When The Shield made their debut at Survivor Series in 2012 they immediately established themselves as a force to be reckoned with. Originally the group debuted wearing turtlenecks, but they went on to switch up their gear and their presentation.
Turtlenecks aren’t the only thing that were changed when it came to the group’s presentation as they were originally supposed to have riot shields and batons as well. During an appearance on Loudwire’s Wikipedia: Fact Or Fiction? Seth discussed the original plans for the group and how a comment from Vince McMahon led to them ditching the batons.
“We actually debuted in turtlenecks [at Survivor Series 2012] and we had riot shields and clubs that they hadn’t made for us because we were supposed to be some security – riot security group or whatever. We immediately realised that the shields were huge, they’re full-body riot shields, if you’ve ever seen a riot then you know they’re massive. We pretty much realised very quickly there was no way we were going to be able to jump the railing – run through the crowd, jump the railing and get into the ring with those. They were going to be very cumbersome so the shields went by the wayside quickly.”
“And the batons, the riot batons we were gonna use as weapons but Vince McMahon, our boss actually saw us with the batons as we were rehearsing our debut and was like ‘Ha you need batons to beat somebody up? What kind of men are you?’ So we were like goodbye, see ya batons, so those live somewhere in a warehouse in Stamford, Connecticut now. We never used them and quickly switched out of the turtlenecks after the debut.”
H/T Inside The Ropes
