WWE: The Destruction of the SHIELD Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

WWE: The Destruction of the SHIELD Blu-ray Movie Review

Sierra. Hotel. India. Echo. Lima. Delta. lives on on Bravo. Lima. Uniform. Romeo. Alpha. Yankee.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman February 20, 2015

The Destruction of the Shield isn't just about the group's sudden split when Seth Rollins decided to introduce a steel chair to Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose's backs. It's also about the individual members' early careers, the group's formation, and the men's careers after the alliance fell apart. It's a sturdy, if not fairly short, examination of one of modern wrestling's most intense and powerful partnerships. The main program, which runs just a hair over an hour, features the usual WWE construction -- wrestling clips, behind-the-scenes access, and interviews with the stars themselves and some of the power players around them -- that's supported by hours upon hours of bonus content in the way of Shield collective and individual member matches. It's an interesting piece, a retrospective on a group that just fell apart not a year ago at time of release, but it's a nice little filler feature that, for hardcore WWE fans, is probably worth more as a match compilation rather than for the good but brief feature profile.

Charlie. Hotel. Alpha. Mike. Papa. Sierra.

The main feature follows the rise of The Shield, beginning with brief looks back at the youths and early careers of Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, and Roman Reigns, including their time in the WWE's developmental program, the rivalry that formed between Rollins and Ambrose, and Rollins' displeasure with his place in the company prior to his elevation to WWE. It looks at their initial arrival on the scene as The Shield, crashing the main event at Survivor Series 2012 and the alliance's explosion in popularity thereafter. Paul Heyman called The Shield "a three-man SWAT team coming for war." The Shield was a group that cherished their bond in brotherhood and understood -- and exploited -- the unique skill sets each brought to the square circle. The Shield quickly ascended the WWE food chain and devoured everything in its path, toppling superstars with every event and earning victories and titles with regularity, all the way up to its victory over Evolution, a victory which signaled the beginning of the end for the high-powered trio.

Beyond the matches, Destruction of the Shield essentially offers miniature overviews of The Shield and its individual members cobbled together in a nuts-and-bolts Documentary. Granted, it plays quickly out of the gate and maintains that pacing throughout -- it's only an hour-plus in length, anyway, so that's not some great accomplishment -- and provides a few good basic insights into each individual member, including their early years in professional wrestling and their training regimens. It's certainly far from groundbreaking or deeply explorative, playing instead as a meat-and-potatoes sort that arguably came before its time -- even as The Shield has fallen apart -- and would truly look dated if WWE decided to get the band back together at some point in the future, which would relegate this release to mere curiosity rather than "definitive" look at one of the most intense partnerships in recent WWE memory.

WWE: The Destruction of the SHIELD Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Destruction of the Shield materializes on Blu-ray with a fairly routine-for-WWE 1080i, 1.78:1-framed transfer. It sports the usual ups and downs. Details are often precise, with excellent skin textures, far-distant clarity in the arena, well defined clothes and signs, and other bits that bear the fruit of the high definition experience. Colors are oftentimes bold and pleasing, again particularly through the arena and evident on both digital signage and wrestler attire. The HD video source material is clean and nicely defined. But there are certainly some warts. Compression artifacts appear across plenty of backgrounds, particularly darker ones. Jagged lines and light aliasing hide in the transfer's furthest depths. Side-angle Rollins interview clips go inexplicably noisy where big red globs litter the screen. Other interview clips can look flat, stale, or overly warm. But most are excellent. It's a hit-and-miss affair, but aside from that heavy noise most of it lingers rather than splashes all over the screen. It's an imperfect image but walks the fine line called "good enough," and walks it rather well.

WWE: The Destruction of the SHIELD Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Destruction of the Shield features the WWE-standard Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. It's quite the straightforward presentation along the progression of the main program. Music is relegated to background noise, playing at a rather low level, yet still nicely spaced, allowing dialogue to play as the dominant overlay. Narration, clips from matches, and interview snippets come through with commendable realism and center-focused placement. Supplemental matches are all sourced from relatively new material, so crowd ambience, music, and other in-match elements play with good stage presence and aggression, unlike films covering older material that's largely cramped in the middle. This is one of the more unassuming tracks out there in WWE Home Video land, but it serves the material well enough.

WWE: The Destruction of the SHIELD Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Destruction of the Shield contains bonus features and matches on both included Blu-ray discs. The supplements follow a basic pattern of one of Reigns, Ambrose, or Rollins discussing the story behind the match that follows. Titles, then, are largely self-explanatory. Disc two is separated into "Special Features" and "Blu-ray Exclusives" sections. A couple of deleted scenes are also included on disc two.

