Yeup I like them a lot.

Best thing so far have been the 6 man tag matches since they've all been really good.

I noticed DTTS has drops of Jupiter in his hair. :)

And oh yeah, the Shield make me go SCHWING! :)

So was this the best thing ever?

Pretty much yes.

That table bump Rollins took was brutal looking

Well, why was the WCW Cruiserweight scene so popular? Why do people still care about Edge and Jeff Hardy? (They got over before anyone of them could put a complete sentence together.) Why did people like Xpac for like 5 minutes?

I dunno though, I've only seen one night of the Shield and I bought the gimmick of them just being great at working with each other and sacrificing everything so that the team can win. They look different too which is nice.

I think as a super-casual fan I have finally let go all the things that made wrestling hard to enjoy. I'm satisfied if a wrestler can do one thing well and I don't compare everyone to Rock, Austin, Nash and Hall in my head anymore.

Ryback looks great and seems to be good in the ring, but he is complete shit on the mic' and his heel turn was pathetic. Somebody call an AMBULAN!

Roman Reigns looks like a non-crippled version of Khali, but he's pretty great in the ring from what I've seen.

Daniel Bryan has found a nice niche of an over-the-top emotionally unstable guy who can wrestle, I like it.

Kane is somehow amazing and I have no clue how that happened. In the 90s he was probably the most boring guy in the ring every time he wrestled.

Ambrose is weird and I like him on the mic', he comes off as legitimately crazy.

Hair-dude is pretty good in the ring too and all three members of the shield have great chemistry. Can't ask for much more.

And Kofi did some good jumpy-jump stuff.

The crowd seemed to be really into the match too and legitimately pissed when the Shield won.

Hell, I liked the whole show up until Triple H jobbing to a concussion. (And the diva match which I skipped).

The cruiserweight scene was popular for about 2 years and then it died off badly. As The Death of WCW book said "you can only watch Rey Mysterio give Psicosis a frankensteiner so many times." You've gotta be good on the mic to be anything.

I don't think we can be friends anymore.

best thing in the WWE in years, probably since the first month of Nexus

I feel like bad booking killed off the cruiser-weight scene more than their lack of mic work.

Still, I agree that it can't JUST be two guys wrasslin' with ultra-violently intense fighting spirit. We DO need a story to go along with it. For me the color commentary and even the little skit with Kane and Bryan helped toward that goal.

Again though, for me, it wasn't the fact that the Shield were fun and different, it was that the entire show seemed to have a lot of variety and fun wrestling all around. There are also a lot of big flexible guys on the roster right now which is neat and I love the fact that there are managers, tag teams and stables.

So yeah, I didn't know anything going into this episode and I enjoyed it. First time in a long time.

very much into the shield. i don't know where it goes from here, but if i had to pick between growing and splitting, definitely growing.

they are the greatest stable since the LWO.

I'm glad someone thinks the same. I actually prefer Rollins on the mic to Reigns. He actually sounds like CM Punk at times.

yeah Rollins hasn't been bad

He only really has problems when he's yelling outside the ring since his voice is kind of obnoxious still.

You can have cruiserweights who are good on the mic like Chris Jericho. The problem was they didn't make it its own separate entity. You cannot have Kevin Nash get in the ring with Rey Misterio without Rey looking like a joke or Nash looking like a joke for giving Rey any offense. It's a lose/lose situation. It needed to be its own entity, like divisions in the UFC. What happened is you had all these heavyweights come out and squash cruisers to the point there was no interest in the cruisers.

It doesn't even make sense for Nash to want to wrestle Misterio or vice versa, in fact it's completely retarded.

I like that all three guys seem to have a different vibe to them. Roman Reigns is the quietest and the tank of the group; Dean Ambrose is like the co-ordinator and the this insane guy that is unpredictable and really dangerous for his size; Seth Rollins is this tremendous high-flyer who talks a lot of crap but then flies across the ring and kicks someone in the face.

And Gertner is right in a sense -- I have a feeling that on their own we'd be talking about how Rollins won't make it out of the mid-card, Reigns needs a "little something" to get to that next level and that Ambrose is a fantastic talker but we can't buy him as WWE Champion for some reason. Luckily, these three have each other and have found success as a unit that has been explained as them sacrificing their egos and allowing them to get the better of more established Superstars and ultimately getting more effective on their own. We've seen these guys defeat Ryback, Sheamus, Kane, Daniel Bryan, Randy Orton, John Cena, Big Show and The Undertaker. The average fan is getting used to seeing these guys win in that sense. Any "failings" these men had solo has been washed away.

Also, for guys that are apparently "tiny," we've seen Ambrose & Rollins lift Big Show up for powerbombs and we've seen them beating on the biggest and the baddest in the WWE. That powerbomb from Rollins to Bryan on RAW was sick. These guys will be fine.

Something to consider: their size and the fight they have taken to some of the bigger names in the WWE could lead to a face turn for the group down the line. I'm not saying it should happen, and certainly not now, but there is a lot to actually like about The Shield. Their teamwork, their courage, their selflessness when it comes to protecting each other, their lack of ego, their size against larger opponents that they somehow manage to overcome, their credibility -- all of this is adding up to the group being in the position to move some merch or something.

