I could write a novel on how much I love this era of their rivalry. So here's a tribute/highlights from their amazing promos & matches.
By now, we all know the story : their time on the indies would culminate in a series of first matches in FCW that got a lot of hype and changed the future of developmental. It's not only the matches that are great, but their promos and whole storyline. You can see in real time Seth's character developping from cocky but happy to be here to the self-destructive, proud and egoistical persona we have all come to know and love. And as for Dean... the fact that his sole purpose in coming to FCW wasn't to become a champion but to face Seth blows my mind.
At the time they didn't realized that their careers would be forever entertwined, yet all the stepping stones are here : dean's obsession and inability to let seth go, seth actually telling dean "to get his eyes" back on him once dean has moved on, the way seth has never been able to plan for dean, dean's firsts "lets distract Seth and cost him his match", their first teaming up against Roman (!!!) and the list goes on... I especially love their last match. It's in my top three Ambrollins (Dean/Seth) matches of all time. The storytelling in it is insane : them getting to know each other so well that they have a hard time putting each other down, how each of them exploited the other's weakness (seth put dean in a humiliating Regal stretch that was clearly a way of saying "stop thinking about him, i'm the one you should think about!", dean didn't hesitate to bite him or put him in multiple submissions hold)... It's a classic that I absolutely recommand.
I started watching wrestling in 2017 and spent a lot of time going back in time to the Shield's different eras. This one was definitely one of the hardest to find footage of. Now that I finally have everything (big thanks to deanambrosedotnet on dailymotion), putting the best moments in a file easily accessible to me whenever I vid seemed the next logic step. Turns out I ended up rewatching everything and then vidding it in a few hours. I hope you'll enjoy it.
