Seth Rollins: Betraying The Shield changed the business for the better

It was more than ten years ago, but for fans who were stunned when Seth Rollins broke up The Shield, it still feels like yesterday.

That’s probably why Rollins is still being asked about it. It came up again today (July 31) while he was on ESPN SportsCenter promoting SummerSlam. Seth indicated that he would still betray Dean “Jon Moxley” Ambrose and Roman Reigns to join with Triple H, Stephanie McMahon and The Authority, because he believes those steel chair shots on the June 2 episode of Raw changed not only the careers of The Hounds of Justice, but the wrestling business as a whole.

“I’ve been asked about it a lot. Obviously, I think that’s like the one thing that if you are a fan of Seth Rollins or The Shield or Jon Moxley [or] Roman Reigns, I think that’s the one thing that kind of sits with you over the course of the last 10 years, essentially. And I get asked about it all the time and I’ve thought about it. Would you go back? Would you change it? Would you do something different? And my answer is unequivocally no, I wouldn’t.

“Because where we’re at now, the business as a whole is healthier than it’s ever been. And that moment in time is what shifted everything. That’s what put us all on our separate paths. Our goal in the beginning was to run the show, to run the business, to change it, to make it better. And here we are a decade later — and I dare say that it was accomplished with the swing of that steel chair.”

The positive change didn’t happen for overnight for anyone involved, including WWE and the industry in general. But just on the popularity of Rollins, Reigns, and Mox (and by extension the “challenger brand” Moxley’s helped establish), it’s hard to say it wasn’t a contributing factor to the current wrestling boom.

Let us know what you think, and watch Seth Rollins’ entire SportsCenter appearance in the video embedded below.