SummerSlam 2017 Cesaro & Sheamus v Dean Ambrose & Seth Rollins

One is a team of two rivals, thrown together by circumstance and hardened by respect into a two-time title-carrying tandem. The other is a team of brothers, ripped apart by ambition and slowly, painfully, reformed by redemption. And one of them will walk out of SummerSlam as the Raw Tag Team Champions.

Having finally reconciled their differences after a knock-down, drag-out brawl, Dean Ambrose & Seth Rollins will challenge Cesaro & Sheamus for Team Red’s tandem titles, bringing the most rabid rivalry of The Shield’s dissolution to a long-awaited end. And it certainly took a hard sell on Rollins’ part to get it to happen: After weeks of Rollins attempting to make amends for his betrayal three years ago, Ambrose finally came around to The Kingslayer’s cause when the former turncoat rescued him from a beatdown by the dominant Raw Tag Team Champions. Only now it was Rollins who wasn’t ready to play nice, fed up with The Lunatic Fringe’s unwillingness to take him at his word that he was a changed man.

In a heated confrontation the next week on Raw, the two put their cards on the table and worked out all their pent-up aggression, and The Swiss Cyborg and The Alabaster Gladiator took that moment to jump on their recent rivals. Only Ambrose & Rollins fought back in unison this time, driving the champs away and finally delivering a (reciprocated) Shield fist bump moments before the match was sanctioned in earnest. Now, the team nobody expected takes on the reunion many thought would never come. And if Ambrose & Rollins have retained even a specter of their old dominance … well, it just might be time to re-set the bar.