The Shield Vs. The Wyatt Family, WWE Elimination Chamber 2014

The road to WWE WrestleMania 30 is remembered for a lot of things. There’s in fact the entire “Yes Movement” surrounding Daniel Bryan and his, or should I say the fans’, quest to see the last word underdog within the essential event of WWE’s biggest event. Behind the scenes, CM Punk deciding that he had enough of WWE and wrestling as an entire was still extremely fresh and was all some fans could discuss at the moment, which naturally adjusted plans heading into WrestleMania. 

Then there’s rising stars of the midcard who were dangerously near breaking through the glass ceiling into the essential event scene. The three men who had been knocking their heads on that ceiling were The Shield. Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, and Roman Reigns had grow to be essentially the most dominant trio in modern WWE history, and had the backing of The Authority to maintain them in and around the largest names in the corporate. The one problem that WWE had was that The Shield had grow to be so popular based solely on the indisputable fact that they were extremely cool, meaning that they weren’t long for The Authority.

Enter The Wyatt Family. Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper, and Erick Rowan arrived on the WWE essential roster after ploughing their way through “WWE NXT” to grow to be one of the crucial feared acts within the business. The Wyatt Family and The Shield were almost like two sides of the identical coin. For all of their differences, they were similar in a whole lot of ways, particularly within the ring, and a showdown between the 2 teams had been talked about all through 2013 but there was no logical way of getting the 2 teams in the identical ring. Nonetheless, Wyatt’s obsession with John Cena ended up costing Ambrose, Reigns, and Rollins spots within the Elimination Chamber match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship and “The Hounds of Justice” simply couldn’t let that slide, so a match between the six men was finally set.

Because the 2026 Elimination Chamber event draws ever closer, we here at Wrestling Inc. have been shining a highlight on among the biggest matches and moments related to this 12 months’s show and the next road to WrestleMania 42. So it’s only right that we turn back the clock by a dozen years and shine a highlight on among the finest matches within the history of the Elimination Chamber event, and among the finest tag team matches in WWE history. Grab your lanterns or your riot gear, whichever side you land on, and join us as we shine a highlight on The Shield vs. The Wyatt Family from WWE Elimination Chamber 2014.

WWE within the 2010s is an odd company. Despite the shift to PG at the tip of the 2000s, there was still a craving for the past with the constant must remind people of years passed by with “Old School” episodes of “WWE Raw,” the reliance on names from previous eras, and the general vibe of a whole institution saying to its audience “Remember this? Remember after we was once good?” But when WWE forgot all of that and decided to give attention to the celebs the people not only cared for, but could take care of long into the longer term, it led to moments like this.

It’s hardly ever that a six-man tag team match has this much anticipation behind it, but my word did this match have people excited. Resulting from the indisputable fact that each teams were technically heels on the time, with The Shield leaning more towards being babyfaces, it gave the fans a reason to cheer for whoever they thought was cooler. The result was a white hot crowd cheering for mainly everyone within the match, adding an additional layer of pleasure to a match that did not decelerate for a second.

Each teams are evenly matched in the case of their chemistry. The Shield have mastered the art of using the numbers to their advantage in order that they will take complete control of the match at any time when they’ve an opponent isolated. The Wyatts then again aren’t as smooth as a unit but know one another in and out, to the purpose that when someone like Luke Harper wears someone down, Erick Rowan can are available in and inflict much more of the identical damage. This obviously builds as much as a Roman Reigns hot tag, which was his specialty on the time, but again The Wyatts can wear “The Big Dog” right down to force Seth Rollins to tag in. It’s when Rollins gets worked over to the purpose where Dean Ambrose, the wild man of The Shield, says “screw it” and breaks up a pin attempt, all hell breaks loose.

There’s an excellent sense of tension between the 2 teams, and when the whole lot starts to interrupt down, it’s an absolute riot. Fireworks in human form, you haven’t got a moment to breathe without seeing Harper deliver a Tope Suicida, Rollins perform a Tope Con Hilo, and each Wyatt and Ambrose spilling into the group. The Wyatts use their very own opponent’s biggest weapons against them by slamming Rollins through the Spanish announce table, and with Ambrose still down in the group, it leaves Reigns alone with this set of behemoths that he does his best to beat. It’s on this moment where I consider WWE fully saw Reigns as the subsequent face of the corporate because he was on fire when taking up The Wyatts single-handedly, but Harper provides a distraction and takes a Spear for his troubles, allowing Wyatt to hit the Sister Abigail for the hard-fought win.

If all six of those men weren’t made men before WWE Elimination Chamber 2014, they were when it was all said and done. Each The Shield and The Wyatt Family were the most well liked acts in WWE not named Daniel Bryan moving into, and coming out of this show, and it looked as if WWE had just announced to the world that these six guys are the longer term of this business, which was…almost right.

Resulting from the way in which American wrestling is portrayed and structured, a tag team rivalry, especially in WWE, was never going to be a essential event draw irrespective of what. Nonetheless, it was clear that the corporate saw things for all six men on this match however it didn’t quite work out for all of them.

For The Shield, their story has been told time and time again. Roman Reigns is a real international celebrity lately, and after some real teething problems as “The Big Dog” to the purpose where fans literally wanted anyone but him to be the highest guy, he became “The Tribal Chief” and compelled everyone in wrestling to acknowledge him. Once all of them did that, Reigns has grow to be considered one of the largest stars in wrestling history, and his presence is sorely missed when he isn’t around. Seth Rollins has had his own Hall of Fame level profession since turning on his Shield brothers in the summertime of 2014, and has already been labeled a legend by the brand new crop of talent emerging from “WWE NXT.” Dean Ambrose would have success in WWE, but he would reach his final form in AEW as Jon Moxley where he arguably the ace of that company, and likewise shows no signs of slowing down because the leader of the Death Riders.

The story of The Wyatt Family is loads more tragic. The faction in a short time devolved from being an unstoppable essential event act to simply being a vehicle to get Bray Wyatt more over. Injuries would play their part in disrupting the group’s momentum, but when anything, leaning more into making Wyatt his generation’s version of The Undertaker made the character come off as a parody of itself at times, and outdoors of the odd moment as The Fiend, Wyatt would not reach the heights everyone expected of him. We’ll never get a real Wyatt Family reunion now as we sadly lost Jon “Luke Harper” Huber at the tip of 2020, and Windham “Bray Wyatt” Rotunda in 2023, two deaths that the wrestling world continues to be coming to terms with, and as for Erick Rowan, he continues to be a member of The Wyatt Sicks, a gaggle that despite having its heart in the proper place, is a far cry from the group that inspired it.