Match Spotlight: The Shield Vs. The Wyatt Family, WWE Elimination Chamber 2014

The road to WWE WrestleMania 30 is remembered for many things. There's of course the whole "Yes Movement" surrounding Daniel Bryan and his, or should I say the fans', quest to see the ultimate underdog in the main event of WWE's biggest event. Behind the scenes, CM Punk deciding that he had enough of WWE and wrestling as a whole was still extremely fresh and was all some fans could talk about at that time, which naturally adjusted plans heading into WrestleMania. 

Then there is rising stars of the midcard who were dangerously close to breaking through the glass ceiling into the main 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 become the most dominant trio in modern WWE history, and had the backing of The Authority to keep them in and around the biggest names in the company. The only problem that WWE had was that The Shield had become so popular based solely on the 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 main roster after ploughing their way through "WWE NXT" to become one of the most feared acts in the business. The Wyatt Family and The Shield were almost like two sides of the same coin. For all of their differences, they were similar in a lot of ways, particularly in the ring, and a showdown between the two teams had been talked about all through 2013 but there was no logical way of getting the two teams in the same ring. However, Wyatt's obsession with John Cena ended up costing Ambrose, Reigns, and Rollins spots in 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.

As the 2026 Elimination Chamber event draws ever closer, we here at Wrestling Inc. have been shining a spotlight on some of the biggest matches and moments related to this year's show and the subsequent road to WrestleMania 42. So it's only right that we turn back the clock by a dozen years and shine a spotlight on one of the best matches in the history of the Elimination Chamber event, and one of the best 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 spotlight on The Shield vs. The Wyatt Family from WWE Elimination Chamber 2014.

WWE in the 2010s is a strange company. Despite the shift to PG at the end of the 2000s, there was still a yearning for the past with the constant need to remind people of years gone by with "Old School" episodes of "WWE Raw," the reliance on names from previous eras, and the overall vibe of an entire institution saying to its audience "Remember this? Remember when we used to be good?" But when WWE forgot all of that and decided to focus on the stars the people not only cared for, but could care for long into the future, it led to moments like this.

It's not often that a six-man tag team match has this much anticipation behind it, but my word did this match have people excited. Due to the fact that both teams were technically heels at 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 basically everyone in the match, adding an extra layer of excitement to a match that didn't slow down for a second.

Both teams are evenly matched when it comes to their chemistry. The Shield have mastered the art of using the numbers to their advantage so that they can take complete control of the match whenever they have an opponent isolated. The Wyatts on the other hand aren't as smooth as a unit but know each other inside and out, to the point that when someone like Luke Harper wears someone down, Erick Rowan can come in and inflict even more of the same damage. This obviously builds up to a Roman Reigns hot tag, which was his specialty at the time, but again The Wyatts can wear "The Big Dog" down to force Seth Rollins to tag in. It's when Rollins gets worked over to the point where Dean Ambrose, the wild man of The Shield, says "screw it" and breaks up a pin attempt, all hell breaks loose.

There is a great sense of tension between the two teams, and when everything starts to break down, it's an absolute riot. Fireworks in human form, you don't have a moment to breathe without seeing Harper deliver a Tope Suicida, Rollins perform a Tope Con Hilo, and both Wyatt and Ambrose spilling into the crowd. The Wyatts use their own opponent's greatest weapons against them by slamming Rollins through the Spanish announce table, and with Ambrose still down in the crowd, it leaves Reigns alone with this set of behemoths that he does his best to overcome. It's in this moment where I believe WWE fully saw Reigns as the next face of the company because he was on fire when taking on 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 these men weren't made men before WWE Elimination Chamber 2014, they were when it was all said and done. Both The Shield and The Wyatt Family were the hottest acts in WWE not named Daniel Bryan going in, and coming out of this show, and it looked as if WWE had just announced to the world that these six guys are the future of this business, which was...almost right.

Due to the way American wrestling is portrayed and structured, a tag team rivalry, especially in WWE, was never going to be a main event draw no matter what. However, it was clear that the company saw things for all six men in this match but 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 genuine international celebrity these days, and after some real teething problems as "The Big Dog" to the point where fans literally wanted anyone but him to be the top guy, he became "The Tribal Chief" and forced everyone in wrestling to acknowledge him. Once they all did that, Reigns has become one of the biggest stars in wrestling history, and his presence is sorely missed when he's not around. Seth Rollins has had his own Hall of Fame level career since turning on his Shield brothers in the summer of 2014, and has already been labeled a legend by the 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 also shows no signs of slowing down as the leader of the Death Riders.

The story of The Wyatt Family is a lot more tragic. The faction very quickly devolved from being an unstoppable main event act to just being a vehicle to get Bray Wyatt more over. Injuries would play their part in disrupting the group's momentum, but if 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 outside of the odd moment as The Fiend, Wyatt wouldn't reach the heights everyone expected of him. We will never get a true Wyatt Family reunion now as we sadly lost Jon "Luke Harper" Huber at the end of 2020, and Windham "Bray Wyatt" Rotunda in 2023, two deaths that the wrestling world is still coming to terms with, and as for Erick Rowan, he is still a member of The Wyatt Sicks, a group that despite having its heart in the right place, is a far cry from the group that inspired it.