People creamed themselves over the recent Donnybrook match between Drew McIntyre and Sheamus on Smackdown, which reminded me that people have always dug the matches between these two. There have been seven of them in the last year and a half. There were three from a decade ago, but the FCW one is only available clipped to shreds on WWE.com, and the Tribute to the Troops one from 2011 and the Smackdown one from 2012 were both just Sheamus squashes.
March 1, 2021 – St. Petersburg, Florida
Drew McIntyre def. Sheamus
From Raw 1,449. Oh my god, the Thunderdome. Whatever, at least there’s canned heat. Sheamus had turned on his real life friend a month earlier. Then, Bobby Lashley helped the Miz screw McIntyre out of the WWE Championship (only to then beat Miz for that title later on in this episode of Raw). So McIntyre was really feuding with Miz here. The commentators actually mention their FCW match from 2009, which is more than I’d ever expect from this team. This was a great big dude brawl. Sadly, there were moments that would have played so much better in front of a live crowd, specifically when Sheamus flipped himself onto the turnbuckle and McIntyre kipped up to meet his gaze. There was so much sweat from effort pouring off of both guys. The finish was neat, as the match had been pretty even and the finish kept that theme going. Sheamus took control and looked like maybe he could string a few moves together and win, but when he went for the Brogue Kick, McIntyre met him with the Claymore Kick and was just a bit faster, picking up the win at 15:38 (shown of 22:50). ***¾
March 8, 2021 – St. Petersburg, Florida
Drew McIntyre nc. Sheamus {No Disqualification Match}
From Raw 1,450. There was a strange moment early on in this match when Sheamus and McIntyre fought near the announce desk. Byron Saxton & Todd Phillips got out of the way, but Samoa Joe, who was also on commentary, was nowhere to be found. Where’s his voice coming from?! Later on, the commentators make a big deal of the destruction that the wrestlers made at ringside, but the ringside area is immaculate except for the ring steps being overturned. Speaking of the ring steps, this match has the dumbest finish. Both guys grab a set of steps and run at each other with them carried in front of their faces, then knock into each other like they’re in the Three Stooges. The referee decides they’re too injured to continue and throws out the match at 16:03 (shown of 18:10). It’s a real shame, because for a while this was working almost at the level of their match from the week before, with some continuity from that match and a few decent weapons spots thrown in. It was getting a little slow before the terrible finish, though. ***
March 21, 2021 – St. Petersburg, Florida
Drew McIntyre def. Sheamus {No Holds Barred Match}
From Fastlane. The pre-match hype video was pretty cheesy, but I liked it a lot. It made great use of the footage that WWE had of these two from the last 12 years. McIntyre has William Wallace face paint on. I’m historically not a fan of walk n’ brawls. The tropes within them are annoying and the walking aspects are not believable. But the spots in this one were pretty neat, the spots-to-walking ratio was acceptable, and they found a more believable way of getting from one part of the arena to another without doing the tired old “hold a guy by his hair, which magically makes him go where you want him” bit. Here, McIntyre threw Sheamus through a bunch of the LCD screens to get him to a different tier, then dropped him on a wheeled cart to move him back to ringside. A lot of the movement around ringside came through suplexes too, which I appreciate. There was some hair holding walking, but not as much as you usually get. That took up the lion’s share of this match. Sheamus hit White Noise on the announce table. Back in the ring, McIntyre miraculously recovered and hit the Future Shock DDT on part of the announce table, then the Claymore for the win at 19:41. Some good, some bad, not as fun as their first Raw match. ***¼
September 6, 2021 – Miami, Florida
Sheamus def. Drew McIntyre {Number One Contender Match}
From Raw 1,476. For a shot at the United States Championship. Sheamus was in one of his face-guard phases here. This was coming off of a triple threat match against Damian Priest for the U.S. title that was reportedly very good. This match is very good. They worked very snugly here, laying everything in even without the resentment angle that they’d had in their threematch earlier in the year. Without the drama gaga, this was a tighter match in general. They stole each other’s moves when it made sense due to positioning, and not just because it’s something people do in a rivalry. McIntyre ripped off Sheamus’s mask and went for the Claymore, but Sheamus sidestepped it and got a roll up with a handful of tights for the win at 11:28 (shown of 14:49). ***¾
