Sheamus hasn’t appeared on WWE TV since the week after WrestleMania 35, and his tag team partner Cesaro is very much a singles wrestler now, which has raised questions for a lot of people about the Celtic Warrior’s status in WWE. If you look at the Celtic Warrior Workouts channel on YouTube however, you’ll see that not only is Sheamus keeping in ring shape, he’s actually lost weight and has an impressive, tightly-muscled new look.
In a recent appearance on E&C’s Pod of Awesomeness, Sheamus explained that he had previously thought being as bulky as he used to be was the best bet for his career (thanks to WrestlingInc for the transcript):
At one stage, I was kind of thinking, “Man, I should bulk up!” Like, I was seeing a lot of guys in there and “How do I get back?” At one time, I was pretty much one of the biggest guys in there, like, not “I’m a giant”-wise, but I was, like, size-wise, bulk-wise, and I was like, “Yeah, I should bulk up again.” And I kind of bulked up. I was seeing, like, Brock [Lesnar] and Braun [Strowman] and all these lads, and I’m thinking, it just got to a point where I didn’t look good, mate. Just like I put on a lot of weight, but I was carrying a lot of body fat and I just kind of lost control of where I was at.
It was an offhand joke from Vince McMahon, however, that finally got him to lose weight:
It also started because I came back from holidays in Ireland and me and Cesaro were walking by Vince and Vince goes, “Hey Sheamus!” I said, “Yeah?” He goes, “Enjoyed the holidays, huh?” and he was looking at me in the gut and I was like, “Okay, that’s it. That’s it. I need to do something about it.” But that was the change in gear and Cesaro will tell you as well. Cesaro knew right away when that comment was made. I just put too much weight on, man.
Most bosses would probably face consequences for saying something like that to their employees these days, but let’s be real, it’s extremely low on the list of wild things Vince McMahon does. And in any case, Sheamus is now glad that he’s slimmed down:
I feel so much better. Like, it’s all a myth where you think bigger is better, but it’s not, especially when we’re in the ring. The leaner we are, the bigger you look and the better you look and that [has] definitely been evidenced in the last few months I was in the ring.
As for WWE’s Sheamus clearly doesn’t consider himself finished yet, because he’s got one belt left to win:
There is one thing missing from my [WWE career] and that’s the Intercontinental Championship. Yeah, I’ve silently won a lot of trophies. I’ve won a lot of titles I mean and I got a lot in the very first half of my career. And then, of course, the two things that were missing [were] the IC title and the tag titles. And then, with Cesaro, we basically blitzed five titles, four RAW and one SmackDown [Live], in about two-and-a-half years, which was incredible. So yeah, that IC title is next on the list. And the irony of that whole thing is is that that is the one title that basically brought me into WWE. When I was a kid, in Dublin [Ireland], I was a massive Macho Man Randy Savage fan, and he was like setting up for that [Ricky] Steamboat/Savage match at ‘Mania 3. That was the one title I loved. And then, Warrior got it, Bret Hart, and it’s the one title that I haven’t won, so that’s the coveted prize for me, to join [Edge] on that [list] that have won as an ultimate grand slam champion, full house.
It would be really cool to see Sheamus return in a dedicated hunt specifically for the IC title. Not only would it be a great angle for him, it could help the Intercontinental Championship, which is too often an afterthought, regain some prestige. If he and the Miz were fighting over it, they might just convince us it’s the most important belt in WWE.
