The Shield Must Continue To Dominate

Dolph Ziggler and most of the WWE’s top heels are having all kinds of trouble with picking up victories these days, but not The Shield.

Since debuting at Survivor Series last November, The Shield has been booked better than perhaps any debuting faction in WWE history. Unlike a group many have compared it to in The Nexus, The Shield has been absolutely unstoppable so far.

The Shield has competed in just three matches during its three-plus months on the main roster, and surprisingly, the trio has emerged victorious from all three of those bouts.

That’s how a debuting faction should be booked. If the creative team portrays a group as a dominant and unbeatable one, then the fans will view that group the same way. 

Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins have benefited in a major way from creative realizing that perception is reality. Because The Shield is perceived to be a dominant threat, it’s become a reality that this trio of main-roster newcomers doesn’t seem like a trio of rookies at all.

Props are in order to the WWE for quickly establishing The Shield as a viable threat when it, for a multitude of reasons, has such a difficult time establishing its more experienced heels as such. 

And that’s precisely why The Shield must continue to dominate like it has so far.

More so now than at any point in recent memory, it’s absolutely imperative that the WWE builds up heels who are dominant and unstoppable. After all, the company is currently struggling mightily to do that.

Not even the WWE’s biggest heels find themselves winning consistently. In fact, most of them lose far more often than they win, which has become one of the company’s biggest problems. 

Take, for example, this week’s episode of Raw, which might as well have been called “Monday Night Bury Your Best Heels.”

In a three-hour span, the WWE had Ryback soundly beat United States champion Antonio Cesaro, The Miz beat Money in the Bank holder Dolph Ziggler and Intercontinental champion Wade Barrett tap out to Alberto Del Rio in less than five minutes.

The only heel who picked up an actual solid win was CM Punk, who won the Fatal 4-Way main event to earn a shot at The Undertaker’s undefeated WrestleMania streak. Mark Henry did pick up a win, but his opponent was Zack Ryder, who jobs to just about everyone these days.

This is where the WWE has such a big problem: Generally speaking, the only TV wins its heels get come in squash matches. Other than that, the heels have to cheat to win or get disqualified to avoid losing straight up.

The Shield, however, is the exception to that rule. 

While Barrett, Cesaro and Ziggler (who are widely considered to be three of the WWE’s best up-and-coming heels) lose consistently, The Shield has yet to lose, and perhaps more importantly, its victories have all come against the company’s elite babyfaces. 

In a WWE that’s filled with heels who are, to put it simply, losers, The Shield is undoubtedly a trio of winners. 

At WWE TLC, The Shield beat Ryback and Team Hell No without any sort of controversy. At Elimination Chamber, the trio beat John Cena, Sheamus and Ryback cleanly as well and then did the same thing to Sheamus, Ryback and Chris Jericho the next night on Raw.

The strong booking of The Shield has given the WWE a group of heels who are actually portrayed as dominant superstars rather than cowardly ones or guys who always lose. The WWE must keep that up. 

Clearly, the creative team doesn’t want to have heels like Cesaro, Barrett, Ziggler and others win. Therefore, it has to ensure that that’s exactly what The Shield keeps doing. 

Without strong heels, strong babyfaces don’t matter, and without The Shield, the WWE has hardly any strong heels.

Drake Oz is a WWE Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter!