waste the freaking time then with the contrived honor system of him cashing in face to face? Why even bother to waste having him turn Kevin Owens into his personal punching bag if your going to kill it in a weeks time?
Again, we all know why they did this and it did honestly achieve the desired result of making The Shield look like the good gay again, but at what cost? This role could have literally gone to anyone else and put Strowman as a backup plan or they could have at least waited a little while longer to do it, but they seem to just want it to make as little sense as possible.
#3 Making Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins secondary
The obvious answer to them doing this is of course to capitalize off of Shield nostalgia as much as they can, but again, at what cost? While Dean Ambrose probably is best served in a subservient role right now after returning from injury, Seth Rollins was a white hot babyface before being bogged down by The Shield reunion.
That's not to say that Rollins isn't benefiting by The Shield being back together, but one has to realize that the end result isn't to make him look good. The end result is to make Reigns look good and to make fans forget why they hated The Big dog the last in the first place. With that being said, keep in mind that making Reigns look good will come at a cost to them.
In the end, that's good for either Ambrose or Rollins and will most likely keep them out of the title picture for the foreseeable future. Of course the argument could be made that it will just make it that much sweeter when the Shield finally implodes again, but it becomes less interesting when we know what the end result will be.
#2 Making Reigns overly vocal
WWE sure has an interesting memory recall of one of the greatest WWE factions in the last decade. In fact, Roman Reigns, who was originally billed as the silent destroyer type, is now a boisterous babyface bragging about his accomplishments. Not only is that not in the orginal spirit of the group, it also takes away from what WWE could have done with Reigns here.
Think about it! If Reigns went back to the strong silent type and did his talking in the ring, it would at least make him come across as a badass and not this homogenized tweener. In the end, WWE seems to be relying to much on Shield nostalgia to get fans behind Reigns and not focusing on things that made The Shield special in the first place.
#1 Manipulating Fans
Maybe the point of pro wrestling is to manipulate the fans into believing that a fight is actually taking place, but they take these tactics to do other things as well. Unfortunately for The WWE Universe, WWE is also using manipulation tactics to get fans behind Roman Reigns despite being rejected time after time.
Think about it! If it wasn't insanely obvious by how Brock Lesnar was portrayed on television in the final weeks before Summerslam, it had to be when WWE turned Strowman heel and had him attack Reigns in the closing moments of the main event of Raw. In the end, its up to fans to determine how they feel about this, but think off all the sacrificing WWE is doing in the name of making Roman Regisn the defacto guy of WWE!