Disc One (1080i, 3:15:57 total runtime):

• Dean Ambrose on Seth Rollins FCW Rivalry.
• 15-Minute Time Limit for the FCW 15 Championship: Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins. FCW -- August 14, 2011.
• Seth Rollins on Dean Ambrose Rivalry.
• 30-Minute Time Limit for the FCW 15 Championship: Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins. FCW -- September 18, 2011.
• Roman Reigns on FCW Triple Threat Match.
• Triple Threat Match: Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins vs. Leakee. FCW -- February 5, 2012.
• Dean Ambrose on William Regal FCW Rivalry.
• Career Match: Dean Ambrose vs. William Regal. FCW -- July 1, 2012.
• Seth Rollins on NXT Championship.
• Gold Rush Tournament Finals for the NXT Championship: Seth Rollins vs. Jinder Mahal. NXT -- August 29, 2012.
• Roman Reigns on NXT Debut.
• NXT Debut: Roman Reigns vs. CJ Parker. NXT -- October 31, 2012.
• Seth Rollins on The Shield In-Ring Debut.
• 6-Man Tag Team TLC Match: The Shield vs. Ryback and Team Hell No. TLC -- December 16, 2012.
• Dean Ambrose on United States Championship.
• United States Championship Match: Dean Ambrose vs. Kofi Kingston. Extreme Rules -- May 19, 2013.
• Roman Reigns on WWE Tag Team Championship.
• Tornado Match for the WWE Tag Team Championship: Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins vs. Team Hell No. Extreme Rules -- May 19, 2013.
• Roman Reigns on Facing the Usos.
• WWE Tag Team Championship Match: Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns vs. The Usos. Money in the Bank -- July 14, 2013.
• Roman Reigns on Survivor Series 2013.
• Classic Survivor Series Match: The Shield & The Real Americans vs. The Usos, Rhodes Brothers & Rey Mysterio. Survivor Series -- November 24, 2013.

Disc Two (1080i, 2:56:38 total runtime):

• Dean Ambrose on The Wyatt Family Rivalry.
• 6-Man Tag Team Match: The Shield (Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins & Dean Ambrose) vs. The Wyatt Family (Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper & Erick Rowan). Elimination Chamber 2014 -- February 23, 2014.
• Seth Rollins on Evolution Rivalry.
• No Holds Barred 6-Man Elimination Tag Team Match: The Shield (Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins & Dean Ambrose) vs. Evolution (Triple H, Randy Orton & Batista). WWE Payback 2014 -- June 1, 2014.
• Seth Rollins on Money in the Bank 2014.
• Money in the Bank Ladder Match for a WWE World Heavyweight Championship Contract: Seth Rollins vs. Dean Ambrose vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Rob Van Dam vs. Jack Swagger. Money in the Bank -- June 29, 2014.
• Dean Ambrose on SummerSlam.
• Lumberjack Match: Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins. SummerSlam -- August 17, 2014.
• Roman Reigns on SummerSlam.
• Career Match: Roman Reigns vs. Randy Orton. SummerSlam -- August 17, 2014.
• Seth Rollins on Falls Count Anywhere Match with Dean Ambrose.
• Falls Count Anywhere Match: Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins. RAW -- August 18, 2014.
• Roman Reigns on Seth Rollins Rivalry.
• Career Match: Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins. RAW -- September 15, 2014.
• Deleted Scene: Dean Ambrose-William Regal Rivalry.
• Deleted Scene: Leakee.

Disc Two Blu-ray Exclusives (1080i, 1:27:54 total runtime):

• Dean Ambrose on FCW 15 Matches.
• 20-Minute Time Limit for the FCW 15 Championship: Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins. FCW -- August 28, 2011.
• Dean Ambrose on Facing Undertaker.
• Career Match: Undertaker vs. Dean Ambrose. SmackDown -- April 26, 2013.
• Seth Rollins on Facing Randy Orton and Daniel Bryan.
• WWE Tag Team Championship Match: Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins vs. Randy Orton and Daniel Bryan.
• Roman Reigns on Royal Rumble.
• 30-Man Royal Rumble Match: Includes Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, and Dean Ambrose. Royal Rumble -- January 26, 2014.

WWE: The Destruction of the SHIELD Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

That didn't take long. Rollins' back-slapping betrayal isn't a year old and The Shield already has its own feature. While the film proper offers a fairly quick yet basically informative piece on The Shield and, more interestingly, the individual members, the meatiest content comes in the form of bonus matches and brief interview snippets from Ambrose, Rollins, and Reigns. This is hardly a definitive, must-own WWE release, but it's a solid "filler" piece that should satisfy fans looking for about a day's worth of entertainment. The Destruction of the Shield features fair-to-good 1080i video, adequate lossy audio, and all of those bonus matches. Recommended.