I have a horrible habit of constantly referring to WWE guys by the names they used on the independent wrestling scene when they were on IWA Mid-South shows with me.  I only do it with the guys that worked in IWA before making it to the big time.  Thankfully, the WWE kept CM Punk so I didn’t have to adjust to that one.  But Antonio Cesaro is always going to be Claudio Castagnoli to me.  He wrestled his first show in the United States at an IWA Mid-South event and I saw him dozens of times and even managed him as Claudio Castagnoli.  Kassius Ohno was still Chris Hero to me.  He’s back to being Chris Hero but hopefully he makes it back into a WWE contract and has another name change if that is something that he wants to do.  Sami Zayn is El Generico.  I still find myself calling Daniel Bryan either Danielson or American Dragon.  But getting to the point of this post, The Shield.  They’ll always be Tyler Black and Jon Moxley to me.  Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose combined with Roman Reigns are The Shield.

I believe in The Shield.

I wish they were used a little differently.  I don’t know why The Shield has to be connected to HHH and Stephanie McMahon.  It’s ok to have them be heels but they should be a rogue band and not the right hand of the bosses.  It doesn’t matter as it appears that they are slowly building to the breakup.  If I were a gambling man, I would put money on the split coming at the Royal Rumble.  Dean Ambrose has been the United States Champion for quite some time now but I never see him defend that belt.  He has been the de facto leader of the group and it looks like the WWE is ready to give Roman Reigns a mega run.  He’s related to The Rock and Rikishi and everyone knows how the WWE loves to have legacies on top.  The Rock and Randy Orton or two prime examples and the amount of second and/or third generations of WWE performers that are under contract is rather large.  The Usos, Natalya, Tamina, Cody Rhodes, Goldust, Bray Wyatt…the list goes on and on.  Hell they even hired David Sammartino back in the 1980s!  Roman Reigns, a one move wonder, damn near eliminated an entire team by himself at The Survivor Series.  I can see him going on a huge tear in The Royal Rumble in January and finalize it by eliminating Dean Ambrose or by having Dean Ambrose jump him and eliminate him from the match…setting up for Reigns to win the US Title from Ambrose…potentially at WrestleMania.

The seeds were planted and started growing wild on the TLC ppv when it was the 3 members of The Shield vs. CM Punk in a handicap match and this happened:

So Believe In The Shield while you still can…the end is near.