WWE Rivalries: The Shield vs Evolution

going on. But if you're a huge sports fan, likes like myself, you kind of realized that we were spoiled for a good period there in the late summer after having nothing at all in terms of content for the better part of I would say four months when COVID first hit. But look, guys, I'm glad you're here to join us. I'm really excited to get into it this week because I'm gonna continue down the theme of faction rivalries, and this week we are gonna take a time travel

back to twenty fourteen with the Shield versus Evolution. So yeah, a pretty way more recent rivalry than we've been in custom to through I guess the first eight weeks. I think we're eight weeks into this rivalries experiment together. And look, I gotta say, just to this point, I know it's still relatively new and we have a long way to go here, but I cannot express how grateful and thankful I am for you guys to tuning into this show

each and every week. How grateful I am for Matt to have given me this opportunity and this platform to talk about the more nostalgic things and wrestling that is just my bread and butter when it comes to WWE. So really excited to get into WWE rivalries this week between the Shield and Evolution. But before we get there, as always, I want to give my thoughts on the current product, and I'll start, I guess with the draft, because that is the biggest news. I was pretty satisfied

with what they did. It seemed like a lot of mid card guys swapped the brands, for instance, going to SmackDown. I said that I wanted this to happen, and it did. Kevin Owens going there, I think that is huge. They really needed a big time babyfase, and Kevin Owens is the guy to do it. You know, many people forget that for all intents and purposes, he was the first

ever Universal champion. I know technically it was Finn Balor, but he relinquished it a night after winning it, and then Kevin Owens went on a I believe it was a four or five month run with it. He held it from August to late February, when he infamously dropped it to Goldberg. But look, I think there's still a lot of main event left in Kevin Owens and he hasn't really gotten back there since early twenty seventeen, and

I really want to see him as a babyface. I'm not saying that he has to win the title now or even in the near future, but I still would like to see him get back into that picture. And given the small amount of top babyfaces on SmackDown and challengers and potential challengers for Roman Rains' Universal Championship, he is a guy that I really want to see and I'm not expecting to.

and I really like it. Another thing coming over to SmackDown is Alistair Black and look I personally feel like his momentum has been just stopped dead in its tracks

after a pretty solid start to the year. I remember when the year started, I guess, well, maybe not right when it started, but around April or May, I thought that he would have been a perfect contender for the ww Championship at next year's WrestleMania against Drew McIntyre with the way he was going down and the momentum he was gating, but now kind.

back here. And that's the thing that kind of scares me a bit, is that, given the whole COVID nineteen and I believe you as a newborn child, I don't really know if and when he will be back by the end of this year or in time for WrestleMania season. So I'll hold out I'll reserve judgment until he comes back and we can go and get an exact timeline and when he will be back in the ring. Over on the raw side of things, well, look, they kept

all of their big names. They kept Drew McIntyre, they kept Brandy Orton, they held on to Keith Lee, they held on to the Hurt business, which I'm really happy about retribution and meh, considering the way that they were going down and they have that ongoing rivalry with the Hurt business, I'm.

not so distant future. I think Seamus, much like Kevin Owens, is a guy who still has a main event run left in him. The difference is is that Seamus probably doesn't have nearly as much runway left as a guy that Kevin Owens does. Is Seamus has been around for over ten years and Kevin Owens has really only been on the main roster for five and a half.

I wouldn't mind it. He hasn't been a babyface for I would say about six years now, and he's one of those guys that he can kind of play either role equally as well, so I wouldn't be opposed to it. But given that they've just gone down this new kind of direction with his character wearing like that old fashioned code and I don't know if it's a fedora but an old style hat, I think they're gonna continue down

this path with him. But again, I would love to see him potentially go up against Drew McIntyre, and even if Randy Orton wins the ww Championship, I wouldn't be opposed to see Drew McIntyre versus Shamus type of feud. I think that would be a very cool clash of styles, no pun intendas I'm gonna talk about aj styles in a second. And furthermore, one Scottish, one's Ireland Irish rather so just their respective nationalities would be something cool to

pull off of. They also get Bronze Stroman, who he's just kind of being twisted in the wind since losing the Universal Championship. And you kind of knew it, right, like I said to myself when it happened, and I'm sure a lot of you guys were as well. When he won the Universal Championship at WrestleMania over Goldberg. You basically knew they were just treading water until Roman Reigns came back and then he was to get that belt

quickly upon his return, and that's what happened. He showed up on a Sunday and the following Sunday he won the championship. So I feel bad for Bronz Strowman. I'm not really.

guy fighting a SmackDown champion. And it just comes back to the fact of that they really don't care about the rules of the brand split, which I took a deep dive on last week when I did the whole Raw versus SmackDown from five review. And look, I'm not gonna reiterate a lot of what Matt said because my feelings almost front parallel with his, But this is one thing that they had in the Ruthless Aggression era that I think was really good as opposed to what they

have now. Nowadays they have the SmackDown Tag Team Champions, the Raw Tag Team Champions, the Raw Women's Champion, the SmackDown Women's Champion, brand exclusive championships. But here's the thing. Back in the day, Raw had its own Tag Team Championship, but it was the World Tag Team Champion. SmackDown had its own Tag Team Championship, but it was the WWE Championship or the WWE Tag Team Championship rather so if

those titles were interchangeable amongst the brands. And it was the same thing with the world titles, because back then they still had the WWE title obviously, but instead of the Universal, they had the World Heavyweight which so I note, I wish they had just brought back instead of creating a brand new Universal Championship, but that's neither here nor there.

And when they debuted the Universal Championship four years ago and it had the red strap, I said to myself, well, this is dumb because maybe it doesn't have it in the name, but the strap itself almost makes it brand exclusive. And obviously it went to SmackDown last year and they simply just changed the strap to blue, which is fine, I guess, but to me it just devalues the meeting.

They don't think very far ahead of themselves, and like, could anyone beyond the age of eight years old really believe that Broun Strowman has a snowballs chance in hell of winning this match? And again, I'm not always opposed to predict ability, but not when it coincides with stupidity. And look, I'm look. It was another thing in the draft that bothered me that when they split the New Day.

I don't mind that they split the New Day I actually really like it, as I previously said, but it's how they did it because the rules of the draft said factions or tag teams can get taken unless USA or or Fox specifically picks a member or members. So Raw went first and picked KOFE and Xavier Woods, and

then SmackDown went second and picked Biggie. Would it have not made more sense to Bit for Biggie to get picked first, honestly, because you're telling me that USA only wanted kofee and Xavier Woods and Biggie was like the leftover scraps here. Like again, I know they're not supposed

to be like wrestling. Gms are very high and wrestling knowledge, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to watch the product over oh I don't know the last five months and say, well, Biggie's the hottest commodity right now and

worth the most right now. It would have been it would have made more sense for SmackDown to take Biggie first and then Rob be like, okay, well we might as well take the New Day because the whole point of this split is to say, well, Xavier and KOFE are gonna continue down the tag team route and Biggie's gonna eventually get a mid card to main event push as a singles competitor, and it just didn't make sense to me that Xavier and KOFE went first, Because again,

I know WWE doesn't think this much, but for a fan like me who's been watching for twenty years, it just it makes me feel that they don't value Biggie as much. And I know that's not the case, but if you're going with the true integrity of a sports draft and they're really trying to emulate how real life drafts take place in real life sports, the guy with more value and the guy who the company thinks more

highly of will go first. It's just common sense. And again it's no big deal, but again, but it's just another thing and another example of WWE really not caring about the little details when trying to tell a story. And the last thing I want to touch on the draft before we get onto rivalries, which I know is the reason why you guys are here. And I'm sorry if I'm rambling a bit, but it's Aj Styles and aj Styles is a guy that for me has been kind of twisting away in obscurity for over a year now.

And personally, I think he's the best wrestler they have right now, both in the ring and character wise. Although his character has gotten a bit stale, it seems that ever since that Undertaker program at WrestleMania, it has just been a whole lot of met for AJ Styles. And this is a guy that I know he's only been in WWE for I want to say five years now this coming January, but he isn't exactly young, and I think he did an interview that said that he only

has about two or three years left here. And I don't think they're really utilizing AJ Styles to the maximization of his to the best of his capabilities. Rather, and here's what I would like to see with AJ Styles. I think he needs to go back babyface. While I like him as a heel and as a whole, I probably prefer him more as a heel type of character. I think WWE is really lacking in the top babyface department.

Aside from Drew McIntyre. I know you have up and coming guys like Keith Lee and Biggie, and you still have Kevin Owen's waiting, but aside from Drew McIntyre, there's real no main, legitimate main event babyfaces they have on either Raw or SmackDown. You can make the case for Daniel Bryan, I guess, but he kind of seems to have one foot in one foot out right now. You look over on Raw. Jeff Hardy, I suppose, but I don't think he's gonna even sniff the World Championship scene.

Maybe when Edge comes back, but again, he's more of a part time guy. I just look at aj Styles and I see a guy who, while I think as a whole he's a better heel, we know he's a good babyface, and they have a chance here with him going back to Raw, and I hope he stays on Raw, just for at least the whole year, because he started at the draft last year in October, he was on Raw, then they switched him to SmackDown, and then he went back to Raw. Now, so he's just kind of been

going back and forth and back and forth. But and I know that had something to do with backstage heat with Paul Hammond, but I'm not gonna analyze things they don't have all the information to But I want them to really just find him a stable place on Raw, and that should be in the main events scene. And if you're asking me, and I'm not a guy who does this a lot that fantasy books, I'm picking Aj.

is as a whole. Since twenty sixteen, I would say that aj Styles is the best wrestler w W has had, and I always just could not get over the amount of chemistry he had with John Cena, both in promos and in the ring, and after John Cena left, I almost felt like Aj Styles took on that role that John Cena had as the veteran may evank guy who can tag in from time to time as the World Champion, but mainly had a stay in the upper mid card, kind of like what John Cena was doing from let's

say twenty fourteen to twenty sixteen in the final two years of him being a relatively full time competitor. And I would like to see ag Sells win the Royal Rubble to cement himself as a legitimate star of the last Generation because he is. And I'm not saying I would want him to go on and maybe win the w W Championship from Drew McIntyre because I do want to see McIntyre go into WrestleMania with the w W Championship.

Even if he drops it to Randy Orton in a short period, I would still want Drew to get it back in time for WrestleMania season.

WWE Championship. And The Shield went on for about a year of just running rough shot on WWE, and I gotta say they are one of the main things that pulled me back into really caring about the product again, because, like I said, I really got drawn back in in twenty eleven when The Rock came back, but after his initial return and he was just kind of showing up every couple of months trying to build his program to

John Cena at WrestleMania twenty eight in twenty twelve. Aside from that, I really wasn't all that interested because I felt, I know a lot of people liked it, but that era, the early twenty tens was a really dark time for me, and I really just didn't care a whole lot about the product. But when the Shield showed up, it really gave me kind of a feeling from an Attitude era. They were a faction that I could have seen in

the Attitude era or the Rutha's aggressionary. I liked their theme song, I liked their look, I like the tactical gear, I like coming down from the crowd. Everything about the Shield was something that I draw and it drew me

back in. So for twenty thirteen they were pretty much a mid card Healed faction, and they even aligned themselves with the Authority for a short bit, as kind of like the Heavies for Triple H when Randy Orton had first aligned himself and you know, cashing him money in the bank on Daniel Bryan following his SummerSlam Championship win at SummerSlam twenty thirteen, and then you saw Roman reigns and seth Rawlins win the tag team championships, and then

you saw Deeede Ambrose when the US titles, So they were really going full steam ahead with pushing these guys.

Early twenty fourteen comes and they had mainly been heels, well actually entirely bin heels for they I would say fourteen months that they had been on the main roster, but WWE started dipping their toes into the prospect of potentially turning them babyface, and we saw them have a short run in with the Wyatt family, who obviously were full blow heels at the time, and then they had a WrestleMania match with Kane and the New Age out Laws,

who were heels. So they hadn't done a complete babyface turn yet, but WWE was definitely dipping their toes in the water to see how the reaction from the fans would be. And you always knew with the Shield or shortly after their debut that if WWE ever decided to turn them babyface, the crowd would absolutely love them because they were guys who had perfect heel heat. All the NXD maniacs loved them because they were big NXT guys, especially seth rawlins, and they were just they had a

really cool vibe about them. It was just something about the Shield when they first showed up that was almost as a blast on a pass, like something that we hadn't seen in quite some time in WWE, just an ulterior look. It was almost like what they're trying to do with Retribution now, except they knocked it out of the park with the with the Shield and they fallen flat on their face with w WE. And the one thing about the Shield and their one model was always justice.

