Original plans for The Shield’s debut

Former WWE writer Kevin Eck on wanting to start an “indie faction” in WWE in 2012:

“My idea began with former ECW star Tommy Dreamer being named the head of WWE’s scouting department. As someone who paid his dues on the independent scene and didn’t have the traditional WWE look, Dreamer’s goal was to give guys with similar qualities an opportunity. On Raw 1000,” my vision was that Dreamer would formally announce Ambrose, Rollins and Ohno were to be called up and now part of the RAW roster.

They would go on to compete that night in a six-man tag match against three lower-card heels and go over in impressive fashion. After the match, Ambrose, Rollins and Ohno would call Dreamer into the ring, seemingly to thank him for what he’s done for them.

Instead Boom, they turn on him and deliver a brutal, three-on-one beat-down to the lovable veteran. On the following week’s show, they explain that they just used Dreamer to get their foot in the door in WWE. They say Dreamer wanted them to work their way up the card and do things the right way, but they’re not going to play by his rules.

They reveal that their leader is someone with an “indie” background like theirs who knows success is achieved by any means necessary and would make people believe it was CM Punk (we used that later in WWE when the shield was debut with Roman and Punk was with Paul Heyman) but it would be revealed as Daniel Bryan because they really wanted him to be a heel and that didn’t work out.”