Blessed By The Irish Curse... Sheamus Wins WWE Gold

On June 29 earlier this year. ECW announced its New Superstar Initiative with the debuts of Abraham Washington, Yoshi Tatsu, Tyler Reks and last but not least Sheamus and with the likes of Jeff Hardy & CM Punk headlining Smackdown each week it seemed WWE was finally getting passed the nature of "playing it safe" and failing to recognize new talent, however on RAW; the flagship show of the company things couldn't get staler.

So it was a breath of fresh air at Bragging Rights when the stipulation that surrounded the match made it impossible for a rematch of what was the tenth time John Cena & Champion Randy Orton were opponents in a WWE Championship match on pay-per-view.

The next night, Sheamus signed from ECW made his RAW debut in a total squash match against Jamie Noble and this was the first sign of new talent being pushed on the Monday Night brand. Also that night, seen as Cena defeated Orton the night before, many wondered now that the Legend Killer was out of the picture who was next for the Champ. Of course they went for the obvious option of D-Generation X to face the Chain Gang Soldier at Survivor Series, despite the fact both Triple H & Shawn Michaels have had their own fair share of battles with John Cena for the title in recent memory.

D-Generation X has been done so many times since their first comeback in the Summer of 2006 and because the crowd cheers for them and buys their merchandise is no reason not to be creative and original with them on TV and having Michaels & Helmsley in the title picture wasn't new and John Cena overcoming in impossible odds in defeating the team wasn't either.

However, the night after Survivor Series, WWE took a huge unprecedented step towards fresh programming on RAW when guest host Jesse "The Body" Ventura announced what was being called a "breakthrough battle royal" in which Superstars would compete against each other throughout the coarse of the night to gain entry into the aforementioned battle royal. The only stipulation was that all participants must not be former World Champions.

The obvious choice of winners were Kofi Kingston, encouraged by his push which saw him cleanly pin CM Punk & Randy Orton the previous night; Mark Henry, the former ECW Champion with a clear advantage is such a match; or even MVP, having enjoyed success as a multiple-time US Champion was maybe ready to step up to the next level. Either way a new opponent for John Cena meant something fresh so any of the above would suit.

However, it was Sheamus who picked up the victory in a move which shocked many. Seen as he had only made his debut on the show less than a month earlier and had positive yet minimal exposure at the expense of Jamie Noble, Jerry Lawler and earlier in the night Finlay - not exactly top draw opponents.

Although John Cena was at long last facing new a opponent for his title, the scenario looked all too familiar. Following the battle royal when it was announced the title match would take place at TLC in a tables match, Cena stepped inside the ring with Sheamus for a contract signing that lead to to the Celtic Warrior to slam the champion through a table after Cena questioned why he should take Sheamus as seriously as his previous challengers.

6 days before their match at TLC, they met in the ring for a "Championship Showdown" where once again Cena talked about how foolish Sheamus was to think he was in with a chance after only being on the big show a number of weeks. Sheamus like their previous encounter laid out the champion and stood tall as the announcers asking "How can Cena overcome the odds?", a quote as lethal as a kiss of death for Cena's challengers in the past.

So should Cena to drop the belt at the pay-per-view he would have to come off as foolish and naive to misjudge and underestimate Sheamus so much, he would have to look weak physically having never got any offense on the challenger despite not one, not two but three Irish Curse Kicks and a slam through a table; and WWE would have to do the unthinkable and give the victory to the Superstar who came off on top in every encounter leading to the match and with all these factors added to the fact that the person challenging being a new talent just didn't seem possible.

On December 13; in San Antonio, Texas when they began running the promo package for the WWE Championship on the 1 hour mark of the pay-per-view this writer certainly didn't expect to see his fellow Irishman Sheamus leave with anything other than his first loss.

The match itself was looking good, the stipulation of the table seemed to limit them in what they were able to do and both men had decent offense. The Five Knuckle Shuffle and an Attitute Adjusment was the perfect build-up for Cena to then set up a table and attempt to superplex Sheamus from the top turnbuckle through the wood, but then when Sheamus looked to fall from the turnbuckle knocking Cena through the table and the bell rang announcing Sheamus as the new WWE Champion I was waiting for the cop-out finish of the authority figure to step out and announce the match was being restarted as a simple replay argues that Cena fell through the table as opposed to being pushed by Sheamus but thankfully they saved that angle for the World Heavyweight Championship match later in the night.

It's quite possible that Cena will bring up that tomorrow night on RAW and earn some kind of rematch but the bottom line tonight is that Sheamus had done the unthinkable, he had prevented Cena from overcoming the odds, he defeated Cena to become the WWE Champion in his very first pay-per-view match. A new era has finally begun on the Monday Night brand.

The next hope is to see a pay-per-view that doesn't boast title bout featuring either John Cena, Randy Orton, Triple H or Batista, because the scary thing is, there hasn't been a pay-per-view since WWE introduced a second main event title that fits that criteria, the last time a pay-per-view that does stretches back to when John Cena's WWE career was only 3 weeks old at SummerSlam 2002 when the WWE Undisputed Championship was the only gold for top tier talent and was decided in a match between Brock Lesnar & The Rock, but with both Cena & Batista likely to get rematches that statistic looks to stay the same.

But we won't complain, because tonight in doing the utmost possible in pushing new we saw one small step for WWE and one big step for the Irish Curse.