They were the hounds of justice. That's what they cared about and that's what they live by, and that's how they started slowly transitioning into the babyface side of the things. But while the Shield were slowly but surely starting to

turn babyface very gradually. If you remember in twenty fourteen, that was the Yes movement, when you know, WWE single handedly got forced by the fans into changing the main event of WrestleMania thirty when it was supposed to be Batista versus Randy Orton, but it ended up being a triple threat match with Daniel Brian being in there and Daniel Brian's feud with the authority in Triple H more specifically was on fold display at this point. So WrestleMania

comes and goes. He beats Triple A to get into that triple threat match to main event Wrestleming of thirty. He gets in there, and then despite interference from Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, despite Batista and Randy Orton teaming up on him during the match, Daniel Bryan finds a way to win and become the WWE undisputed World Champion because at this time they had just unified the world Heavyweight titles and the WWE Championship.

Daniel Brown's gonna beat Triple Hi. Again and it's just gonna be yet another victory to cement Daniel Brian as a main event player after months being told he is a B plus player by the authority. But he comes to the ring and before the match could even start, you get Batista and Randy Jorton come out and beat

the holy hell out of him. Then Caine comes out and if you remember at this time, Caine was the director of operations, so we had no mask on would come out in a suit and he comes out seemingly to regulate the situation, but then he choke slams Daniel Brian. So Daniel Brian is just getting destroyed by Batista, Randy Jorton and Kane and then lo and behold, Triple H makes his way out to the ring and forces the referee to ring the bell and start the match, despite

Danielbrian being incapacitated. So the bell rings, Daniel Brian is lying motionless on the on the ring, Matt Triple H is mocking the crowd doing the yes chance is m man, you have Kine Batista ran you were looking on on the outside, and it seems that Triple H has this championship win in the bag. When this happens, We're not no.

reason with them. You heard him saying to telling them to you know, stand down, and then he's telling Kane like, we're not breaking this down into a war because obviously Kane had had his run ends in with the Shield in the weeks leading up to it, but Ultimately, Triple H turns around, eats a spear from Roman, reigns, and the Shield clear the ring with the and Daniel Bryan ends up getting up nailing Triple H with the flying knee and thus completing the baby.

by all these guys. Next thing, you know of very familiar music hits that we hadn't heard in about ten years.

of these three individuals. And you heard one of the contiers said, I believe it was JBL saying all coming together for a common goal. And like I said earlier in the podcast, is that the shield kind of gave me a throwback to a feeling I had had and that I hadn't had rather in close to a decade

since the ruthless Aggression era. And when I saw Evolution walk out and just basically take advantage of a beaten down shield, I realized that the Shield really reminded me of Evolution, and it wasn't for the fact of how they looked esthetically or their common goal or how they came out to the ring or any of that, or their styles of wrestling, none of that, but it was just it was in the sense that it was a

faction that felt like a main event player. And that's how Evolution felt in the Ruthless Aggression era that even though at times that aside from Triple H they were mainly just a mid card faction that would you know, contend for the tag team titles in the Interconnal Championship if they got put in the main event scene, it felt that like they belonged, and that's how I felt about The Shield. They felt that from the get go

that they had main event potential. It didn't take me long to get behind Rawlins, Reigns and Ambrose and say, yeah, I really think that WWE could build the future behind these three guys. And that's the same way I felt about Batista and Randy Orton back in two thousand and four, And it didn't take me long to feel that way about them either, much like I did about The Shield.

WWE has had to offer. You can make the case for the new incarnation of Degeneration X, I guess in the early two thousands with the McMahon Helmley regime, but it doesn't match up against the original DX. And these two, the Shield and Evolution, are the two best the WWE has had in the last two decades. And maybe that's why I like the Hurt business so much, is that it's made me feel like a similar admiration towards a faction that I haven't felt, let's say, since the Shield.

And I think factions are something that has gone by the wayside of b WWE, and I think they should go back to. More so Evolution reforms and thus kicks officially kicks off the rivalry between the two teams, and the first encounter that they would have would be at Extreme Rules twenty fourteen, where the Shield would go over on Evolution, beating them in a six.

