Shield vs. Drew McIntyre, Dolph Ziggler: Which Team Will Turn on Each Other 1st?

Over the past few months, one of the biggest driving forces on WWE Raw has been the duo of Drew McIntyre and Dolph Ziggler, who have laid waste to most opponents in their way.

In their conquest to turn WWE on its head, Ziggler temporarily captured the Intercontinental Championship, and the two also managed to steal the Raw Tag Team Championships from The B-Team.

With Braun Strowman now fighting alongside them, the most grandiose story on Monday nights is whether The Shield can be the trio to put them in their place, whether the fans get on board with WWE's story and cheer and boo "the right people" or not.

Love it or hate it, based on the cards for Hell in a Cell and Super Show-Down, this will be the most prominent tale this autumn, but despite so much importance being put on these factions going to war, there is also an inevitable collapse looming.

Credit: WWE.com

Even the best tag teams in WWE rarely stay together for the long haul, no matter how tight-knit of a unit they may be.

Sooner or later, at least one member turns their back on their allies out of jealousy, anger, selfishness or for seemingly no rational reason other than that the writers wanted to break that team up.

Recently, Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair ended their friendship and Titus Worldwide seem to have lost their statistician when Dana Brooke left Apollo Crews and Titus O'Neil out of frustration, so the writing is on the wall that the Ziggler-McIntyre tandem and The Shield won't stick around forever.

Somewhere down the line, something is going to happen to send these men their separate ways, but which squad is going to call it quits first, and when might that bubble burst?

Needless to say, nothing is going to happen until at least the Super Show-Down event on Oct. 6, but it's unlikely we'll see a split happen at that show. There will still be several weeks heading into Survivor Series, and it's unknown what that card will be shaped like.

If it is another lineup of the Raw and SmackDown champions against each other—and The New Day happen to still hold the SmackDown tag titles—it's a sure bet McIntyre and Ziggler won't drop the Raw titles any time soon. That way, there will be a definitive heel and babyface team in that match and some big names will get on the card.

Likewise, if Shinsuke Nakamura is still the United States champion, rest assured Seth Rollins will hold on to the intercontinental title to set up the same hero-and-villain dynamic, which means The Shield should still be going strong as a trio in November, too.

After that, all bets are off, as the end of the year is when WWE panics about changing things to set up plans for WrestleMania.

To prepare for what that card is eventually going to be, Tables, Ladders and Chairs in December and the Road to WrestleMania, starting with Royal Rumble, will be game-changers for turning people heel or face, crowning new champions and shaking things up.

Credit: WWE.com

A major factor in what WWE will plan around will be Ziggler's contract status, as nothing solid has been announced about him signing a new deal, despite months of speculation that he would be leaving the company at some point.

If he's still in limbo and hasn't committed to anything, WWE will likely count him out for any big ideas going forward and will cut his ties to McIntyre so the former Chosen One isn't hurt by The Showoff's potential absence.

All it will take is one beating, with McIntyre saying Ziggler is holding him back, and he'd be in serious contention to be a big player in the Royal Rumble or fight for a title at WrestleMania. When the split happens, there's no way The Showoff will come out of it looking better and getting the bigger push.

By the time this happens, a new team such as The Revival or, more likely, The Authors of Pain, will need to take the tag titles, meaning the key to look out for in regards to the Ziggler and McIntyre split is when WWE starts building up another duo to be the next in line.

Credit: WWE.com

With The Shield, though, things are a little trickier to pin down, as well as, potentially, being much easier to forecast. It all depends on what WWE wants to do for WrestleMania 35.

Roman Reigns never gets as positive of a reaction as when he's alongside Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins, so the stable may be kept together for as long as WrestleMania itself, just to keep those cheers coming.

If so, it may be Ambrose and Rollins who take down McIntyre and Ziggler to win the Raw Tag Team Championship, setting up a match against The Authors of Pain for MetLife Stadium in April. It would be a battle of flak jackets that would put eyes on those titles.

In that scenario, Ziggler and McIntyre are the first to dissolve, for sure. There wouldn't be anything left for them to do other than to break up.

However, if WWE wants to go back to last year's plans and replicate the formula, The Shield may not stick around that long.

Credit: WWE.com

Heading into WrestleMania 34, before Ambrose was injured, the idea was to have him turn on Rollins to set up a singles match between the two in New Orleans. That was even carried over, to a certain extent, with Jason Jordan in The Lunatic Fringe's position, before he fell victim to an injury, too.

If the writers are keen to do that, Ambrose must turn on Rollins in enough time—with or without the tag titles in their possession beforehand—to give fans a few weeks or even months to salivate in anticipation for the two brothers in arms to do battle.

For the most part, this all revolves around WWE's plans for the Raw Tag Team Championship at both Survivor Series and WrestleMania.

The most likely scenario is that Ziggler and McIntyre will face The New Day at Survivor Series on Nov. 18, before dropping the titles to Ambrose and Rollins, who will either head into WrestleMania with the belts to lose to The Authors of Pain or split in order to set up an Ambrose vs. Rollins singles match.

There is a chance The Shield breaks up while Ziggler and McIntyre—tag titles or not—stick around and try to find their place on Raw, but once they lose those belts, there won't be anything left for them to do together other than feud between themselves.

Anything can change in WWE at any time, and plans don't always follow the logical course of action, but if you're placing a bet on which team will turn on each other first, go for McIntyre and Ziggler, possibly in November.

Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.