WWE Has Spent 15 Years Building Up A Genius Subplot & Not Enough People Are Paying Attention To How Good It Is
The modern landscape of WWE has a select few veteran faces who are instantly recognizable to most fans. If you've tuned in to Raw or SmackDown over the course of the last 15 years, superstars like Randy Orton, The Miz, CM Punk and Kofi Kingston are just a few of the performers who will have graced your screens and are still part of those shows today.
With every passing month, it gets harder to deny that Vince McMahon clearly got a kick out of upsetting his audience. For every crowd-pleasing pay-off, there are a litany of notorious screw-jobs, distasteful, egotistical booking choices, and results that felt like a middle finger to the audience. Credit where it's due though - even if unintentionally earned - wrestling fans love an underdog story, and tales of resilience, and WWE has quietly booked one of the greatest over the span of a decade and a half. And I've come to realize that Sheamus is one of the most instantly recognizable faces in WWE for this very reason.
Sheamus Has Won It All Except One Big Thing
The Celtic Warrior's Career Has Literally Everything But Its Missing Piece
Despite a glittering, Hall Of Fame-worthy career, Sheamus's undying pursuit of the Intercontinental Championship is one of WWE's best subplots. His everyman charisma and enormous upswing at his craft has seen him deservedly become one of WWE's most lovable veterans.
It's easy to get distracted by victories and pinfalls in wrestling, but long-running story-telling that weaponizes losses is just as compelling, even if the audience doesn't feel quite as hot on it. The Irishman's pursuit of his personal Holy Grail is likely to run for years to come, gaining momentum, and becoming something that will assure Sheamus's relevancy with WWE's audience for years to come.
Even through Vince McMahon's routinely awful creative decision-making, Sheamus has always had championship success and the trust of WWE's booking committee. His career is awash with memorable moments to die for. Sheamus won the WWE Championship from Daniel Bryan in 18 seconds at WrestleMania, a few months after winning the Royal Rumble. When stepping outside of single's competition, he was one half of one of the best WWE tag teams of the 2010s with Cesaro in The Bar.
All of this is to point out that Sheamus has more than just every title but the Intercontinental Championship in his trophy cabinet. He has won both Raw and SmackDown's heavyweight championship and tag team championships, the United States Championship, King Of The Ring in 2010, 2012's Royal Rumble, and the Money In The Bank briefcase in 2015. The amazing coincidence that the IC title evades him, only makes his chase more tantalizing.
Sheamus' IC Story Has Been A Tale Of So Close Yet So Far
The Championship Has Slipped Through His Hands Multiple Times
This is more than just a championship. This is an obsession for Sheamus, who has challenged for the Intercontinental title three times in the last two months. He has challenged for the title 10 times on broadcast shows, including a Battle Royal for the vacant title and an Elimination Chamber when it was up for grabs, and this extends further still.
In total, Sheamus has had 23 attempts at the Intercontinental Championship when including house shows over the span of 13 years, with his first attempt at winning the belt coming in 2011, on SmackDown against Champion, Cody Rhodes.
Even in defeat, the Intercontinental Championship has great significance to Sheamus's modern WWE run. In his vicious Match Of the Year contender with Gunther at Clash At The Castle, Sheamus came up short but received a standing ovation from the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales.
His match at WrestleMania 39 with The Big Austrian and his friend Drew McIntyre stole the whole weekend at the biggest show of WWE's year. Each one of these defeats gets harder to take, and that's good news for everyone, including Sheamus.
Why Sheamus' Big Moment Itself Will Be Incredible
This Version Of WWE Understands The Power Of Moments
Sheamus didn't appear at last year's WrestleMania through injury, but he can take heart at underdog Sami Zayn toppling Gunther and his record-breaking IC title reign or Cody Rhodes finishing his story, because Paul Levesque's WWE knows how to pay off a long-term storyline and keep fans coming back for more. That's why it was always hard to believe that Sheamus' big moment was ever going to come in a quickly put-together title match with Bron Breakker.
We as WWE's passionate audience know that this is the final piece of Sheamus's puzzle. Every Sheamus match for the Intercontinental Championship is a chance to cement his legacy among the best of the best, and every defeat adds another layer to his long-term quest. The audience is going to be there for every step of that journey, and so when he wins the big one, it will feel like we all won the big one. Embracing the fighting Irishman that he is away from the camera as part of his persona is one of WWE's most underrated modern glow ups, and Sheamus winning the Intercontinental Championship will be a moment for the ages, fella.
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