page_title: The Reality Era
section_title: Breakup of The Shield and rise of Roman Reigns
hierarchical_section_title: The Reality Era / Breakup of The Shield and rise of Roman Reigns
caption_attribution_description: English: Roman Reigns as WWE champion
context_page_description: The Reality Era was a period of professional wrestling within the World Wrestling Entertainment, which spanned from approximately January 1, 2014 to May 1, 2016. It coincided with the rise of social media and video-sharing sites, which allowed fans to share and discuss their knowledge of the inner workings of the promotion. During this time, WWE directly revealed some of its previously concealed secrets directly to viewers as most kayfabe would become a thing of the past. The era received some criticism, who felt that bringing real-life events into a scripted show was unnecessary.
context_section_description: On the June 2, 2014 episode of Raw, Triple H announced his intention to continue Evolution's feud with The Shield, but Batista had quit WWE to focus on his acting career.  Later that night with The Shield in the ring, Triple H's "plan B" for destroying The Shield turned out to be Rollins suddenly attacking Ambrose and Reigns with a steel chair, signalling Rollins re-alignment with The Authority.  On the June 9 episode of Raw, Rollins described his betrayal as severing a business relationship and that he had destroyed "his own creation" to further his own interests, while Ambrose and Reigns (still labelled as The Shield) addressed Rollins' betrayal with Ambrose describing Rollins as a "cancer" in The Shield, while Reigns claimed that Rollins "committed the most unforgivable sin". Later that night, Ambrose and Reigns had their final match as The Shield, teaming up with John Cena to defeat The Wyatt Family. Ambrose would feud with both Seth Rollins and leader of the Wyatt Family: Bray Wyatt respectively throughout 2014 while Seth Rollins would go on to hold the WWE Money in the Bank briefcase for a near year long period between 2014 to 2015.
  Initially in 2014, Roman Reigns was one of the most popular stars on the roster with fans. Not too long after a return from injury in late 2014 however, amidst a heavy main event level push, Reigns' positive crowd reactions were diminishing. By the time Reigns reached the Royal Rumble 2015 event, he was receiving massive heat from fans.  The fans outrage reached a boiling point after Reigns defeated Daniel Bryan at the Fastlane (2015) event, despite Bryan endorsing Reigns's victory. While the often negative reaction to Reigns would continue strongly throughout this era, he would eventually win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship for the first time at the 2015 Survivor Series event, defeating fellow Shield member Dean Ambrose in the finals of a tournament to crown a new champion. Reigns, like Bryan, would then begin feuding with The Authority. In his second WrestleMania main event at WrestleMania 32, he would defeat Triple H to capture the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
caption: Roman Reigns broke out as a huge star during this timeframe. (Above) He defeated Triple H in the main event of WrestleMania 32 to become a three-time WWE World Heavyweight Champion.
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