10 WWE Champions Who Weren't Ready For The Belt
2. Sheamus
"The boyhood dream has come true!" - Vince McMahon, WrestleMania XII.
"The Austin Era has begun!" - Jim Ross, WrestleMania XIV.
"What?" - Jerry Lawler, TLC 2019.
WWE seemed to go all in on Sheamus; winning the WWE Championship less than six months after his main roster introduction, this, in the production meeting, must have felt like the sort of audacious gambit needed to disrupt a sterile main event scene. On the pay-per-view, the impact of this game-changing hard nut was tempered by its fatalistic midcard placement, the cloudy finish, and that aforementioned, incredulous, helium-voiced reaction to it.
He felt like an imposter playing a role, and WWE failed to commit to that role, aiming both barrels into his main event prospects. Sheamus was a very promising throwback to JCP, if anything - he looked and resonated as physically legitimate - but lacked the colour, the gaga, to truly throttle the fandom.
In latter years, Sheamus grew in confidence and allowed himself to look foolish and express his gruff, economical wit (when not handed truly dismal material), but by this point, his bruising style was deemed unfashionable, and the performer behind it a dreaded office guy.
The suspicion is that the WWE fandom will most appreciate Sheamus in retrospect - a consequence, perhaps, of the overstuffed, static TV on which he came up.