Damien Barling: The Shield Is Back!!!

Monday night brought us the long awaited return of The Shield. Not the Ambrose, Rollins version that reformed weeks ago but the 3 man group with Roman Reigns that dominated the company for several years upon their arrival. The group was, arguably, broken up too soon to aid in Seth Rollins heel run and Roman Reigns attempted ascension to be The Guy.

There's plenty of good and bad that came with this moment and we may get a true feel for it's impact next week when Roman Reigns goes one on one with Braun Strowman inside a steel cage.

This was clearly done to get Roman over as a babyface. Something that hasn't happened since The Shield broke up the first time. In fact, if you recall him being the silent muscle of the group, that's exactly what he was, a massive babyface.

I thought it was a bit strange they attacked Braun Strowman as the first real proclamation of their return. I mean, Braun is pretty over and a lot of the crowd loves that guy as a big bad ass monster. It's weird to see a babyface group attack a guy, unprovoked. The psychology of that almost immediately makes you root for the guy getting their butt kicked.

We were told before Wrestlemania that the main event for Mania in 2018 would again be Lesnar and Reigns. Here we are in Oct of 2017 and it absolutely feels like that's the direction we're going.

As telegraphed as the entire Shield reformation was, it seemed to get over pretty well with the live crowd. If Roman comes out for his match next week by himself and gets cheered, we'll know this angle is headed in the direction WWE officials hope. If he's not, it'll be interesting to see what direction creative goes after that. Should The Shield be heels like they originally were? Is there a heel faction strong enough to get them over as bigger babyfaces? Time will tell but I fully expect them to be the center of attention for the rest of the calendar year.