Sheamus/Rhodes: The Case for a Fresh Smackdown Rivalry

The last great King of the Ring, Sheamus, walked away with another crown on Sunday—the Royal Rumble 2012 crown. This added yet another accolade to his young and already impressive career.

Sheamus’ victory shows a desire for a fresh direction on the Road to WrestleMania. He was lost in the mid-card shuffle for months—surviving on only squashes and workers—and now we have the opportunity to see a man with superb mic skills and phenomenal in-ring skill take flight again.

The interesting thing is that this time, Sheamus takes flight as a babyface. While his heel run was prestigious and quite powerful, he has developed much more since those days. He has honed his image and in-ring skills to win over the crowd and take over Smackdown!

Beyond his squashes, Creative (namely Triple-H) must have seen something in him that proved his potential for a second major push with this Rumble victory. And it’s honestly a breath of fresh air.

To borrow a sentiment from Teddy Long, “boring television is predictable television.” So, in the vein of creating new, riveting television, Smackdown should run and could easily run a successful promo with Sheamus and Cody Rhodes.

And during this week’s Smackdown he claimed that he’ll wait until the after the Elimination Chamber PPV to choose who he will cash in his WrestleMania title match against.

We can safely assume that Jericho/Punk will be a main event at Wrestlemania—regardless of the outcome of Elimination Chamber. What makes most sense to me is that Sheamus will challenge Daniel Bryan and his World Heavyweight title.

I feel this rivalry would elicit some strong matches and a fresh feud before the WrestleMania match, where I anticipate Sheamus easily dethroning the weasel heel prince Bryan.

If this does happen, I would push for Cody Rhodes to drop his Intercontinental title at WrestleMania, this way he can properly move himself into the main-event scene as Sheamus claims the Heavyweight title.

Either that, or place him in the rare opportune push to match what Ultimate Warrior achieved by holding both prestigious titles at once.

Rhodes’ performance at the Rumble—eliminating six participants and lasting well over 40 minutes, as he pointed out on Smackdown—proves that he is going to get more attention in the coming months.

Then we learned that he will be inserted in the Elimination Chamber match, where I believe he will have the opportunity to truly shine amidst what could be the most dominant of the two chamber matches that night.

Rhodes can easily assert himself into the scene opposite Sheamus using his coy, cold character and demand to be taken seriously as a tried and true champion—which is completely valid.

[Note: I honestly don't mind if either title is up for grabs during this rivalry, I genuinely want to see this happen.]

And as we saw this week on Smackdown, these two can easily get over with the crowd as they put on an incredible match. Rhodes did a great job destabilizing Sheamus multiple times and both were extremely wry in their counters. We even saw a new finishing move for Sheamus!

Sheamus and Rhodes are two of the brightest lights in the future of the business and have developed beyond how they’ve been billed. Both move extremely well in the ring and know how to work the crowd from their respective demeanors.

They would dominate the Smackdown tapings and prove that the show still holds relevance and can rival Raw without having to rely on Randy Orton—who needs rest.

I enjoy Rhodes in the ring simply because he has a champion look. He’s a confident professional—quick and precise—and he doesn’t give anything less than a complete attention to detail with his move execution.

Sure, his finishing move and entrance music are god-awful, but he can work the ring better than 95 percent of the men backstage.

Place Rhodes in the ring consistently with one of the more brutalizing superstars today, Sheamus, and we’ve got a powerful NEW rivalry that Smackdown! and the WWE brand sorely needs right now, instead of rehashing Barrett/Orton and Undertaker/HHH.

Do you think this rivalry be fresh enough for the WWE?!

Would people care?!

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