December 10, 2022 – Los Angeles, California
Drew McIntyre def. Sheamus
From Smackdown 1,164. It seems there’s no reason for this match happening other than they generally don’t like each other and matches are generally needed to fill time. At the same time, this was during a period when McIntyre was threatening people (and in some case, attempting to murder people in the ring on live TV) with his sword because he was being held back from number one contender matches. So the sword is banned from the ring. Eyeroll. This was fun while it lasted, but it barely lasted. They basically mirrored each other’s offense the whole match until McIntyre in the Claymore out of nowhere for the win at 4:13 (shown of 7:22). **½
June 10, 2022 – Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Drew McIntyre nc. Sheamus
From Smackdown 1,190. This was for a spot in the Money in the Bank ladder match, and was built by a couple of weeks of McIntyre teaming with the New Day against Sheamus and his Brawling Brutes stable. It’s a Peaky Blinders thing, right? Is Butch going to get his real name back now that Triple H is in charge? What I liked about this match was that it seems that McIntyre all but had Sheamus completely solved at this point, controlling most of the match and countering most of Sheamus’s moves. Sheamus had a block for the Claymore, but nothing else. But now, Sheamus had Butch at ringside, and Butch repeatedly caused problems for McIntyre. Both guys got frustrated and had a chair fight on the floor, resulting in the match getting thrown out at 9:08 (shown of 12:27). With a couple more minutes and a finish, this might have been memorable. They kept fighting after the match. ***
July 29, 2022 – Atlanta, Georgia
Drew McIntyre def. Sheamus {Number One Contender Donnybrook Match}
From Smackdown 1,197. For a shot at the big belts against Roman Reigns at Clash at the Castle in the UK. After their match in June, McIntyre and Sheamus continued to fight in tag matches (and at Money in the Bank, which Sheamus somehow also qualified for), culminating in this. Did you know that there’s a company you can contact that will set you up with the accoutrement needed to decorate an Irish pub no matter where you open it in the world? They may have been contacted to set up the ringside area here. Anyway, this was dope as hell. The first half of the match was a rather standard bout between these two, as half of their previous matches featured plunder brawling at ringside. But just before the commercial break, Ridge Holland interfered and this became an unofficial three-on-one handicap match. And a brilliant version of a handicap match at that. McIntyre looked like a superhero, at first getting his ass handed to him by Sheamus’s thugs, then fighting back and taking them out. All the while, the Brawlers kept bringing new shillelaghs into the match. Sheamus hid his damaged (by McIntyre’s sword) shillelagh in the turnbuckle pad. Later, Holland broke a shillelagh across McIntyre’s back. Finally, Butch pulled a massive shillelagh from under the ring. McIntyre got his hands on that last one and took Butch out with it. Sheamus looked like he might steal the match from a distracted McIntyre with the Brogue Kick, but McIntyre kicked out. Then, McIntyre countered another attempt to a powerbomb through the table. Having watched this series of matches made that spot much more satisfying, as McIntyre introduced the powerbomb counter in their June match. Sheamus got up and clasped his broken shillelagh, but never got off his knees before McIntyre tagged him with the Claymore for the win at 18:44 (shown of 26:35). ****¼
As much as I understand people’s complaints about rematches being overdone in WWE, because they absolutely are, these two have amazing chemistry and should probably fight each other at least twice a year.
From Diamond Ring Kensuke Office Changes. They emphasize that Nakajima beat Dragon Gate wrestler Kenichiro Arai 
From Dynamite 131. This is a qualifying match for the Owen Hart Foundation tournament. Joe debuted at ROH Supercard of Honor, saving Jonathan Gresham from Jay Lethal (whose soul searching apparently led him to turn heel) & Sonjay Dutt after the main event. And now that ROH and AEW are the same thing, that seems worth mentioning. Caster’s pre-match rap was cute. This was real squashy, with Joe needing only two minutes to put Caster down with the Muscle Buster at 2:52. Lethal & Dutt pop up on the big screens and Lethal says he’d been trying to get a hold of Joe during his difficult soul searching time, and Joe never picked up. They have a present for Joe next week. N/A
From Dynamite 132. Jay Lethal & Sonjay Dutt were in the front row cheering on Joe. Sarcastically, probably, as they brawled with Joe at ROH Supercard of Honor XV. 
From Rampage 39. 
From Dynamite 137. 
From Dynamite 138. This is a 
From Double or Nothing. 
