Although the infamous breakup of The Shield led to Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns and Jon Moxley becoming three of the biggest names in professional wrestling over the past decade, “The Visionary” just revealed that all three stars were heavily against the idea of splitting up in 2014. 

In a recent interview with Shannon Sharpe on “Club Shay Shay,” Rollins explained that The Shield initially rejected WWE’s idea to break them up, having been pleased that the audience started to get behind them as a babyface group, but ultimately the creative team decided to split up the faction a few months after WrestleMania 30.

“That was painful,” he stated. “We go to WrestleMania, we’re full good guys at that point. We do two six-man tags with Evolution right after that. Like, we’re awesome. We’re on cloud nine … we show up to ‘Raw’ the day after and they knew that if they gave us heads up, we would say no and we would find a way to try to fight out of the breakup. So, they brought us into the office … they’re like, ‘This is what we’re going to do, and Seth is going to be the one to pull the trigger.’ And I remember in the room, just the silence. And when we walked out of the room, it was like, ‘What do we do?’ Can we stop this? Like, are we doing the right thing? And there was a lot of tension there.”

Rollins continued to explain that The Shield felt they had a longer run left in them, though he admitted that his heel turn not only created one of the most shocking betrayals in professional wrestling history, but also made three main event stars out of Reigns, Moxley and himself.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit “Club Shay Shay” with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.