Sheamus recently appeared on WWE After The Bell with Corey Graves and discussed several topics, including his return to the ring and his feud with Jeff Hardy. Here are some highlights:
On having more passion now than he did when he debuted:
Sheamus: “Yeah, I feel like I have. It’s funny, when I talked to you in the beginning, I was doing all these backstage promos in random corridors in different arenas all over the states, and I guess I felt like, when I came back, initially I felt like I was brought back for the sake of bringing me back because I had been on the sidelines for so long. I don’t think there was a definite plan when I came back. I did this thing with Shorty G that was pretty disappointing because Shorty G himself is an awesome, awesome athlete, man, an awesome wrestler, but we ended up doing the match at the Royal Rumble. You were commentating obviously, and there was nobody in the building, right? Because there was some sort of ticket issue. So here I am, I haven’t wrestled in almost a year since I left the SmackDown after WrestleMania, and I’m coming back and it’s supposed to be this big thing, coming back, and you know, I’m excited to wrestle Shorty because, you know, he’s such an exciting wrestler. And I come out, and there’s nobody out there. It’s actually, you know, it prepared me for this. There’s probably the same amount of people in that arena for my match with Shorty G at the Royal Rumble as there is at the PC right now for SmackDown. How ironic is that?”
On getting backlash from his feud with Jeff Hardy:
Sheamus: “Oh yeah, I think I’ve got a serious amount of backlash. A lot of people really, really, really hate me right now. You know, listen, when we’re in WWE, man, talk about blurred lines. I actually read an interview with Bobby Lashley talking about the situation with him and Lana, and how he had to talk to his kids about what was going on, and like somebody will blur the lines, you know what I mean,.And listen, at the end of the day, man, we’re characters, and my job is to be the most hated character ever, and I try in that situation. This current environment is giving me a great opportunity to delve into that.”
On how the feud with Jeff Hardy has allowed him to showcase his improved promo skills:
Sheamus: “I remember there was a time, when I first started, I don’t know what it was, obviously this is what I wanted to do my whole life, and the aggression part of the ring has always been easy for me. But I always felt promos and stuff in the ring, I definitely fell short, I was not where I needed to be. And you know, I’d trip over words and trip over things I had to say because I had to get this promo absolutely right, you know? And it definitely held me back quite a lot in my career. My look was so unique, in shape, I was big, pasty, Irish dude, and no one would match me with aggression in the ring. But when it came to the stick, you know what I mean, I was just, I left a lot to be desired. And I feel like, when we talk about coming back with passion, I feel like I am. I knew there were certain things in my game that had to be worked upon because, when I was with Cesaro in The Bar, we weren’t really challenged in that situation, you know. We’d share promos together, but you’re in a tag team, you’re sharing a lot of things. You’re sharing the load. But you’re coming back into a singles competitor, Corey, it’s like there are certain things in my game that need to be tightened up.”
“One was my physique, which I wasn’t happy where I was, and I just put, like train twice a day and just get stuck on my diet, into my diet and training and being religious with that. But also the other side was, you know, nailing, nailing my promos and making sure nobody touched me in that area. And I feel like, especially in the last couple of months, I feel like I’m in a whole new, different world, different league when it comes to that, and I’m enjoying this stuff with Jeff because it’s given my character a lot of opportunity to play with words and really just watch the reaction, especially on social media, to how much people hate me the more I enjoy sticking the knife into Jeff.”
On getting into a fight with Yoshi Tatsu:
Sheamus: “Me and Ted DiBiase Jr. were sharing an apartment, and Yoshi had just come over from New Japan, and basically, the guy he was supposed to stay with left him high and dry, right? So we took Yoshi into our apartment, right? So we actually took him in. Ted slept on the couch, and he took Ted’s room, right, and we didn’t really know this fella, but everybody seemed to like him, you know what I mean? So it was good, you know, but then the situation was , we earned 500 bucks a week, but he wasn’t paying for any bills, he wasn’t paying for any bills, any water, any cable, any gas, any of that stuff, right? So we were like, not only were we like 500 bucks a week taking care of ourselves, but we’re also taking care of him. So we had a couple little conflicts or whatever and then it kinda boiled over one time, and we had, it was a bit of a shoving thing, right? And he threw a slap at me, and I threw a slap at him, and that was it, right? So that was it, basically, right? It was just two hambags, you know what I mean, flying at each other, right? It lasted about maybe 60 seconds, it was just a couple of shoves and stuff and slap and slap, so we’re like okay, listen, we got over it, we worked it out. And all of a sudden, after the TLC [2009] match when I became WWE champion, all these stories are going around that Yoshi Tatsu knocked me out. And I was like what, where did this come from? It was this thing that never happened and it got blown out of proportion.”
The full episode is available below:
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