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The group debuted on November 18, 2012 at the Survivor Series pay-per-view, when the debuting Ambrose, Rollins and Reigns interfered in the main event, a triple threat match between CM Punk, John Cena and Ryback for the WWE Championship, when they powerbombed Ryback through the announcers' table, allowing Punk to pin Cena to win the match and retain his title.
On the November 26 episode of Raw, the group identified themselves as "The Shield", and vowed to rally against "injustices".
Despite claiming that they were not working for either CM Punk or Paul Heyman, over the next few weeks, on both Raw and SmackDown, they would routinely emerge from the crowd to attack Punk's adversaries such as Ryback, The Miz and then WWE Tag Team Champions Team Hell No (Kane and Daniel Bryan).
They also attacked Randy Orton after he defeated Brad Maddox; Maddox was the referee who helped Punk defeat Ryback during their Hell in a Cell match at the previous Hell in a Cell event for the WWE Championship.
This led to The Shield's debut match at the TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs pay-per-view, where they faced Ryback and Team Hell No in a Tables, Ladders and Chairs match and emerged victorious.
After TLC, despite continuing to attack Punk's and Maddox's adversaries such as Ric Flair, Brodus Clay and Sheamus, The Shield soon expanded their ambushes to other wrestlers, such as Mick Foley, Tommy Dreamer and Ricardo Rodriguez.
The Shield's attacks were also used to write off wrestlers from television via injury angles, such as Randy Orton and Sin Cara, who were already suffering from legitimate injuries.
On the January 2, 2013 episode of NXT, which was taped on December 6, 2012, The Shield made their first appearance in NXT, though Rollins and Reigns had already wrestled there before and Rollins was the inaugural NXT Champion.
Rollins defended his title against Corey Graves and, as Graves was about to win the match, Ambrose and Reigns attacked him to cause a disqualification so that Rollins retained his title; The Shield then fended off the entire NXT locker room, but retreated from Big E Langston.
On the January 9 episode of NXT, which was taped on the same date as the previous episode, Rollins faced Langston in a no disqualification title match in which the NXT locker room neutralized the other Shield members and Langston defeated Rollins to win the title.
On the January 7 episode of Raw, The Shield once again aided CM Punk by attacking Ryback during his Tables, Ladders and Chairs match for the WWE Championship, which resulted in Punk retaining his title.
On January 21, during the last Raw before the Royal Rumble, The Shield triple-powerbombed The Rock, Punk's WWE Championship contender at the event, resulting in Mr. McMahon declaring that their interference in the title match would result in Punk being stripped of the title.
Four days later on SmackDown, Punk denied an alliance with The Shield before calling them out and informing them that he did not want them to interfere in his upcoming title match.
However, during Punk's title match at the Royal Rumble, a blackout occurred and The Rock was attacked by The Shield in the darkness; when the lights came back on, The Rock had been put through the announce table leading to Punk pinning The Rock and retaining his title, only for the match to be immediately restarted by McMahon with The Rock winning the WWE Championship.
The following night on Raw, it was revealed through footage played by McMahon that Punk's manager Paul Heyman had been paying The Shield and Brad Maddox to work for him all along.
