When Sheamus made his return after Wrestlemania 31, he broke off in a new direction, turning heel by attacking the beloved Daniel Bryan…
…and sporting a new, dumb haircut that fans weren’t shy about ridiculing.
Now decidedly a bully, the 6’4” Sheamus targeted the shorter men of WWE whom he felt were, pardon the pun, not in his league.
Excuse me, beneath him. Yeah, that’s the one.
Anyway, after various beatdowns of Dolph Ziggler, as well as Bryan and Neville, a match seemed nigh between Sheamus and the Show-Off.
Sheamus told Ziggler to kiss his arse – literally – because the two of them would wrestle in a Kiss Me Arse match at Extreme Rules. Dolph accepted the challenge readily – a little too readily, in fact. Not that he even needed to agree to anything, as it sounded like the match had already been signed without his approval.
Dolph responded by vowing Sheamus to kiss his own “arse”, a trick even Lanny Poffo wasn’t flexible enough to pull off.
If this stipulation seems like a non sequitur, and you think I’ve missed something in the build to this match, relax. There really was no logic behind the Kiss Me Arse match. Sheamus kept attacking the likes of Dolph Ziggler because they were too small and not “real men” like the Celtic Warrior.
The solution was to make Dolph kiss his ass – perhaps with a step ladder for his convenience.
You can probably tell that this gimmick match was dreamed up solely to take advantage of Sheamus’s Irish dialect and accent.
See, WWE couldn’t very well put the word, “ass” in their pay-per-view ads, but “arse” was just fine.
And one of the wrestlers involved just had to be Irish, with those hard r’s in their accent, because when the average Englishman says, “arse”, to the average American it just sounds like, “ass” but with a very posh accent.
But even though it was paramount to the match’s branding that Sheamus stick to the agreed-upon verbiage of “kiss me arse”, the Dubliner couldn’t keep his Oyrish dialect straight…
…often telling Dolph during the feud to kiss “my” arse instead.
On Ziggler’s end, so to speak, Dolph continued to insist he’d make Sheamus do something physically impossible.
It was hard enough for Bret Hart to make Jerry Lawler kiss his own feet, so what made Dolph think he could force Sheamus into autogloutophilema?
Meanwhile, everyone from Jojo to Jerry Lawler reluctantly had to use the updated jargon, no matter how unnatural (and stupid) it sounded for an American to say.
Remember the first night Jerry Lawler heard the word, “puppies” and, realizing he could finally talk about breasts openly, proceeded to use it non-stop for the remainder of the broadcast and every broadcast there after for the next nine years? This was the exact opposite of that. Everyone involved couldn’t wait until they could stop saying, “arse” – even, deep down, company man Michael Cole.
JBL, for one, tried to weasel his way out of the “arse” talk, using substitutes like “backside” or “derriere” until the King called him out on it.
If you’re from Ireland or the UK and you don’t understand how awkward it is for an American to say, “arse”, imagine that Becky Lynch or Paige had to tell her opponent that she’d kick her fanny. Okay, bad example.
At Extreme Rules, the two men competed in what Michael Cole described as a “traditional matchup… however the loser kisses the winner’s arse.” Very traditional, indeed. And also like any traditional match, fans were encourage to tweet about it using the hashtag #KissMeArse.
Dolph picked up the surprise victory, leading Sheamus to do the unthinkable:
Refuse to cooperate with the stipulated ass-kissing.
Of course, early ass-kissing matches set a precedent allowing the winner to delegate a surrogate ass to be kissed…
…but the loser never had the option to renege on the stipulation.
Do you think a paralyzed Steve Austin would have summoned his last ounce of strength to roll up Owen Hart if he could have just opted out of the post-match ass-kissing?
But Sheamus hemmed…
…and hawed…
…and hemmed some more as Ziggler hiked up his trunks, Ahmed Johnson-style….
…before Sheamus delivered a cheap shot to put a stop to the proceedings. Like Chop Chop Master Onion said, “Dick punch, it’s all in the mind.”
After delivering a Brogue Kick, Sheamus turned the tables and gave an incapacitated Dolph a face full of his pale upper thigh.
The next night, Sheamus interrupted Ziggler’s King of the Ring match to proudly present video stills from the previous night’s pay-per-view. Imagine if all the wrestlers had to stand point to that during the road to Wrestlemania.
Sheamus, who was also entered in the KOTR tournament, vowed to make every wrestler below a certain height kiss his arse.
Ziggler wouldn’t hear of it, instead hauling arse down to the ring to beat up his adversary, who fled into the crowd and picked up a DQ victory.
Dolph would have to wait until Payback to get his, uh, retribution. In his rematch with Sheamus, Ziggler would take advantage of an opportunity to rub his right buttock into his opponent’s face…
…sending the Celtic Warrior fleeing to the outside to rinse his mouth out.
It was a proud moment for the Show-Off, tarnished slightly by his being busted wide open later in the match and kicked in the head for a loss.
Having exorcised his butt-kissing demons, Ziggler was freed up from this silly angle…
…so he could participate in the very worst angle of the whole year.
Sheamus, on the other hand, parlayed his momentum from this butt-feud to argue with Roman Reigns over the merits of potatoes vs. tater tots.
Also, over Sheamus’s WWE title.
As trivial as this feud was, it accomplished a great feat for WWE, breaking a twelve-year drought to complete the Triple Crown: a “Kiss My Ass” match, a “Kiss My Arse” match, and finally, a “Kiss Me Arse” match.
Will WWE go for the Grand Slam? One day soon, Rusev could very well take on the “Shakespeare of Song” Aiden English in an Elizabethan-themed “Kiss Mine Arse” match, so keep your fingers crossed and your lips moisturized.