Sit by Mr. Pierre’s Pool: Is the investment of the Shield a flop?

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by Tom Guycott And there is the issue in summation. The Shield could have given them three "tippy-top prospects". Instead, there was a lot of squandered momentum and ill concieved focus. When Cesaro had fans with "Cesaro Section" signs and getting pops for a goddamn giant swing, they just rode right past that gift horse. They pushed Samoa Joe as far as building up this credible threat to Brock Lesnar only to have him job clean in the middle of the ring and drop his ass down the card. I already mentioned the Bayley thing. Nakamura should have been *the man* by now. Et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum. WWE gives no hope. In fact, it actively crushes hope in fans who may be following even NXT. I remember feeling dread when, at the one Takeover, Velveteen Dream had "CALL ME UP, VINCE" on his tights, because that would have been a total monkey's paw for him (I have no comment about -ahem- current situations, not only because it has nothing to do with my point, but the roster has, among others, Seth and Drew, who also have been in trouble over their junk). In NXT, Undisputed Era, in spite of the dumbass stable name, have accidentally become the new Four Horsemen. And I say accidentally because when they were formed, WWE was still on the whole three person stable kick, and Roddy joined out of neccessity for an injured Bobby Fish. If Fish didn't get hurt, I'm pretty sure they would have just kept him as a singles babyface. Instead, he became the missing piece of a serendipitous puzzle. But the minute Adam Cole showed up on a main roster show for a match, all I could think of was a Paul Heyman impression of Vince McMahon: "But he's just so tinnnyyyy!!!"... not as a knock on Cole, but the fact that it is how Vince would see it. It's how he would see all four. They'd come in similarly to how they presented Asuka at her call up - with all this big deal and hype, but barely making it past anyone they've already established as jobbers. For the longest time, it has been presented in WWE that getting behind anyone is a losing fucking prospect, because the company will ignore it. And they aren't doing jack shit to buck that trend.

Don't completely disagree on all counts, but when it comes to The Shield -- they kind of proved Vince right. Yeah, I was all on-board the Ambrose bandwagon and felt he was the best overall performer until about 2016. Then he started shitting the bed. The Brock program stuff exposed him big time. No, Brock didn't want to do much with him, but that's kind of the issue, yeah? He also showed up drunk to the Hall of Fame, dropped the ball on the Austin podcast, was a cold fish with Jericho and got completely outclassed by AJ Styles.

People love to blame the WWE solely for this, but Ambrose is doing pretty much the exact same shit in AEW. He traded in a pot-plant for car keys and an eye-patch. His ring work isn't exactly stellar. People love to compare him to Terry Funk, but that's only in concept. He's got nowhere near the psychology to be anywhere near the greatest of all-time, let alone the greatest of all-time.

Seth has turned out really well by WWE standards. He's put his foot in his mouth and sabotaged his babyface run. The booking of him has never been great, but that's also him not going to bat for himself enough. You can tell the dude is a boot-licker of the lowest order. But he's one of those WWE projects that they tell you is a big deal and to that "WWE Universe," he is. He's a first-ballot Hall of Famer...by their standards. He's worked out way better than Sheamus or Alberto Del Rio or Jinder Mahal or The Miz or Jack Swagger or a bunch of other dudes they have randomly tried in that role. He's stuck as a guy that they are going to put the belt on sometimes and sometimes they won't.

Samoa Joe is frustrating to me, because in my opinion he's someone they could have genuinely banked on. Not as THE guy, mind you, but as someone. He should have been the guy to beat Cena for the US Title in 2015. He eventually got the same belt in 2019. Four years later. WWE is too often four years behind on guys. I won't let this go -- when they announced the draft, American Alpha, The Revival and Gargano/Ciampa should have all been featured on Raw. It was a three-hour show and could have used a stellar tag team division to pad time each week. You first see Gargano & Ciampa on WWE TV in 2019. Again, way too late.

I should have called this at the time, but Nakamura was never going to win the WWE Title when he got the Rumble. His contract was one year away from expiring and he had relocated his wife and kids away from Japan, and his mother who he was never too far away from was still over there. Nakamura's time in NXT was as much about helping him and his family acclimate to American life to avoid a kind of Paris syndrome as it was him "learning WWE style." When he gets to the main roster and wins the Royal Rumble, he's got less than a year left. The New Japan/ROH MSG show had not been announced at this point, but no way was Nakamura going to win the Royal Rumble, WWE Title and then possibly end up a free agent because of personal issues, just to be free to work the MSG show opposite WrestleMania the next year.

Sure, they could have renegotiated and signed him up longer term and all that, and there is definitely something to their reluctance to make major stars, but Nakamura's popularity with hardcores has never quite been there with casuals, so you can kind of understand why WWE may not have blown up their system for a guy who wasn't even the A1 guy in New Japan (although he was perhaps the coolest).

Right now, WWE are trying with Drew McIntyre. It's unfortunate timing with the lack of live crowds, but they're really going for it with him. They really buckled down with Becky Lynch. They gave Kofi Kingston a shot last year. I'm not saying the booking for any of these people has been stupendous or anything -- but they are trying now. Too little too late? I'll hear that. Wrong people? I'll hear that too. You've also got a lot of younger, fresher acts coming through the pipeline. They do need to clear out the older acts to let them through, but I wouldn't say they're not putting any effort in right now.

They really do need to make some stars, and that means actually booking some pro-wrestling, which might be a challenge to them with so much time to fill and such a large roster. But it's also got to come down to the talent too. It's not just all WWE's fault. Seth has hurt Seth, Ambrose hurt Ambrose -- circumstances hurt Nakamura and the window has probably closed on Joe. Kofi has never been main event tier, Becky is now pregnant and Drew is not the most dynamic dude and is reigning during a coronavirus.