From PWF York Cougar Football Fundraiser. I didn't know that this match happened until over a month after the fact. This started out as a non-title match, but we'll get to why I've listed it as a title match in a moment. FTR have Mick Foley in their corner while their opponents have Bill Behrens. I’ve never actually seen Behrens do an on-camera gig before. He's holding a tennis racket, presumably as an Umaga to Jim Cornette. But it's confusing because there was actually a tennis player named Bill Behrens. They announce this match as having a 20-minute time limit. Only 11 minutes in, they say there are three minutes remaining. Until then, this was as run-of-the-mill as a modern FTR match gets. But the announcement snapped everyone out of their heat-on-Wheeler funk and forced them to go for desperate pins. They announce ten seconds remaining a couple of times, but no one can get the roll up pin they're looking for. The 20-minute time limit expires at 1
From NXT UK 183. McGuinness started by essentially saying that Fraser is going to pee or poo himself during the match. Unnecessary. Had Shawn Michaels been game to have a good match against Vader, this is what it would have looked like. Actually, a more appropriate and modern analogue is Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins from SummerSlam. Much like that match, Frazer used quick strikes and avoided his larger opponent’s signature big move to stay alive. Here it was the powerbomb whereas there it was suplexes. Here, Frazer also successfully damaged WALTER’s knee, which slowed the big man down and made it hard for WALTER to hit the powerbomb. Unfortunately for Frazer, WALTER was able to bide his time and clothesline Frazer’s legs out from under him. An inevitable powerbomb followed and won the match for WALTER at 14:02. I hate to say this because I’m happy that he’s healthier, but the way WALTER has slimmed down has taken some of the magic away from his aura. At least for me it has. That said, dude can clearly still go as well as ever in the ring. ****
From NXT 659. Strong was feeling it here, which is thanks in large part to the crowd being maniacally loud from the get go I’m sure. His whole game was fast and devastating stick and move attacks. That worked pretty well, as WALTER was dazed from time to time. But as with all good WALTER matches (which is pretty much all WALTER matches), everything WALTER does is devastating here so it takes very little for him to take back control. And eventually he did just that and hit the powerbomb for the win at 9:46 (shown of 12:18). After the match, WALTER gets on the microphone and says that his name is Gunther now. I did not think WALTER would be a victim of the renaming curse this far into his run. What will they rename Strong?! ***¾
From NXT UK 185. Andy Shepherd helpfully announces from inside the ring that the reason for the stipulation is that the feud has gotten so violent that it wouldn’t be safe to have fans around. Devlin says during the match that it’s because he thinks Dragunov could only muster the energy to win if he had the crowd behind him. I like that explanation a lot more. The only real reason I could think of to do this without fans is that there was a scheduling conflict with one of the wrestlers for the regular TV taping date and they needed to get this thing filmed. We just had such a long stretch of empty arena NXT UK episodes that I can’t imagine anyone was dying to get another taste of it. This aired the day after Adam Cole vs. Orange Cassidy in a match that was also no disqualification and falls count anywhere, and this served up everything I felt was missing from that match. Now you might say, “Brad, Cassidy is not the same kind of character as Devlin or Dragunov, how could you expect the same level of violence or intensity?” To that I say, when Cassidy started his match by breaking his own sunglasses and rapidly punching Cole, he was indicating that level of violence and/or intensity. And instead the match was mostly wacky. Anyway, this was not wacky. It was stiff and intense and featured weapons that made sense and spots the didn’t take forever to set up. Dragunov got in trouble when his eye injury acted up. Devlin took control and beat the crap out of him. I wasn’t wild about how meek Dragunov was when Devlin was zip tying his hands, but I did like that in the end it turned out to be an error on Devlin’s part anyway because Dragunov’s finisher requires no hands. And indeed, a bound Dragunov jumped off the steel steps (which had been brought into the ring) and hit the Torpedo Moskau on Devlin for the win at 21:43. NXT UK is still sneaking in these dope matches that no one is watching. Y’all should watch them. ****¼ 
From AAA Triplemania Regia. FTR come out with Vickie Guerrero. This was supposed to be explained at an earlier AAA taping but FTR and Guerrero all missed them. AAA is notorious for having this kind of luck/being incompetent lately. FTR is also wearing Eddie Guerrero tribute tights, with American flags on one side and flames on the other, I suppose to pay homage to his Gringos Locos and Latino Heat gimmicks. This match mostly sucked, but one cool spot saw FTR tie Pentagon’s mask to the ropes and force him to unmask with his hands over his face to stop them from climbing the ladder. That would have been a very meaningful moment to lead up to the Lucha Brothers winning the titles back, but unfortunately instead it led into nothing. He just got his mask back and the match continued on in its lame, derivative way. At one point, Pentagon was the only man standing, but instead of climbing the ladder he grabbed a table from the floor. So the titles mean enough to him that he’d unmask to stop his opponents from winning, but not enough for him to get the titles when he had a clear path to do it? Vickie powered Pentagon, causing him to voluntarily jump through the table and Harwood grabbed the belts at 12:12. This was abysmal. *
