Seth Rollins Reveals That CM Punk Originally Wanted Kassius Ohno As A Member Of The Shield
We knew that former WWE Champion CM Punk was instrumental in bringing The Shield up from NXT, but Seth Rollins has now revealed that he original wanted Kassius Ohno in the group. Find out more after the jump.
It's been well documented that former WWE Champion and current UFC fighter(?) CM Punk had a hand in bringing The Shield up to the main roster from NXT, but it turns out his original vision for the stable was a little different to the one we ended up with.
While appearing on Edge and Christian's podcast, Royal Rumble winner Seth Rollins discussed being called up along with Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns for an angle with Punk and Ryback, and The Kingslayer revealed that Punk actually wanted current NXT talent Kassius Ohno in the group.
“What I think happened, it’s a little fuzzy to me because it was behind the scenes, weird stuff going on, 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. Especially some of the younger guys were just there, just happy to be there. Not trying to get better every week, and not trying to dish storylines, not pushing the envelope for themselves and for the company, and it was starting to hurt the product overall.” “So he wanted to get us in there, us being myself, and Ambrose, and I think, maybe, Kassius Ohno/Chris Hero, but I’m not sure. But the company loved Roman from the get-go, and for all the right reasons.”
It would have been interesting to see what direction The Shield would have taken without, arguably, the faction's biggest star and Ohno is a terrific wrestler.
Perhaps he could still join the group if we ever see a new incarnation of The Shield?