Who Needs It More? Orton Vs. Sheamus

In the world of professional wrestling, more today than ever before, championship belts aren’t necessarily meant to signify who is the “best” in the company, but instead, to drive feuds and get fans to care about matches and performers. This is one reason why, until recent years, The Undertaker had so infrequently held the company’s top title. Undertaker’s first title reign in 1991 lasted six days. It wasn’t for another six YEARS that he got a shot at the belt. He lost and later won it in 1997 at Wrestlemania XIII.

And this brings me to the point of this column. Who needs the WWE Championship more: Sheamus or Randy Orton?

Let’s take a look at the two performers.

Sheamus

After wrecking people on ECW during the brand’s dying days, Sheamus jumped to Raw where he was most known for being the most pale man anybody had ever seen and “retiring” Jamie Noble after he powerbombed the little redneck on the unprotected concrete surface. Suddenly he was thrust into the main event of the December TLC PPV and defeated John Cena in a fluky victory to earn his first championship.

Crowds booed, not because Sheamus had defeated their hero John Cena, but instead due to the fact he wasn’t deserving of the belt. Sheamus defeated Orton in a heel vs. heel match at the Rumble, dropped the belt to Cena at the Elimination Chamber who immediately was pinned by Batista heading into Wrestlemania. No longer champion, Sheamus feuded with HHH for several months and eventually “injured” The Game, taking him out of action up to the present and into the foreseeable future. Sheamus won the belt again at the Fatal Fourway PPV, once again from John Cena.

As an analysis of Sheamus’ seemingly meteoric rise to the top of the card, he has accomplished anything but draw in the crowd. This is a column I didn’t expect to write. In fact, several months ago I sat down to begin writing a column called “In Defense of Sheamus,” which would actually look quite bad today as WWE Creative has still failed to give anybody a reason to care about Sheamus. The belt is being used with Sheamus much in the same way the US Title was given to The Miz about a year ago. It was meant to make him look strong, make people care about him. Unfortunately, the WWE Title still carries significant clout and people don’t want to see it used as a vanity belt. We have to care about the individual before they can wear the belt, not vice versa.

To this day, Sheamus has still not scored a clean pinfall against a bonafide main event performer. Sheamus is meant to be a power heel, a wrecking ball that tears through the division and strikes fear in the hearts of his competitors. Instead, he’s been booked as a guy that just manages to get by. This works for Chris Jericho, Edge, CM Punk and other smarmy heels that win at all costs. For Sheamus, who should be booked as an unstoppable force, it just makes him look weak.

Randy Orton

Only John Cena gets bigger pops today than does Randy Orton. The Viper has transformed from a sick, twisted rule-breaking heel into a maniacal, dangerous rule-breaking face. Ever since his turn heading into Wrestlemania where he defeated Legacy sidekicks Rhodes and Dibiase, Orton has been steadily picking up steam. Losses in multi-man matches where he wasn’t the one taking the pinfall haven’t hurt his momentum.

Last Monday when he delivered consecutive RKOs to Jericho and Edge to earn a shot at Sheamus at Summerslam, the second biggest PPV of the year, everything changed. Now, Orton is going to get his shot. There is nothing standing between Orton and the WWE Title except for the Celtic Warrior. If he doesn’t walk out of Summerslam with the belt, he won’t have anyone to blame but himself.

And herein lies the problem. If Sheamus wins this match, what does that tell us about Orton? A multi-time champion, the youngest in WWE history, is unable to defeat a poorly-built heel that has never proven to be a worthy champion. But what if Orton wins? What does that tell us about Sheamus? The bruising Irishman can’t win a big match and doesn’t stand on the same level as Orton or other solidified WWE main eventers. At the same time, it also doesn’t say much about Orton. When Orton turned face and was progressively built as one of the company’s top crowd-favorite draws, it was assumed that the ultimate pay-off would be a championship victory. Nobody cares whether or not he defeats Sheamus because, frankly, nobody cares about Sheamus. Especially without a real storyline backing the match, is this a waste of a title shot and victory if indeed Orton wins the belt?

It’s long been rumored that HHH was originally scheduled to return for Summerslam and seek revenge on Sheamus for taking him out with an attack with a lead pipe at the beginning of the summer. This would be a strong feud, a returning superstar and what would hopefully be a solid WWE-style main event. Unfortunately, with HHH having recently undergone surgery, this isn’t going to happen and Creative had to scramble. The company has also booked itself into a corner by having multi-man matches the last two months with the Fatal-Fourway PPV and MITB, so holding yet another triple-threat of fatal-fourway match at Summerslam would seem redundant. Not to mention the unnecessary cage match between Cena and Sheamus just a few weeks ago. Cena is embroiled in a feud with The Nexus, Jericho and Edge are heels and are now tied up with The Nexus as well.

It’s almost worth asking whether or not a Smackdown vs. Raw, Champion vs. Champion match would have been a better booking decision. Run Sheamus vs. Kane where Sheamus can pin the Big Red Machine cleanly, get his decisive victory and Kane isn’t hurt at all because he’s… well… Kane. Swagger and Mysterio could have had a legit two out of three falls match with good time and pull out the stops for number one contendership, Cena could carry on his merry way against Nexus, and you really sell the show based on the undercard of talent.

But I’m not hear to armchair book. I’m here to ask the question, and request your feedback, on who needs this victory more?

In my opinion, it’s Randy Orton. For the long-term viability of the company, Randy Orton needs to remain strong and if that means putting the belt on him a little before he’s due, so be it. A clean loss to Sheamus would severely hurt Orton’s credibility as a psychotic RKOing machine while, and what is most likely going to happen, a shenanigans riddled title defense by Sheamus will go nowhere in helping either performer and actually devalue the title. Orton could win the match, carry it for a few months and then get screwed over by somebody, maybe, Edge, The Nexus, a returning and heel turning HHH, followed by a lengthy chase back to the top where Orton ultimately gets his deserved pay-off.