But once again, the Shield goes over on Evolution and just sweeping them in back to back matches. And this really solidified the Shield as a true top faction in I would say the history of WWE, and I'm confident in saying that because it solidified them against probably the best faction in WWE history, or at least of the last two decades, in Evolution.

to the company. But Triple H was adamant that the only way that this rivalry would end is when the Shield was no more, and that's what resulted in the closing segment of that Monday Night Raw You I haven't figured it out yet.

And this then thus completed the rivalry between Evolution and the Shield. And I think that this rivalry is very important for numerous reasons. Number one, it solidified the Shield as main event players and one of the best factions of all time. They beat the arguably the best faction of all time in Evolution in two matches and did

so in quite convincing ways. And getting wittings over the names such as Triple A, Randy Orton, and Bautista is something very very substantial in WWE, especially when you guys have never been main event players in your own right. Like It's one thing if you've been being pushed as a single star for a couple months and then you finally go over on a big name in the company.

But this was different in the sense that these guys were, by all intents and purposes, just a mid card faction, a mid card heel faction to boot and seeing the fact that Creative was able to book them in two victories over the likes of Evolution was very telling on

how WWE management felt about them. And furthermore, it ended this rivalry, ended the Shield, and I know we've had reincarnations of it over the past few years leading up to the departure of Diana Ambrose, but it never really quite felt the same, And to be honest, I felt that they just did very like too fast. It had only been three years when they did the initial reunion in the fall of two thousand and seven, and I just felt it was too much, too quick, and they

should have let it breathe a bit. But I guess in hindsight it's probably a good thing that they did it, because Dean Ambrose ended up leaving and is now John Moxley in AW so they wouldn't have had the chance to now.

least in my opinion. And it was weird because seth Rawlins was the one who right out of the gate, got the biggest push, and before this happened, I would have argued that he was kind of the odd man out. He was kind of the third wheel to this group, because if I think back to the Shield in twenty thirteen and early twenty fourteen, I looked at it and I said, well, Roman Reigns is clearly the guy that

WWE likes and will likely be a baby phase. Dean Ambrose has the lunatic psycho thing going on, so he's going to be a full blown heel, and seth Rawlins is just the acrobatic guy who's excellent in the ring.

And that's just my opinion on it. Maybe you guys have a differing one, but I always thought that Seth Rawlins would be the least likely to have main event potential when they all broke, so when they decided to have seth Rawlins be the guy to turn on the Shield and have the most significant character development right off the bat, and win the money in the bank briefcase shortly thereafter, and get Jay and J's security and all

these things. I just found it very very intriguing and a brilliant part on creative because look, lo and behold. Since then, seth Rawlins has become one of the most prominent wrestlers in the company, and it just really set the stage and the landscape for w WE for the following what is it now six years since this happened, and lo and behold, these guys have in large part

been the faces of the company. The one thing that I am kind of sad about looking back on the Shield and the dissolution of this shield is that I really wish they would have had at least one one on one match between any of the two of the three because at a WrestleMania I would have liked to see two of the three go head to head at a WrestleMania that we haven't been able to see to

this point. I really thought at WrestleMania thirty two, when seth Rawlins was out with injury and John Ceno was out with injury and Randy Orton was out with injury that Roman Reigns versus Dean Ambrose would have been a perfect main event and you know, two Shield members, maybe two baby faces going one on one, But they elected to go with Roman Reigns versus Triple h which was one of the worst WrestleMania main events of all time

in my opinion. But maybe we'll get to see it with seth Rawlins and Roman Reigns somewhere down the line. They're both on SmackDown now, so maybe, but they're both newly turned heels, so who knows if that is anything in the cards in the near future. But this feud between Evolution and the Shield was big in so many ways by main event by solidifying them as main event players and breaking them up to send them on their separate ways as single stars. So look, guys, that's about

all I got for this week. In terms of rivalries. It was more of a recent rivalry that I hope you guys are good with. I know usually I do fifteen plus years ago, but This was just something I'd been thinking about for a while, and I'm kind of on this kick of faction versus faction rivalries, so I hope you guys are good with that too, as opposed to the traditional one on one rivalries. Just trying to think about a bit outside the box. So as always, you can at me on Twitter at A to Marco

twenty five. You can email Matt at REALWWE Podcast at gmail dot com if you want to leave him questions for me I'd be happy to answer them, or at me on Twitter or dm me on Twitter.