‘I Think About It All The Time’ – Seth Rollins Addresses The Shield WWE Split Regrets

WWE

Seth Rollins has addressed whether he regrets splitting up his WWE alliance with Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose (Jon Moxley) in The Shield.

After bursting onto the scene in WWE in late 2012, Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose quickly established themselves as the future of the wrestling business, and in the 14 years since their arrival they have become three of the most important stars of their era.

While The Shield’s legacy lives on, the group was only together for less than two years, with Seth Rollins famously breaking the trio up in June 2014 by putting a steel chair in Roman Reigns’ back.

Speaking with WWE’s Jackie Redmond ahead of his SummerSlam 2026 Night Two main event with Reigns – a match that has heavily tapped into their storied history together – Rollins was asked whether he feels he made the right decision by taking Reigns out with a chair 12 years ago.

Rollins responded:

“Short answer, yes. But it’s very complicated. I think with hindsight being 20/20 you look at where everybody sits now and I was happy it was the right decision. I feel that because, yeah, there’s this animosity between myself and Roman but I don’t think that we as people would have evolved in the same way, and you look at the magic we’ve been able to create individually and together over the past 14 years now, I think, 12 since that chair shot.

“The last dozen years, you look at the magic we’ve been able to create and the evolution of us as people and from him to The Big Dog to the Head of the Table. Myself, now The Visionary. All these little facets of our characters and our personalities that exist and create memories for our fans wouldn’t exist without that chair shot.

“While I think the chair shot and the decision itself was probably made in haste and made without the foresight of what it would become. I never imagined Roman Reigns would become the Tribal Chief based on the resentment and the pain and the PTSD from that chair shot and I never imagined exactly how our paths would go but I think what it did is give us a chance. It gave both of us the chance to step out on our own and become the things we were meant to become. And I just don’t know, had we had a different catalyst, had it ended amicably, would things have snowballed the way that it did? And you look at what the WWE has become in the last 12 years, and I’ll take a little bit of credit. I’m taking a lot of hate so I’ll take a little bit of credit.”

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Seth was then asked whether he feels like he’s “the architect” of both his and Roman Reigns’ WWE success following his decision to split The Shield, to which Seth answered:

“Yes, the answer’s yes. I think 100%. That’s the catalyst, that’s the moment that sets everything in motion. If you start to look at where we are now and you trace it all back, it does start even before that. We spent a year and a half, nearly two years together in The Shield, and between myself mentoring Roman and sort of teaching him everything I knew from an in-ring perspective and a backstage perspective, all of that before the chair shot, it was important too.

Rollins then opened up about the regrets he’s felt over the years since The Shield’s split, but explained why he knows for sure that the decision was “the right call”:

“There’s 100% two different timelines… I think about it all the time because there’s so many times over the years when I have regretted that chair shot, wondered if I made a mistake, questioned everything that I’ve ever done.

“There were some rough years, there were some really rough years for me, for him, this company. Whether we were going to be able to take the thing to where we want it to go, whether both of us were going to be able to be the people that we were meant to be. There was a lot of doubt, did I do the right thing? Was it all for naught? Was it a waste? Looking at everything now and everything we’ve been able to accomplish individually? I mean, to me there is no other answer, it was the right call, and I do think for better or worse it sort of shaped who The Tribal Chief is.”

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While Reigns and Rollins remain locked together at the top of WWE, The Shield’s third member Jon Moxley departed the company in 2019 and has spent almost seven years with All Elite Wrestling.

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• Roman Reigns
• Jon Moxley
• Seth Rollins
• the shield
• wwe

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