Sheamus Is the Most Underrated Superstar in WWE

If you surf wrestling websites daily, chances are you’ll come across a lot of articles hating on WWE superstar Sheamus. 

You’ll read things like “Sheamus is overrated,” “I’m tired of seeing Sheamus win so much” or “Sheamus sucks.” 

But Sheamus is not overrated, and he doesn’t suck. In fact, the opposite is true.

Sheamus is the most underrated superstar in the WWE.

Although wrestling fans like to criticize “The Great White” just as much as John Cena these days, it’s hard not to be impressed by what he’s done over the last year-plus and just how much he’s come to mean to the company during that span.

There is no one on the main roster—not Cena, not CM Punk and not even Dolph Ziggler—that worked as hard as Sheamus did in 2012. 

Plenty of WWE stars get labeled as “workhorses,” but for the most part, Sheamus gets left out of that conversation. Yet, just look at the statistics; they prove that Sheamus was, in fact, the hardest working man in the company last year.

He wrestled a whopping 92 matches in 2012, which obviously means that he often pulled double duty by working matches on both Raw and SmackDown several times. Of course, he also pulled triple duty some weeks by working matches on Raw, SmackDown and Main Event.

He didn’t just wrestle in those matches, either. Oftentimes, he delivered the best match of the week.

Seriously, go back and look at all of the episodes of Raw, SmackDown and even Main Event in 2012, and then just consider how many times Sheamus was involved in high-quality matches. 

He’s had so many great TV matches over the last year or so that it’s genuinely hard to keep count, and those matches came against a wide variety of opponents: Punk, Antonio Cesaro, The Miz, Damien Sandow, Randy Orton, Alberto Del Rio, Big Show, Dolph Ziggler and even Tensai. 

A big portion of the WWE’s best TV matches of 2012 involved Sheamus, including a long line of really good tag team bouts that he often participated in on both Raw and SmackDown. 

Of course, “The Celtic Warrior” also put on some of the best pay-per-view matches of the year.

His match against Ziggler at No Way Out was very good while his bout with Big Show at Hell in a Cell was great and his 2-out-of-3 Falls Match against Daniel Bryan at Extreme Rules was arguably one of the top five matches of 2012. 

It’s really easy to hate on Sheamus because his character can be campy and corny, but what no one can deny is that he almost always delivers in the ring and has become one of the WWE’s top stars as a result. 

He stepped up in a major way last year to become arguably the No. 2 babyface in the WWE at a time when the company needed him the most.

With all of the growing resentment toward Cena, Punk turning heel and Orton having a down year, someone needed to step up and fill the gap at the top of the company,. 

That’s exactly what Sheamus did. 

While it’s certainly understandable that he has never been and never will be everyone’s cup of tea, most of the hatred toward him is unwarranted.

He’s a great ambassador for the company as someone who stays out of trouble, has a great look, is a decent mic worker and has evolved into one of the top in-ring performers in all of pro wrestling.

Yet, there seems to be more resentment toward Sheamus than any other star not named John Cena. 

That just doesn’t make sense.

Very few fans seem to appreciate all that Sheamus does for the company. The guy works his butt off week in and week out, and whether face or heel, he’s easily one of the top performers in the company. 

How can he be overrated? Over-pushed, perhaps. But not overrated.

Drake Oz is a WWE Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter!