The Ultimate Shield Match: Why WWE Must Make Triple Threat Feud at WrestleMania

With SummerSlam in the dust, WWE is swiftly heading into Survivor Series territory, and before we know it, the Road to WrestleMania 35 will sneak up on us.

It's important for the writers to already have a game plan in mind in order to spend the next few months properly building to the best possible lineup of matches for The Show of Shows.

Of course, the card is always subject to change, and history has shown how injuries and sudden shifts in creative can influence WrestleMania. But in an era when Goldberg won the Universal Championship specifically to set up a year-long Brock Lesnar title reign with the goal of dropping it to Roman Reigns in 2018 in mind, WWE can clearly think ahead.

That said, one match for WrestleMania 35 stands out as an obvious choice to book: a Triple Threat between Reigns, Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins for the Universal Championship.

There are no better options left on the Raw roster as everyone else is already in the title hunt and will be played out by the time April rolls along.

Between Hell in a Cell, Super Show-Down and Crown Jewel, the WWE Universe will have had enough of Braun Strowman fighting The Shield, which rules him out as a contender against any of the trio. The same goes for Drew McIntyre and Dolph Ziggler.

Any talk of Lesnar fighting Reigns again in any capacity should be dismissed immediately, since the two have had an exorbitant amount of matches together. It can be argued they shouldn't have had their WrestleMania match this year, let alone further encounters at the Greatest Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, Hell in a Cell and Crown Jewel.

As great as Kevin Owens is, he seems deadlocked into the upper-midcard position as a heel who bounces around but rarely gets that top-tier spot. He had all the momentum in the world behind his feud against Chris Jericho last year, but WWE opted to downgrade that in favor of Goldberg, which goes to show how the company views KO in the grand scheme of things.

Even someone such as Baron Corbin has received a massive boost in purpose with the "Constable" gimmick, yet it probably doesn't have the legs to go so far as to lead to a Universal Championship match at WrestleMania.

Credit: WWE.com

There's no way Bobby Lashley gets to a point where people clamor for him to be in that top spot, Finn Balor's best career move for himself and WWE in general would be to join SmackDown and be a bigger fish in a smaller pond, Bobby Roode is lost in a makeshift tag team, and the rest of the roster is comprised of talent who is consistently booked as lower on the totem pole like No Way Jose.

Given the current roster to work with and no outside influences such as The Rock, a Triple Threat with The Shield is the one and only match that could realistically feel big enough for a Universal Championship match at WrestleMania.

Getting to that point isn't even all that hard, now that WWE has put the trio back together and reinforced their brotherhood with the feud against Strowman, McIntyre and Ziggler.

Over the next few months, The Hounds of Justice should continue to prove how strong of a unit they are, with Ambrose and Rollins taking the Raw Tag Team Championship from McIntyre and Ziggler.

Naturally, so as to prevent all of the titles being looped into the same feud, Rollins would have to drop the Intercontinental Championship along the way to someone who could make better use of it and give the belt its own share of the spotlight at WrestleMania. This could be Corbin, Owens, Strowman or possibly even McIntyre as a trade-off.

Likewise, if The Shield is going to implode, they can't have the unity of being tag team champions, so something would have to happen, with Ambrose and Rollins losing those titles sometime around the Royal Rumble mark—preferably to The Authors of Pain—if not just to see a war between two teams in flak jackets.

AOP's Akam and Rezar will be more than capable of looking strong heading into WrestleMania to defend the tag titles against whoever WWE deems worthy enough challengers, and the loss of those titles can be one of the instigating factors to The Shield's breakup.

With any split, people are going to blame each other and the fans will be forced to choose sides. Going with the right balance is key to this angle's success, so WWE should be honest with itself and know what the writers are working with.

Try as the company may, this would not be the time to play dumb when it comes to Reigns and the crowd's reaction to him. It's a guarantee his detractors, who are more lenient on him when he's with The Shield, would gladly back the other two in this fight, but he also has a dedicated fanbase. Clearly, he must be the tweener.

At this point, Rollins is so firmly over as a babyface that it would be a mistake to turn him heel. For a good few months, the only person who was getting a better response than him was Strowman, who WWE abandoned as a good guy for some reason. All parties can't make that mistake again.

Ambrose, on the other hand, is perfectly suited for a change of pace and could use a refreshing heel turn to spice things up. The Lunatic Fringe has the necessary edge to embrace his darker side, where his more sadistic tendencies are no longer fun and games but a dangerous threat to everyone around him.

For those who follow kayfabe and roll with the punches like WWE wishes, there would be one clear heel, a blatant babyface and someone open for a bit more of a nuanced interpretation. For fans who like to rebel, they'd cheer and boo whoever they wanted no matter the scenario, but this at least gives them options to pick from.

Selecting a winner out of the three is almost a no-lose situation, too, depending on your viewpoint.

If Ambrose walks away with the title, Raw has a red-hot heel at the forefront of the brand every week, which will be different after the ambiguity of Reigns and the prolonged absence of Lesnar.

With Rollins as the champion, it's essentially the opposite scenario. Reigns is a babyface, but he doesn't get the full support of the crowd, so there hasn't been a cathartic change of the dynamic from Lesnar as it isn't a complete switch to the side of good as Rollins would be able to usher in.

Lastly, if WWE chooses to back The Big Dog again, fans will be disappointed, but at least the company's brass who are obsessed with making Reigns the definitive "guy" have furthered that narrative and can officially say he's the best member of The Shield from a storyline standpoint. Things wouldn't be much different from where they've been, but it would add more fuel to the fire, if nothing else.

In our current environment and with the options available to choose from, this is the best possible match WWE could book for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania 35 to make the card feel important, give the fans something to sink their teeth into and ensure the biggest title on Raw isn't lost in the shuffle.

Believe that.

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.