3 Most underutilized championship reigns of the decade
For the most part, championship wins have played a huge role in defining the career of a Superstar. In the recent past, however, it has become clear that some championships aren’t treated with the respect they deserve. Some factors that influence this poor treatment include the top feud of the company, or who the top champion is.
With WWE creative being underwhelming from time to time, it’s pretty obvious that some championship reigns were just there for the sake of it. Let's take a look at 3 such championship reigns that had so much more potential.
#1 Sheamus' post-WrestleMania 28 title reign
Sheamus won the Royal Rumble back in 2012. This was a huge surprise for many fans, who expected the returning Chris Jericho to win. Jericho would then go on to feud with CM Punk for the WWE Championship, while Sheamus decided to fight the heel-ish Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania.
Sheamus would shock fans again, defeating Bryan in 18 seconds to win his only World Heavyweight Championship. Much to WWE’s displeasure, the fans rallied behind Bryan instead of the Celtic Warrior.
This was a sign of disaster for the new champion. However, Triple H had successfully conveyed to Vince McMahon that he wanted to see longer reigns in the championship scene. That meant Sheamus wasn’t losing the title any time soon. He defeated Bryan in the rematch, a well executed 2 out of 3 falls match at Extreme Rules.
He would then feud with Alberto Del Rio for the major portion of his reign. Del Rio had 3 singles matches for the title in consecutive pay-per-views, all preceded by a Fatal 4 Way encounter at Over the Limit 2012, involving Chris Jericho and Randy Orton.
Del Rio would’ve faced Sheamus at No Way Out, had he not suffered a concussion. He was replaced by Dolph Ziggler at the event. In the weeks building up to all of these pay-per-views, Del Rio faced Sheamus on weekly shows, in a variety of matches.
Once Sheamus was done with Del Rio, he would go on to feud with The Big Show. In a surprising outcome that followed a great match, Big Show knocked out Sheamus to win the championship at the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view, ending his reign at 210 days.
The problem with this reign was the excessive exposure of a single feud. Add to the fact that both Superstars had a stale gimmick that didn’t really connect with the fans, and you had the perfect recipe for filler content. More depth should have been added to Sheamus’ character, for he never struck gold as a face, and he should've been given a wider variety of opponents to work with.