Jon Moxley, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins changed the wrestling world as The Shield (Picture: WWE)
A decade ago, The Shield debuted in WWE, introducing fans Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose – and changing the business forever.
Since that fateful night at Survivor Series 2012, the trio – who celebrate their 10th anniversary on this very day – have gone onto take over the wrestling world, and that holds true right now with Reigns holding the Undisputed WWE Universal Title, Rollins as United States Champion, and Ambrose (now Jon Moxley) on top of the world in All Elite Wrestling (AEW).
It could have been very different, and Moxley exclusively told Metro.co.uk how the group felt like ‘misfit toys’ before they got called up to the main roster on November 18, 2012.
‘The biggest thing I remember about it is a feeling of relief,’ he previously told us, reflecting on their time in NXT precursor, Florida Championship Wrestling.
‘I only remember the good stuff and how great it was. But at the time when you’re in that, there’s always the threat – people are getting fired all the time, a lot of people are there for a year or two, they never get called up and then they get fired.’
He pointed out how much ‘harder’ it was for acts in WWE’s developmental brand to get brought up to the big leagues, as he compared the system to the claw from Toy Story.
The Shield has taken over the wrestling world (Picture: WWE)
‘We were this island of misfit toys, and very occasionally somebody might get plucked out like a little toy from Toy Story, picking up the alien guy and he gets to go to this promised land of the main roster,’ he quipped.
‘You always have this fear that you’ve never going to get called up, so this adds a lot of stress. You can’t just relax. Every day that passes down there before you get called up, you’re like, “Is this ever gonna happen? Am I gonna get fired today?” ‘
It was almost a treading on eggshells scenario, not wanting to ‘get fired for something stupid’, or the idea of failure over not making it to Raw and SmackDown.
‘That weighs heavily on your mind. So once we actually debuted on that night, it was like, “Ahhh… we made it! And now the work begins,”‘ he explained. ‘We had a big chip on our shoulder.’
That served the group well as they strived to ‘f**k everybody’ in their path to make sure they became the biggest stars possible.
He added: ‘From our time down there and our attitude, we had a huge chip on our shoulder. “We are gonna make the most of this opportunity and f**k everybody in our way”.
‘So we were very happy to be put in that high profile spot, and we wanted to be in that high profile spot because we were itching to prove that we belonged there. So, it was very comfortable for us.’
Moxley admitted he, Rollins and Reigns all believed they were ‘better than all these dudes’ on the main roster, and their success was a moment of ‘we f***ing told you’.
Jon Moxley is currently leading the charge in All Elite Wrestling (Picture: AEW)
‘We can hang with all these dudes! We’re gonna come in and fucking blow their asses away,’ he recalled of their mentality at the time, which he described as a different era.
‘When young guys would come into the locker room, it was an uncomfortable feeling, everybody’s judging you, waiting for you to make a mistake,’ he explained.
‘It was a more hostile environment back then, so we stuck together. “F**k these motherf**kers! They don’t like us? F**k ’em!” We weren’t there to make friends.’
Everyone from John Cena to The Undertaker worked with the trio (Photo: WWE)
For Moxley, the turning point was their skills in the ring, and the blockbuster matches they found themselves having in the ring every week, particularly with their now-legendary run of amazing six-man tag matches.
‘People started wanting to work with us because we were having good ass matches. All of a sudden, all the top guys were wanting to get in six-mans with us because we were having good matches,’ he pointed out.
‘And we’d make them look good! Me and Seth would bump our asses off for these dudes, you know?’
For The Shield, it cemented their legacy and proved the three upstarts ‘weren’t full of it’ as they started a run which, a decade later, sees them truly on top of the industry.
‘It’s just indicative of, “we were right,”‘ he said. ‘We turned out to be everything we said we were gonna be.’
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