The Wrasslin' Essay: Sheamus Cash In Not A Shameful Thing

Let’s call a spade a spade: the conclusion to WWE Survivor Series was weird. First, Roman Reigns defeated Dean Ambrose in a match that felt like it was just getting into third gear in order to win the vacant WWE World Heavyweight Title. Then, a blinding shower of confetti and two kicks to the face later, Sheamus—the latest in a string of tepidly-pushed Money in the Bank holders—emerged with the title and a newfound place in the catbird seat as the Authority’s favored son.

The big losers of the night felt like the WWE World Heavyweight Title and the fans who populate the WWE Universe. With that said, though, a deeper analysis of the four tournament finalists reveals that the WWE braintrust may have in fact made the best decision for the company, the title, and the moment.

It would be easy to say that Reigns just isn’t over enough to hold the World Heavyweight Title as a babyface, but the bigger, more nuanced reason that Survivor Series was not the right moment to crown the shotgun-fisted one comes down to timing and the tenuous hold of a few knee ligaments. For WWE to make Reigns not just whole but bigger and better than ever, he must defeat Seth Rollins cleanly. It was Rollins who turned his back on the Shield, stole Reigns’ WrestleMania Moment, and saw fit to rub his former friends’ noses in his accomplishments for the remainder of the year.

Beating his pal Ambrose or even Kevin Owens in a way that stuck might have netted Reigns the gold, but it would’ve been a completely hollow victory from a storytelling perspective. If you trace Reigns’ time in the WWE, his journey isn’t about becoming champion, it’s about his relationships with two men: Ambrose and Rollins. When the time comes to crown Reigns as the top dog, both other men must be there for it to work. WWE couldn’t let Reigns walk away from Survivor Series as champion because that would be like crowning Hamlet king of Denmark while Claudius nursed a torn ACL—sure, the good guy supplanted the bad guy, but there’s no dramatic satisfaction.

On the other hand, if WWE’s goal was to send the most possible fans home happy on Sunday night, former Shield member Ambrose may have been the most logical choice to come away with the title. Unlike Reigns, Ambrose is accepted as a babyface by the entirety of the fanbase. His likability, born of dues paid on the independent circuit for some and entertaining contributions to Raw for others, makes him a fan favorite on a level that Reigns may never reach. His wacky everyman persona has made Ambrose a sentimental hero for many fans in a way that transcends his push or actual talent level—which is the definition of someone having “intangibles.” For all his popularity, however, there are several aspects of Ambrose’s character that leave him completely unsuitable to be a World Heavyweight Champion.

Ambrose is Donald Duck. He feels a full range of intense emotions, but the way he portrays them generally only leaves the audience with one possible reaction: to laugh. When Donald Duck acts self-important, fans laugh because they anticipate his fall. When Donald suffers hardship, fans laugh because his reaction is over-the-top. When Donald spins his fist and sneers, spoiling for a fight, fans laugh because they recognize that even though he is brave, he is never actually going to come out on top of a big fight. Donald Duck is one of the brightest stars in the Disney Universe, but he’ll never reach Mickey Mouse level because his persona is so caricatured that it can’t generate any real pathos. Such is the case with Ambrose.

Alberto Del Rio, who faced Reigns in the show-opening semi-final match, is similarly unequipped for a World Title run at this time. His “Mex-American” title reign is a half-cocked farce, a walking indictment of WWE writing that took nine months of hard work by John Cena and reduced it to nothing in just a few weeks. More importantly to the health of the World Title in the near future, though, is Del Rio’s unclear place on the face-heel spectrum. Del Rio is clearly positioned as a heel (he is from another country and has a manager, after all), but his body language in the ring too often makes it seem like he’s holding back, as though he’s half-trying to portray the Latin cultural hero that he knows he should be.

Del Rio might be a better wrestler than Reigns or Sheamus in every measurable way, but the World Title picture requires a near-didactic clarity that his character just can’t provide. If he were champion, could babyfaces chase him? Not effectively, because they would be positioned as racist xenophobes. If he were champion, could heels chase him? Not effectively, because fans have never been given any reason to feel sympathy for him.

The final option on Sunday night was Owens, who faced Ambrose in the semifinals. Throughout his nearly yearlong tenure in the WWE, Owens has consistently been one of the company’s MVPs, making it tough to argue against him as a worthy champion. However, as with Reigns, this is simply not Owens’ time to reach the climactic point of becoming World Heavyweight Champion.

Owens is a big-mouthed bully heel. As such, he’s not the right man to win a tournament of worthy contenders for a vacant title. For an Owens title win to mean something, he has wrench the championship away from a highly-sympathetic figure in the most inhuman way possible (see: his NXT Title win). The heat in his character comes from him wronging people, not just from him winning when fans want the other guy to win. Owens is a tremendous wrestler and champion, but Survivor Series was simply not an appropriate stage for his ascension.

Enter Sheamus: He’s big. He’s mean. He can lose to whoever when the time is right. Almost any other option seems sexier on the surface, but he’s actually the perfect man to have as World Champion if WWE feels they need to shuffle the deck one more time headed into WrestleMania season. He’s the imperfect man for the imperfect moment.

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