Sheamus vs Drew McIntyre

[NotJayTabb]

Two big Celtic heavyweights with similar length careers. Both former WWE champions. McIntyre has a credible indy run in his favour, but Sheamus didn't spend time as a comedy job guy. Who you got?

[Rah]

Beyond that indy run, Drew is probably the best Superstars TV worker in WWE history. Now, that doesn't sound like much. admittedly, but he got a LOT out of random 5-10 minute matches than most other wrestlers could out of double that time. His matches against Chris Masters are almost all high end and give a sneak peak into what I'm getting at.

That said, Sheamus has been greater for longer, is more consistent on a weekly basis and has much higher highs than Drew (Bryan/Sheamus, Cesaro Best of 7 etc). Both are fantastic big men workers but if a match for each was to pop up on Youtube, I'd be more inclined to go with Sheamus 99 times out of a 100.

[El Dragon]

I like Drew a lot, but Sheamus has 10 years of really strong work, and also was probably the best crowd less worker the WWE had in the dark days.

[kid dracula]

Sheamus pitching a shut-out here.

I admit I haven't seen a lot of Drew McIntyre, but every time I do see him I'm kind of baffled. He seems like a very 1980's vision of a pro-wrestling star. Watching Mania this year, he didn't stand out as being particularly better than Lashley, and he looked 1000x less cool. 

Sheamus has a lot of matches I've liked, and he can look mean and hit people hard. 

[urbanecowboy]

Brock Lesnar gave McIntyre the perfect setup at Rumble 2020. Unfortunately the way things went down for Wrestlemania really didn’t do him any favors. That was the only time I ever cared about McIntyre, who I have nothing specifically against but I struggle to find him compelling especially when compared to somebody like Sheamus. 

[strobogo]

Sheamus without question. Drew is fucking boring. 

[MichaelZ]

I am probably ranking Sheamus and am not really considering Drew. On top of the high end stuff mentioned above I really liked Sheamus as part of The Bar, and would even put his pandemic era work ahead of Drew’s. 

[Reel]

I like Drew, and I think if he's going to a main event guy for the next 5 years, he'll have an opportunity to have some good matches and maybe have a shot at getting on the bottom of some ballots, but I don't know if there is any time in their respective runs were Sheamus hasn't been having better matches than Drew. Like, Drew's run on the indies where he got to do pretty much whatever he wanted had some good stuff, but it probably wasn't ever close to being as good as what Sheamus was doing on TV at the time. 

[Kadaveri]

He's far from the only culprit, but I wasn't high on Drew's indie run as I was constantly thrown off by him being this 6'5 behemoth yet he generally worked 50/50 with everyone.

[Reel]

The same criticism gets lobbed at Chris Hero, during pretty much exactly the same time period and against the same people, and I sort of agree, but at the same time, I feel like wrestling, especially indie wrestling, hasn't been the place where there are clear delineations of level and status for a long time, if ever, so how much can we blame Drew, or anyone else, for not fitting our idealized versions of wrestling when nearly every incentive is for them to have these 50/50, excessive, indie-rific matches. 

[Kadaveri]

I think there's a lack of imagination there, or at least an understanding of how to use their individual characteristics to stand out. The positive example of this is WALTER becoming one the biggest stars on the European indies by just actually wrestling to his size, and these same "indie" crowds totally bought that he could finish someone with a chop.

[Reel]

I'd rank Walter higher than Drew, so I agree, but I'd say he is much more an exception that proves the rule rather than a template to replicate. I think Walter's offense is certainly more suited for his presentation than almost anyone in the modern era, and his getting people to buy into a chop being a finish is a credit to him, but he has plenty of matches working 50/50 with guys a lot smaller, it's just that they're structured better than most. Like a guy like Mark Haskins being competitive with Walter for example, is that any less egregious than Drew and a Zack Sabre, for example. On paper, I'd say no, it's just that Walter is better at putting the match together, and his offense is so physical and visible it lends itself to matches feeling more like a struggle than Claymores and DDTs.