2. Sheamus - New Japan Pro Wrestling
Sheamus gets a lot of shade thrown in his general direction, and the truth is that a lot of it is unjust. When he arrived on the scene he was lumbered with the baggage of being a 'Triple H Guy', a death sentence in the eyes of wrestling fans hidden behind keyboards worldwide. He won the world title after only being on the roster for a cup of coffee. He beat Daniel Bryan within 18 seconds at WrestleMania. He was almost the definition of 'WWE', in the negative big bad corporate way. The truth is that Sheamus is pretty damn good at what he does, and has put a lot of work into getting to where he is. He doesn't make the booking decisions, and he has been as much a victim of the company's confused booking as anyone else. Over the last few years he has put on consistently good to great matches with a variety of performers, a fact that often goes unnoticed or ignored. He even managed to pull a great match out of Mark Henry, for goodness sake! Looking back, it is this that makes me think he would be a perfect fit for NJPW. He is known for being one of the stiffest wrestlers going, a man who will beat the heck out of you and is perfectly willing to have all of the heck beaten out of him in return. With Sheamus you're going to get a sense of realism that is lacking from many in the performance-world of WWE. Sheamus would fit New Japan like a glove. It is particularly appetising to imagine him competing in the NEVER Openweight division against men like Tomohiro Ishii, Katsuyori Shibata and Togi Makabe. These matches are not for the faint-hearted, but a faint heart is not something Sheamus can ever be accused of having. The very idea of Sheamus vs. Tomohiro Ishii is enough to make me want to have the Celtic Warrior hand in his resignation to Vince McMahon the day after WrestleMania.
John Bills
Contributor
Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.
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