ONI YELLS ABOUT THE SHIELD
The Shield as a collective is what I like to call one of the company’s most potent lightnings in a bottle in recent time, combining three guys with commanding presence and dripping with their own brand of charisma who played off each other like they were born to do it. They work unlike any tagteam I’ve ever seen (yes, even your corny-ass NWO Wolfpac, a comparison which they themselves have brought up scathingly).
For starters, there is and never has been a True Leader among the three of them. There seems to be some unspoken understanding that they work as a unit, not a hierarchy (unlike say Triple H in Evolution who was clearly the leader of the group and never let his team mates forget it). Instead, a majority of the time they act when there’s a mutual agreement to act which may be due to one member pursuing a certain course of action but once the ball is rolling there’s almost never any argument on who ‘leads’. Occasionally Seth may take the helm when things get cerebral, Dean usually elects to move ahead if it’s darker dealings and if they need to plow through bigger challenges, Roman’s more than willing to be their battering ram.
Beyond that they have a system they stick to when it comes to chasing down ‘prey’ and bringing down larger ones which is interesting to study;
1. In a chase, Seth is almost always the 'sighthound’, the one in the lead hot on the scent. Dean follows up like a terrier flushing out whatever Seth unearths and Roman carries the back like a massive wrecking ball of a Cane Corso.
2. During battles, Seth dazes or stuns larger opponents with aerial assaults, Dean dives low (we see this more often now) to break their support and Roman wraps it up in a nice, violent package.
TLDR: They know the role they have to play, understand that each of them is integral to the survival of their unit and do it perfectly.
Something I find unique is also their brand of Cool Badass that includes being emotionally open with one another and completely unabashed and unapologetic when it comes to showing affection to one another. This is refreshing since affection between men esp. in wrestling tends to be downplayed, not there or played up for comedic effect, and somehow, these jacked af SWAT dudes are 720% comfortable with hugging, snuggling, more snuggling, forehead kisses, comforting face touches, cradling one another and there’s no laugh track, it’s not framed as an uncomfortable situation, it’s not even a Big Deal with how fucking OFTEN they engage in it, like there’s agreement between them that This Is Important To Our Relationship and they go with it like breathing air.
I’d say it’s pretty close to if not at the same level as the Golden Lovers, just not played as romance–it’s just their way of bonding.
You see it in the way Roman hugs his brothers—He looks like he’s sinking his soul into them with how visceral he allows himself to be with them.
You see it in the way Seth keeps touching Dean’s face (Most apparent in their earliest Shield run) to calm Dean down, and it works and more amazingly, Dean learns from it and has done it to Seth himself and Roman on different occasions.
You see it in how aggressive Dean himself gets when initiating contact especially with headbumps/nuzzles—sometimes there’s snarling involved, as though he’s hungry for it, sometimes it looks like a dog who had been abused up to some point in its life and while having a much better life now, is struggling with but understands and wants to show love, even if it comes off a little more harshly than expected.
You can absolutely believe without shadow of a doubt that these men honestly love each other which is such a novel quality to prescribe to a vicious, unforgiving paramilitary unit of mercenaries.
It’s not to say the relationship is perfect; They’ve had their share of conflict, they’ve been massive turds to each other at times, but It’s the kind of fierce, enduring love that interlaced with a genuine joy in each other’s company which survives momentary betrayal where they would still choose each other over the world when the world closed in around them, and even heavyweight title matches;
Roman and Dean happily agree that “Loser buys beer!” with no bad blood while they gleefully bash each others’ faces in because of this inspiring bit of emotional maturity (holy SHIT in MY WRESTLING?!) so rarely seen in ANY TAG TEAM where they knew the stakes from day one, decided that the best man would win, sincerely congratulated and were happy for whoever won and made it clear that it wouldn’t do a damn thing to change their friendship.
Roman, despite his rivalry with Seth has on several occasions saved Seth during their matches while Dean’s love for Seth manifests in a sort of twisted hatelove-possesiveness where he insists that “Seth Rollins is sort of my thing” because he’s gone from nihilistic not giving a shit about anyone or anything in the world, to centering his sights on a man he believes took everything worth taking away from him which against convention leads him to forgiveness rather than retribution—a story you don’t always hear in wrestling and DEFINITELY not self-proclaimed 'scum’ like him.
In Seth, you can sort of put what he went through next to the saga that was Triple H’s betrayal and feud Shawn Michaels because there’s clearly a precedent for what he did on June 2nd, but here’s where it changes; Seth, openly, heartbreakingly lays out his cards on the tables for the world to see when he realizes and owns up to the true extent of what he did and he’s driven half-mad by rage and despair. He’s furious at what he had become, the things and people he had sacrificed and he makes no qualms that he hated who he was when he was with Hunter (who despite his closeness to has never had this sort of epiphany with Shawn).
He gives Dean a chance to enact what he believes is justice and reaches out to Roman without expecting anything in return outside of helping Roman even the odds.
He doesn’t just slip back into the role of being a reliable ally once more; Even if he doesn’t say it, he actively worked for it because for all the shitty things he said and did when he was in a suit wearing a face that never felt like his, they were worth that much to him at the very least.
In the end, together these three men have gone through more within six years than a lot of tag teams have in a lifetime and that has made them, in my option, that much harder to break because what else could you do to bow them?
What comes after lopsided beatdowns, multiple title clashes and a shattering betrayal?
Who could buy their loyalty when they have seen firsthand what happens when their loyalty is bought?
What can hope to shake the resolve of three war-weathered wolves whose paths are so intertwined to each other? Who are now older and wiser and more understanding of the world they in their youth wanted to change with fire and steel and battlecries?
That’s what intrigues me with their current incarnation;
If they were dangerous then in their impetuous, impatient naivete as novices to the main roster, imagine how dangerous they could be now.
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