Seth Rollins Says WWE Wanted To Split Up The Shield Much Sooner

AEW star Jon Moxley made a name for himself in WWE, where he was known as Dean Ambrose. Together with Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns, the three debuted on the main roster back in 2012 and were known as The Shield.

The Shield would go on to become one of the most dominant and popular stables in the history of the WWE and truly elevated the statuses of all three Superstars involved. The Shield would break up for the first time back in 2014, in a move that certainly no one saw coming.

While speaking during Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions, Seth Rollins revealed that WWE planned on breaking up The Shield earlier than when it happened – in fact, it was supposed to happen before WrestleMania 30.

It was said that there were plans to split the group in December 2013/January 2014, leading to a match between Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose, with Seth Rollins possibly becoming a “special referee or something”.

“They spring that on us, we’re talking hours before it happened. What happened was, they wanted to break us up back in January [2014], maybe December. They wanted to go to Ambrose and Roman and at WrestleMania 30 in New Orleans. I was left out. Maybe a special referee or something. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ They wanted to break us up and we had just turned the corner into being babyfaces. Over time, it was like, ‘they’re too cool, we can’t boo them anymore.’ We were like, ‘No. What are you doing? We’re not ready for that yet, we have a whole run as babyfaces.

There’s a lot of merch money on the table.’ We went to Hunter, we talked about it, we ended up hashing it out and worked with The Outlaws [Road Dogg & Billy Gunn] and Kane at WrestleMania, which was a truncated match, a glorified squash because you guys [Austin, The Rock, and Hulk Hogan] talked for 35 minutes and the Daniel Bryan and Hunter went out and did 35 minutes [laughs].

You know how it goes, shit falls downhill. We had about 90 seconds and we went out and did our thing. Then, we did two matches with Evolution, no peep of a turn, no peep for a breakup, no one said anything. We wiped the floor with Evolution, it was a clean sweep in the elimination match. They pull us into the office and say, ‘tonight is the night.'”

The Shield would reunite on a couple of occasions after their initial breakup, but with Jon Moxley leaving the company in 2019, it is unlikely fans will get to see The Shield reunite anytime soon.

h/t to Fightful for the quotes.

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