And Gertner is also right in "larger than life" characters being valuable to wrestling -- but that is what we have here in The Shield. These guys beat up The Undertaker and put him through the announce table. JBL has done a great job of putting these guys over and has made it sound as if not one single force could stand up to these guys.

I get that, but I kind of like it because it makes you want to see him get his ass kicked. If he were a face and doing it? Now THAT would be stupid.

<font color=goldenrod>The Shield are easily my favorite thing about wrestling at the moment. I've become disenfranchised with a lot of the product, but I will go out of my way to see what The Shield are up to. Everybody in the group brings something different to the table and it blends so well.

Individually I can see big things for all three as well. Ambrose is not only great in the ring and he uses his "unhinged" style nicely, I think he could be a featured heel for the next decade if he wanted to with his promo ability. Rollins can always be counted on for a good match and a crazy spot when needed, and I think he'll get over huge in a Jeff Hardy kind of way once he goes face. He's no Ambrose on the mic, but he's not horrific either. Reigns has been the most pleasant surprise. He's an Anoa'i so he was always going to get a chance eventually, but he's shown he's really earned it. He just brings some serious intensity to every Shield match and beatdown. Plus his Spear is awesome.</font>

Went and did some research. I've been saying for a while that the company has too many guys around 6"2-6"4 240 and under. Here's a list


Alex Riley
Bo Dallas
Chris Jericho (obviously excluded from the stereotype)Camacho
Christian
CM Punk (ugh, I'll exclude him)
Cody Rhodes
Curtis Axel
Damian Sandow
Daniel Bryan
Darren Young
Dean Ambrose
Dolph Ziggler (excluded)
Drew McIntyre
Epico
Evan Bourne
Fandango
Heath Slater
Hunico
Jimmy Uso
Jey Uso
Jinder Mahal
JTG
Justin Gabriel
Kofi Kingston
The Miz
PRimo
R-Truth
Randy Orton (excluded)
Rey Mysterio
Sin Cara
Tyson Kidd
Santino Marella
Seth Rollins
Ted DiBiase
Tyson Kidd
Yoshi Tatsu
Zack Ryder


Now, excluding Jericho, Ziggler, Punk and Orton who are considered main event guys, that leaves 34 out of 54 guys on the roster who are 6"4 AND 240 and under. Now subtract part timers Brock Lesnar, The Rock, HHH, William Regal and the Undertaker and you're left with only 15 guys on the active roster bigger than 6"4 or 240. That is RIDICULOUSLY unbalanced.

Will TPWW be anti shield when fans start rooting for them as the cool heels?

William Regal being one of the bigger guys on the roster is a bit weird.

Regal is 243, so he's barely above the cut line. Not saying having smaller guys is bad, but there are WAY too many on this roster and more than half can't cut a promo to save their lives.

Instead of a Perfect Plex, I'd like to Axel use a fisherman buster

How about The Moss-Covered Three-Handled Family Credenza?

I totally posted that in the wrong thread lol

I actually thought I was in the RAW thread too.

I love The Shield

And from what I can gather from this thread, from Gertner's explaining, Khali is also a Vanilla Midget. Cause he's shit on the mic and can't wrestle.

I think they can all be useful members of the roster. Just not in the main event. They've been booked with more care than I thought WWE was capable of booking anyone nowadays... but it's for three guys who are not real main eventers. I can see Reigns maybe getting there with a mouthpiece at some point. I can even see Ambrose tasting the main event. It would be by default though.

Guys like them or a Daniel Bryan type have a place on the roster. They have talent. But Gertner's right. When it comes to the majority of the roster and your main event... your money makers... what you're primarily building the company on... it should be guys who have that "larger than life" appeal. None of them have it. And their push damn sure should have never come at the expense of a guy like Ryback who could be a goldmine if he wasn't booked so horribly. Seriously, since he stopped dominating jobbers, the man has yet to win on PPV. It's retarded.

and also if he weren't awful

Khali can barely speak english

Ryback has more main event potential than all of the members of The Shield combined. Ryback should have been made champ at HIAC if they were gonna put him in the title picture.

Thoughts like this are what RoH wishes ran through the minds of more people.

People compare wrestling to a soap opera. I compare them to Superheros. Now who is going to catch your eye with that comparison: 6"0 225 Dean Ambrose who you could see walking down the street and not blink an eye or Ryback who is a monster and catches your eye?

People throw out "well Stone Cold wasn't a hoss". Stone Cold weighed about 260 and is probably top 3 in terms of personality. He was pretty jacked.

Dean Ambrose is 6'4", Ryback catches my eye in that "hey that guy looks like he has something wrong with him" kind of way

I compare wrestling to any sort of TV show where being an interesting character who doesn't sound like he's never said words before is more important than having sick biceps

Exactly, and that is eye catching. He looks like he'll rip your head off and swallow your torso. Ambrose looks like half the damn roster.

Put Dean Ambrose in Ryback's place and he wouldn't have gotten nearly as over as Ryback got. That reaction when Ryback first got his hands on CM Punk is still one of the most raucous reactions I've seen since the attitude era. Ryback was the new star people were craving and they fucking came unglued.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wOy6b6X9lws" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>