This Week in WWE: Sheamus Shines & Kane Recovers To Wrestle After 26 Chair Shots

Sheamus continues to shine as a worker, Tyson Kidd and Antonio Cesaro steal the show on Superstars and Kane is still able to wrestle after receiving twenty six chair shots prior to a match-up. Here is a look at the best and some of the worse stuff from the past week in the WWE. Wrestler of the week: Sheamus The Irishman coming to the aid of John Cena at the start of Raw brought some much needed energy to a dire segment involving John Laurinaitis, Eve and the Big Show and helped to wash away the taste of yet another horrendous verbal performance from Cena. Later in the night, when partnering with the poster boy, the world heavyweight champion had some great powerhouse exchanges with Tensai, some brilliantly heroic brawling on the outside with the lumberjacks and solid back and forths with both Ziggler and Swagger who he also had a good match with on Smackdown. With a crowd pleasing offence, improved timing and increasingly dramatic selling Sheamus is really starting to stand out between the ropes. Honourable Mention: Damien Sandow who incorporated his snobbish gimmick well into his first match with Yoshi Tatsu on Smackdown. Match of the week: Tyson Kidd vs Antonio Cesaro (Superstars) A really cool blend of styles in this interesting Superstars opener from the past week. Swift early exchange saw Kidd with the go behind, Cesaro hitting an elbow and then bouncing the ropes, Kidd attempting a blocked hiptoss, flipping over his opponent, dodging a clothesline and taking Cesaro to the mat with an arm drag and then stretching out the arm on the ground. Cesaro used his superior strength to fight back to his feet and spread his arm across Kidd's face before pushing him into the corner and walloping his rival with some hard kicks and fists and then working over the arm. To get out of the hold, Kidd backflipped back from the ropes with the assistance of his spare hand and sent Cesaro rolling to the opposite side of the ring to release his trapped arm. An inventive spot then saw Kidd scout his opponent's charge by kicking him in the face whilst flipping over the ropes and then jumping back in, twisting his body around to land on Cesaro back and taking him down from that position to secure a pinfall attempt. Kidd's timing throughout all this was flawless. Cesaro then worked his way back into the match by blocking Kidd's aerial move and sending him flying face first into the ropes before roughly contorting his face with a series of painful looking holds and a variety of supplex manoeuvres. The highlight of this stretch of dominance saw Cesaro hang Kidd over his back with his arms dug sharply into his opponents face whilst Kidd desperately waddled his legs in an attempt to fight free and eventually did so by once again flipping over and taking Cesaro to the mat to earn a near fall. More awesomeness followed as Kidd's sharpshooter attempt was thwarted by Cesaro who grabbed hold of Kidd's ear and managed to get back to his feet with the unique submission still locked in. Kidd kicked his way out, was thrown to the corner, but then hit an elbow that enabled him to scale the turnbuckle and attempt a spinning DDT that was telegraphed by Cesaro who held Kidd in mid-air before throwing him up high and ploughing him with an uppercut which he then followed up with his finisher for the win. This is definitely worth eight minutes of your time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajQ2cCcnGd0 Honourable Mention: Raw Handicap Tag Main Event: John Cena and Sheamus vs Lord Tensai, Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger Fail of the week: Kane shrugs off multiple chair shots on Smackdown After receiving twenty six chairshots from a rampant Daniel Bryan on Smackdown, Kane was not only able to participate in his scheduled triple threat match against Randy Orton and Alberto Del Rio but would have won it outright were it not for another timely interference from Bryan. I guess the idea is to escalate tension between these two rivals but twenty six chairshots is the type of beatdown you give to a man who is going to be out of action for six months, not someone you're about to be feuding with. Whilst Kane has always been a character with a high pain threshold it makes little sense to treat him the same way as when he first arrived in the gimmick in 1998. Back then Glen Jacobs had a better physique, a more athletic skillset and quickly became one of the top five most popular superstars in the company and thus it made sense for him to appear both destructive and resilient. When the idea is to push new stars however, the Kane character should be made to look more human especially when his look, athleticism and rapport with the fans is nothing like it was a decade ago. When a superstar can withstand multiple blows from what is supposed to be a steel chair, it ruins the suspension of disbelief needed to truly invest oneself in a storyline and makes a mockery of the dangerous element of the weapon itself. Simply put a single chairshot acted out well offensively and sold authentically means far more than a number of chairshots that all look phoney and similar. The all too brief era of legitimacy might have vanished but there's still no need to turn everything into a cartoon. Dishonourable Mention: John Cena finishes seventh ahead of the likes of Dusty Rhodes, Randy Savage, Mick Foley and CM Punk in wwe.com's top 25 masters of the mic countdown. This week in WWE history:5 Years Ago: Bobby Lashley was the main focus of Raw as he defeated talented big man Umaga to earn himself a street fight against Vince for the One Night Stand PPV. Meanwhile on Smackdown Batista won a Fatal Four Way contest against Finlay, Mark Henry and Kane to grant himself a world title match against Edge at Over the Limit. 10 Years Ago: Raw paid tribute to the passing of Davey Boy Smith who died two days prior to the broadcast whilst Undertaker having recently defeated Hulk Hogan to win the undisputed title defended the gold against Rob Van Dam in the main event of the show. Undertaker then defended his title again against a very young Randy Orton on Smackdown in a show that also saw Hulk Hogan help Edge to victory against Kurt Angle inside a steel cage. 15 Years Ago: Shawn Michaels rediscovered his smile as he returned to in ring action and helped Austin defeat tag team holders Owen Hart and British Bulldog in an absolutely blinding championship contest. Michaels who had vacated the WWE title earlier in the year citing a knee injury as his excuse flamboyantly navigated his way around the ring like a cat on stilts showing no signs of apprehension in regards to re-aggravating the injury that famously made him lose his smile. On the other hand, Raw's Monday night competition Nitro, main evented with an angle involving the NWO, Eric Bischoff and Sting as part of the admirably patient built to their infamous title match that December at the Starcade PPV. In the Monday Night Ratings War Raw drew a 2.7 rating to Nitro's 3.3. That's all from me but you can leave your thoughts on what you thought were the highlights and lowlights of the past week of wwe programming in the comments box.