The Shield vs Ryback & Team Hell No (WWE, 12-16-2012)

WWE TLC, Brooklyn, NY

This is a request via Ko-fi. Y’know, I dunno if I’ve ever seen this match. I was starting to get a little back into wrestling at this point, but not fully in.

The Shield are new to WWE, with CM Punk and the Shield both claiming to have no affiliation. This is the Shield’s in-ring debut for WWE, and it’s a TLC match, the first ever six-man version.

Kane, one-half of the tag team champions with Daniel Bryan, is out first. Bryan’s out second, with his dope NO jacket. Ryback’s out third, back when he was juiced up and not tackling women into pools to sell a fat burner.

Shield out from the crowd. No reaction whatsoever to their music, really. They are announced in order: “Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, and Dean Ambrose,” which is about right.

The fight is on right away. Reigns and Kane pair off, Bryan and Rollins, Ryback and Ambrose. The former ROH champions trade right hands and Bryan rams him into the apron. Ambrose throws wacky slaps at Ryback in the ring, then Ryback no-sells some chops. Ryback drops him with a single blow, then another when Ambrose gets back up.

Ambrose and Ryback in the ring. “Goldberg” chants. Ryback with a Thesz press and he slams Ambrose’s head into the mat a couple times. Reigns and Rollins get into the ring and they triple up on Ryback with Team Hell No down for the moment outside. Rollins clotheslined out by Ryback, but Reigns hits Ryback from behind and Ambrose dropkicks Ryback off the apron to the floor. “That was the highly athletic Dean Ambrose.” I would call Dean Ambrose a lot of things. That’s not one, really.

3-on-1 on Bryan in the ring now. Rollins and Ambrose get a ladder, Reigns whips Bryan into it. Ryback is back and he kicks the ladder, dropping Ambrose and Rollins. He slams it down onto them a few times, then a big one, then another big one attempted but Reigns hits Ryback with a chair, then cracks him over the back.

Kane in and takes the chair. He’s on Reigns now, as Ambrose and Rollins leave the ring. Bryan in with kicks to Reigns in the corner. Ladder leaning in the corner, Reigns gets whipped into by the tag champs. Bryan whipped into Reigns, hitting him with a dropkick. Kane covers Reigns for two.

Rollins flies in, Kane catches him with a shot in mid-air. Kane gets a new chair. Crowd wants tables. Ambrose chairing Bryan outside. Ryback’s missing. Rollins sandwiched in a ladder and Kane hits the ladder with a chair a couple times. Ambrose makes the save with his chair. Ambrose with a DDT on the chair, and Kane is down. Ryback and Reigns fighting outside, Reigns sent into the barricade.

Ryback in the ring, drives Ambrose to the corner, then Rollins to a different corner. Ambrose back with his wacky slapping. Rollins hits Ryback in the stomach with a ladder, then bounces his head off of it.

Ryback reeling in the ring. Cole tries to explain The Shield. He gets “help” from JBL. Crowd wants tables again. The match is young, friends. Ryback making the comeback, showing off his pure strength, dominating Ambrose and Rollins. Ryback suplexes both onto the ladder at the same time. Ryback calls for the finish, looks like he wants to tack them in the Shellshock, but Reigns cuts that off and it’s 3-on-1 against Ryback again. Ambrose using the chair. Reigns drops the ladder on Ryback.

Reigns comes out to the floor with the others. “Get up, fools! This is my table now!” He’s talking to the Spanish commentary team. They hit the triple team power bomb on Ryback through the table.

SUDDENLY, Bryan is back with a dive onto all three men, but they overwhelm him quickly. Kane in now. He tries to deal with Reigns, and vice versa, while the other two go with Bryan in the ring. Ambrose uses a chair to assist in a bodyslam on Bryan. Rollins hits Bryan over the back with a chair. Ambrose calls Bryan GOATFACE. Dastardly!

Ambrose chair-slams Bryan again. They’re all over him. Meanwhile, Reigns is stalking outside, keeping watch, and taking the occasional shot at the downed Kane, to keep him down. Bryan gets his chin rammed into a table in the corner. Ambrose and Rollins climb the corner, stand on the table, and superplex Bryan off. Kane makes the save on the pin attempt. Reigns charges Kane, who low-bridges Roman, and now Ambrose slaps away at Kane. “That very unorthodox style.”

