Well, I thoroughly enjoyed my week off last week.  Even with the holiday, a break was still absolutely necessary for me, as coming up with stuff to talk about every week has been a lot harder than I initially thought, especially while I was finding other things to do with my Monday nights. But now I’m back, so let’s jump right back in…

I’ve been watching Raw off and on again, and I have to say I was super excited when the Jesse Ventura hosted Raw focused entirely on the younger side of the roster.  As a result of this, in a move that seems to have equally excited and angered many, Seamus is now the number one contender to John Cena’s WWE title.  Those excited seem to feel that hey, for better or worse, at least it’s someone new in the title picture (given that is the only real positive reaction I’ve seen, maybe excited is too strong a word). And I can’t argue that in the slightest. Now don’t get me wrong, it really is great to see a lot of younger guys getting screen time over on Raw. I’ve already been over my appreciation of Kofi Kingston’s push in depth, and his feud with Randy Orton and Legacy is what got me watching Raw again. And given that he gets the most crowd reaction out of all the under card guys who were fighting for the number one contendership,  it’s understandable why people would be rooting for him to get the shot. Instead, as mentioned, it went to Seamus. Which on the one hand, makes sense. Face champion, heel contender. And Kingston’s beef with Orton needs to continue. On the other hand however… Seamus? As a world title contender? It seems, well… rushed.

The thing about Seamus is, sure he’s been on television for awhile, but he’s done nothing to distinguish himself prior to putting Cena through a table minutes after winning the number one contender spot. He retired Jamie Noble? I’d say that mattered if Jamie Noble had meant anything to the audience at any point in even the last year. He kicked Jerry Lawler in the face when he came to the defense of the ring crew member he was beating up? Well that could have been something, but nothing came of it.

Everything Seamus has done has been standard monster heel tactics, that we’ve seen a million times before. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing (most recently it worked for Umaga), but the problem is, so far it doesn’t seem to have gotten Seamus over with the crowds in the slightest. Unless my ears have deceived me, for the most part, the crowd response to Seamus has been mostly silence.  Sure, his power moves look particularly devastating and draw ooh’s and ahh’s, but that can be said for anyone who delivers a stiff power bomb on the floor. While he has an interesting look (though that may just be by virtue of the fact that he’s pale as paste in a roster where the Caucasian skin color ranges from healthy tan to orange goblin), Seamus has never done anything but be the stereotypical “hoss” that the WWE has always loved to shove down our throats. There’d be no discernible difference if this was a push of Chris Masters.

The main defense I’ve seen for Seamus as number one contender is that TNA has done the virtually same thing with Nigel McGuinness, aka Desmond Wolfe, by bringing him in with no build up and putting him right into a major feud with Kurt Angle. Apparently liking one and disliking the other means that you are being a smark and judging everything solely on work rate and HHH mentioning Seamus in an interview or some such nonsense. Well I don’t buy it. Setting aside his ROH history, what you have with Wolfe is a wrestler who, as an unknown commodity to the bulk of the audience, got put in a position to look like a threat right out the gate, without entering the title picture. Punking out a recent World champion in his first appearances made him look like a credible challenger right off the bat, and is closer to the way the WWE is pushing Kofi against Orton than it is the push of Seamus, who for months now has done nothing but beat up guys who are at the level of Goldust or lower. It’s a subtle distinction, but an important one.  One creates suspense, the other creates a feeling of inevitability.  Even the casual fan is expecting this to be another monster being built up for the express purpose of getting beaten by the champ, be it this PPV or the next. It doesn’t help that a vast amount of fans (maybe not the majority of WWE fans, but certainly the majority of TNA fans) are internet savvy, and are aware of the quality of match that Wolfe can have versus the demonstrated mediocrity every fan has seen from Seamus on ECW and Raw.

The other defense, however, is one I can not argue with.  And that’s that, for better or for worse, this is a new face in the main event. A fresh match up for a championship that sorely needs new contenders. In terms of match quality, yeah, Seamus is an unproven commodity in anything but a squash match. But Cena always brings his working boots when it comes to PPV, and he’s shown that he can have a good-great match with supposed no talent slugs before. So there is more than a slight chance that something good coming out of this. Still, in the end, is “well, at least it’s a new face” really what we want to be walking away saying at the end of the night?