It’s funny how something so good only arrived as the result of something so dumb. Despite losing his opening round match in the Intercontinental Championship tournament to Jeff Hardy, Sheamus concocts a nefarious scheme to frame Jeff Hardy for a hit and run and then work his way through a battle royal just to get a semi-finals match against Daniel Bryan here. Remarkably dumb and convoluted WWE booking where Sheamus going over Hardy would have sufficed in the first place.
But that’s fine because these two always work so well together. I’m sure a lot of fan trauma still exists about this pairing from the infamous 18 second squash from WrestleMania years ago but that singular moment of bad booking often overshadows how good these two are together. Sheamus gets to lean into the natural role he should be in against Bryan: that of a bullying bruiser using his stiff shots and power to pick apart the smaller technician.
Sheamus puts in an entertaining performance here despite it being marred by some WWE-isms that restrain it from being truly great. Stuff like playing to the Performance Center scrubs in the “audience” will never not come across as forced and cheesy as the COVID-era continues. He also gets a taste for some of that Ciampa-Gargano dialogue by screaming out how Bryan should be grateful to the 18 second squash for sparking the YES movement. It’s a good idea to be spoken in a proper promo but not one that needs to be yelled in the third act of a TV main event like this. That being said, there is one moment that actually came across well. Sheamus bullying Michael Cole into the most half-hearted YES chant this side of the Big Show is the kind of mid-match outburst that I can get behind for sure.
The GOAT is of course fantastic as he has been for the last twenty years. He expends his trademark comeback sequence early in the first act of the match to make his struggle for a comeback in the third all the more compelling. He busts out old tricks such as the grounded crucifix elbows, matching Sheamus’ intensity strike for strike. Sheamus does well to trade blows with the GOAT and this adds a lot of substance to the match as a whole.
This is a fun TV match, one of many from the GOAT from this year. This Intercontinental Championship tournament as a whole has been a gift for people like me invested in sneaking Bryan another WOTY accolade. It’s still a close fight but matches like this do a lot to support the claim.