I’m noticing a lot of wrestling fans are worried about that large Irishman Sheamus; who, according to Wikipedia, was once Bono’s bodyguard, and also an IT Technician, and I don’t know why neither of those facts have been worked into an angle yet.
The big fella had one of the fastest trips to the top of any WWE superstar ever, going from ECW prospect to WWE Champion less than two months after getting called up to the Raw roster. And he didn’t just luck or cheat his way into the belt, he was given a clean win, over the Almighty Cena, in a pretty unforgiving Tables match. He enjoyed two medium-length reigns with the belt, got booked against Triple H at Wrestlemania XXVI (and even got on-screen credit for putting H out of action while he recovered from injuries and filmed a terrible movie) and looked like he was going to provide some quality monster-heel action for a few years to come. The WWE was clearly investing a lot of push in the guy – they let him beat up Mark Cuban, and that’s a rare honor.
Then, he must have pissed in someone’s Shamrock Shake, because faster than you can say “Whatever Happened to Vladimir Kozlov?”, he was losing joke matches to Santino and getting buried by Mark “Never Going to Main Event Again” Henry. It’s not like the man was half-assing it, he put on a classic series of matches with John Morrison and continued to draw solid heat from the crowd. Morrison is knocking at the main event door now because Sheamus took some brutal bumps in order to sell Morrison’s parkour-style offense.
But his losing streak has become so conspicuously pathetic that after losing to Daniel Bryan via countout thanks to a kayfabe freak injury this Monday (last year Sheamus was bouncing Bryan around the ring at will), he acknowledged it on the microphone, and said that if he can’t take Bryan’s United States Championship next week, he’ll quit.
Which means he’s going to win the belt, and probably start a rivalry with Bryan that will lead to Wrestlemania, and I think that’s going to be good for both of them. Bryan’s had a long reign as US Champion, and can put on a great show, but he’s been adrift lately – Bryan v. Ted Dibiase has happened so often that it’s become the standard “We’ve Got No Ideas” plug-in match from the bookers. There’s too much talent on Raw for someone as gifted as Bryan to be lacking a good rivalry, and his blend of old-school grappling technique and underdog spirit is a quality contrast for Sheamus’s larger-than-life cruelty and brawling.
Wearing the mid-card title belt more or less makes it official that Sheamus is off the main-event push for now, but that doesn’t mean he’s done. Every new guy has to pay some dues – Triple H certainly spent some time in the garbage matches after his first big push, and remember when Randy Savage lost the belt and suddenly found himself feuding with the past-his-prime Dusty “Sassy Fat Guy” Rhodes? There’s only room for so many top heels, and between The Miz as champion and C.M. Punk’s brilliant cult-leader persona feuding with Randy Orton, the main event is covered. A move to the Smackdown roster could be interesting, since I suspect that Alberto Del Rio is going to lose at Wrestlemania in order to prolong his build, and they’ll be looking for more heel competition for Edge. An Edge/Sheamus rivalry would be catnip to a good talker like Edge.
But we have to look beyond Wrestlemania. Assuming John Cena’s going to take the belt from Miz – which seems about as inevitable as Colin Firth winning that Oscar this year – he’s going to need a new rival. There will no doubt be a re-match or two, as Miz has worked hard to be a worthy main eventer (more on this in another post) and should be a decent thorn in Cena’s side at least through another pay-per-view or two. But that’s just blow-off of the current fued, Cena needs his next Clubber Lang. C.M. Punk would be good, since his skills would elevate any match with Cena and force him to do some more wrestling, but we’ve spent almost a year now with Cena v. Nexus, and even with the WWE’s propensity for going to the same well way, way too many times, I don’t think anyone’s enthused about that one.
The fact that they’ve ported Dolph Ziggler over from Smackdown is, I think, a hint that he might be that guy – in spite of the fact that he officially held the World Heavyweight Championship for all of about 8 minutes, he does have official World Title imprimatur on him now, and he and Cena had a couple of pretty solid inter-brand matches late last year. The boo-storm Cena was able to bring down on Vickie Guerrero from the crowd during that was damn near unprecedented.
But I still think Sheamus has got the perfect profile for the job. He can boast of having taken the belt from Cena before, and needs only a couple of good wins plus a stunt beatdown or two to re-establish his “viciousness” cred. If he does go through a lengthy program with Bryan he ought to be able to do all of that; and here’s the real long-view thinking – the creative team has to be wondering if there’s an opportunity to put the WWE Title on John Morrison this year. And if they do, who better to job it to him than Sheamus? Heel champions are usually all about transitions.
Yes, Sheamus rose fast and fell fast, but he’s still around and still working hard. We know from history that Vince McMahon wants a wrestler to prove they’ll take their lumps for the sake of the show. I’m willing to be a little patient before giving up on the fella.