From AEW Full Gear. Silver was hamming it up a lot more here than he was the year before in New York. That said, this had stronger just-a-match vibes than the aforementioned match. After Silver ripped out Cassidy’s pockets, Cassidy turned up the heat and these guys put on a middle of the row undercard match. Not bad by any means, but nothing memorable either. Cassidy hit the Beach Break rather out of nowhere for the win at 9:42. **¾ 
From the second Honor Reigns Supreme. The commentators sold this as Gresham getting a big shot against a top ROH guy after being an also-ran in the Television Championship division for a while. This was terrific. Both guys did a fantastic job selling their respective targeted limbs, and Gresham in particular played the role of the tenacious underdog perfectly. He didn’t just watch to see where Lethal would have trouble executing his finisher because of the damage he’d done to the former ROH Champion’s arm, he pressed the assault whenever he could, taking out the arm to make sure the Lethal Injection would never come. But what he couldn’t do was stop Lethal from battering his knee and ultimately winning with a Figure 4 Leglock at 17:54. ****¼ 
From the second Masters of the Craft. Columbus has way more Gresham fans than Concord did. That’s a neat little advancement to the plot, innit? They both went after the same limbs that earned them dividends in their previous match. And then they went ahead and built an incredible match out of that story. At first it seemed as though Lethal wasn’t going to be able to get Gresham’s leg to give out. But about halfway through the match, Gresham’s knee was in trouble. Gresham was able to escape the leglock this time by using the momentum of Lethal pulling him away from the ropes to shift to an armbar. But Gresham’s focus on the arm bit him in the ass. Lethal went for the Lethal Injection and collapsed again, but when Gresham went for a roll up after that Lethal cut back on it for the win at 18:27. This is one of the best American examples that I've seen of a match building on the match that came before. Rather than try to outdo the maneuvers from their first meeting for the sake of a big crowd reaction, they adjust their game plans in logical ways that, to me, were just as exciting. I think this match is slept on, by virtue of the fact that I’ve never heard anything about it before watching it. ****½ 
From ROH Wrestling 364. In real life, 
From Death Before Dishonor XVII. Gresham and Lethal had been teaming, but Gresham grew frustrated and started heeling. Ultimately, he turned on Lethal. It took them a little while to get there, but once they got into a groove this was exactly what I wanted from this match. It was back to their old tricks, with Lethal targeting the leg to set up for the Figure 4 Leglock and Gresham targeting the arm to block the Lethal Injection and set up for his Octopus. In the end, Lethal tried the cutback trick that worked for him in Columbus, but Gresham countered to a pin and then put on the gnarliest Octopus for his first win over Lethal at 17:20. This is the best kind of wrestling series. And none of it felt stale because it was a year after they’d wrestled last and because they found ways to energize the old tropes. And that’s not to mention Gresham busting out what I can only describe as a sumo-style assault. Gresham and Lethal make up after the match. ****
From ROH Wrestling 500. During the pandemic, ROH made the most of their empty arena shows by kicking them off with a tournament to crown a champion for the revived Pure Championship. Gresham won the tournament, and this was his fourth defense of the title. Lethal and Gresham were still allies here. In an interesting move, the other match on this milestone episode was two other partners fighting in Jay and Mark Briscoe. They cut to a commercial break about six minutes in, though the action didn’t get beyond (admittedly fast-moving) mat wrestling until the 10-minute mark. That had me thinking this was going to go long, but things took a different turn. Both guys had abused the other’s shoulders, and Lethal used that to his advantage best. He forced Gresham to use his first rope break to stop a pin, and his second to escape a crab. Then, he used the failed Lethal Injection to bait Gresham into a crossface, forcing the champ to use his final rope break. But he made the mistake of giving Gresham a breather and was quickly caught in a head scissor takedown giving Gresham the winning pin at 14:06 (shown of 16:40). For an empty arena match, this held my attention. It was totally different than their previous matches while still using a couple elements from the rivalry to elevate it just a bit. Not essential viewing, but if you’re working your way through their series you shouldn’t skip it. ***¼ 
