How was CM Punk responsible for The Shield's epic WWE debut?

CM Punk will certainly not have forgotten the time The Shield emerged during his championship match at Survivor Series 2012. Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins appeared during the show and proceeded to lay waste to everyone in sight, signaling a major power shift in WWE.

CM Punk and The Shield were immediately linked, with many doubting the trio's true intentions. In the storyline, Reigns, Ambrose and Rollins declared that they weren't paid hitmen for The Best in the World, but always emerged to attack the latter's enemies. On the January 28, 2013 episode of Monday Night RAW, it was confirmed that he had been paying The Shield to work for him.

In addition to being influential in The Hounds of Justice's kayfabe origin story, The Second City Saint was also the one behind the idea of the group in real life. Indeed, CM Punk was the one who modeled The Shield along with WWE, which makes him the architect of one of the greatest factions in wrestling history.

“What happened was, at that time [in WWE] the head writer was Eric Pankowski. He called me up one day and he was like, ‘Okay, uh, nobody knows you’re going to turn heel but we want to stick a stable with you,” Punk said. “(I said) I’m willing to do the heel stable thing, but why don’t we pick three guys from FCW that are ready instead of using two guys, you know what I mean?....Ambrose, Rollins and Chris Hero [Kassius Ohno]. They wanted Roman Reigns. They came to me and they were like, ‘What about Leakee?’ I didn’t… it wasn’t my hill to die on. I said, ‘Sure,’ because it made sense to me.” [H/T Talksport]

WWE brought Reigns, Ambrose and Rollins together and had them debut at Survivor Series 2012. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Shield's thoughts on CM Punk's ideas for them

CM Punk was instrumental in bringing The Shield together. Seth Rollins acknowledged the impact he had and detailed his view on things at the time.

“Punk was looking to help turn the roster around. He saw the main roster, he saw that there were some hungry guys in NXT that, sort of, came up the same way he did, and he also saw that there was a lot of complacency on the main roster at the time with a lot of the guys....So he wanted to get us in there....” [H/T Talksport]

We have to applaud The Voice of the Voiceless for his role in the proceedings. He brought forth one of the best things to happen in WWE history. All three members of The Shield are now ruling the industry, just like they were tipped to.