Bryan down, Ryback dead on the floor still. Ambrose and Rollins want to repeat the superplex spot on Kane, who fights them off. Rollins takes a big bump to the floor, then Kane leaps off the table with a clothesline to Ambrose! Reigns in, runs into Kane’s fist. Kane with a clothesline in the corner, then a whip to the other side and another clothesline in the corner. Side slam from Kane gets two, Ambrose breaks the pin.

Ambrose back on Kane now. “He’s very eccentric.” AMBROSE GETS CHOKESLAMMED ON AN OPEN CHAIR! Reigns barely there to break the pin. Ambrose took the shit out of that chokeslam.

Kane chases Reigns out to the floor and stays on him, then Rollins chop blocks Kane, and Reigns spears Kane through the collapsible playset timekeeper wall. Back in the ring, Bryan gets the Yes Lock on Ambrose, then on Rollins, and Reigns breaks it up. Once again, the Shield are the better true team.

Now Reigns in the Yes Lock! Ambrose breaks it up. “It’s a pack of predators.” Bryan with kicks to Rollins and Ambrose after blocking their attempt to chair him. But they come back, and Rollins hits a curbstomp onto an open chair. We see Kane in rubble and HERE COMES RYBACK. Crowd not that into it.

But Ryback ignores that, because that’s the directive, and just goes for it. He’s the force of nature right now. Ryback tossing everyone. Rollins gets thrown to the floor onto Ambrose, then hits a spinebuster on Reigns. Ryback has a chair. He drops it in the center of the ring, grabs Reigns, and again Ambrose is in to break it up, but Ryback spears him down. Cole can’t call it a spear because Ryback doesn’t do The Spear. Just “what a … tackle!”

Ryback with a clothesline on Ambrose, calls for it, and hits Shellshock! Pin gets broken up again, of course. Rollins gets tossed back to the floor. Reigns takes a shot. Ryback follows Reigns out. Ryback’s an idiot, that gets him double-teamed by Rollins and Reigns. Ryback half-pounces Reigns in the entrance aisle, knocking some chairs over. Ryback takes Rollins down. He’s a machine right now.

It’s too bad the crowd doesn’t seem to really give a fuck about Ryback. Anyway, Ambrose finally runs in and chairs Ryback in the back. Another Ambrose chair, then a Reigns chair. Then a Rollins ladder, then an Ambrose chair. Then Ambrose with more chair shots. Then Rollins with a chair shot. Ryback’s getting murdered!

Shield setting up a table up by the entrance set. Rollins climbs a ladder, Ryback coming to as Ambrose and Reigns wander away. So Rollins is stuck on the ladder with Ryback underneath him, fully awake. WOKED UP. IT’S FEEDING TIME. Ryback chases Rollins up the ladder, then yanks him off and Rollins takes ANOTHER huge bump, this time through some tables!

To the ring, where Ambrose and Reigns are going after Bryan. They’re getting another table set up, this one in the ring. Ryback trying to crawl back to the ring. Ambrose lifts Bryan, and Reigns power bombs him from the second rope for the three count. Ryback couldn’t get there in time and Kane is dead.

Rating: 3.5/5. Not super amazing but good and a really strong debut for the Shield as in-ring competitors. I look back on this and I understand why I thought Rollins was going to be the breakout guy, because he just hurls himself all over the place in this match to make an impression. Ambrose is fun as the “eccentric” slapfighter, and Reigns works well as the powerhouse. Back when they were saying it on commentary, I would bristle when they’d say the Shield were better than the nWo or Fabulous Freebirds or Horsemen, and they absolutely are not better than the Horsemen, at least the 80s versions. But are they the best stable in WWE history? Well, it’s them or Evolution, really, and I’m going with the Shield, and I liked Evolution. (My heart is with the ’97 Hart Foundation, but that lasted all of a summer, basically.) Ryback is good in this match even though the crowd is barely interested in his adventures. Daniel Bryan is great. Kane is also there.