The storyline on WWE television in recent weeks between Jeff Hardy and Sheamus has been criticized from many different corridors of the wrestling world. Although WWE often times likes to work threads of reality into their scripted stories, there are some topics that many would deem going too far. In this case, Hardy’s well publicized history of substance abuse. Even so, WWE has continued to move forward with the story, going so far as to have Hardy take a urine test on an episode of SmackDown and proceed to throw the specimen in Sheamus’ face. The segment was so controversial that it didn’t air on the west coast feed of the show.
Sheamus himself has been getting a lot of push back for being involved in the story, regardless of how much say he has in what makes television. He spoke about that this week on the WWE After The Bell podcast with Corey Graves.
“There was a lot of backlash,” Sheamus explained. “A lot of people really hate me right now. At the end of the day, we are characters. My job is to be the most hated character ever and I thrive in that situation. When I first started, the aggression part of the ring has always been easy for me. I always felt the promos in the ring was where I wasn’t sure where I needed to be. I would trip over things I have to say because I have to get this promo out exactly right. It held me back quite a bit in my career. My look was so unique. I was a big Irish dude. When it came to the stick, that left a lot to be desired. When you talk about coming back with a passion, I knew there were certain things in my game I had to work on.
“When I was with Cesaro and The Bar, we weren’t challenged in that situation. We shared promos together. There were certain things in my game that needed to be tightened up. One was my physique which I wasn’t happy with. I’m enjoying this stuff with Jeff because it has given my character a lot of opportunity to play with words and watch the reaction, especially on social media, to how much people hate me, the more I enjoy sticking a knife into Jeff.”
What have you thought of the Jeff Hardy vs. Sheamus storyline? Has WWE gone a step too far? Let us know in the comments section below.
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
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