While there have been quite a few big name Irish wrestlers down through the years, few of them have displayed the same level of longevity as Stephen Farrelly, better known as Sheamus.
The Dubliner has been in the industry for two decades now, being part of the WWE roster since 2006. During that time, he has been a three-time WWE Champion, a World Heavyweight Champion, a three-time US Champion, a five time tag team champion, and a Royal Rumble winner.
Now 45-years old, he is still very much at the forefront of the industry.
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Sheamus recalls lucky meeting with WWE legend in Dublin nightclub
Sheamus may be one of the biggest names in wrestling now, but there was a period when he was not sure if he was ever going to make it in the sport. He always had ambitions of being a professional wrestler, but spent early adulthood working as a bouncer and studying IT in Dublin.
Speaking to Virgin Media, he recalls how a chance meeting with WWE legend Bret 'The Hitman' Hart in a Dublin nightclub put him on the right path.
🗣 "I met @BretHart in Lillie's."@WWESheamus on how meeting 'The Hitman' in a Dublin nightclub started his long and winding road to the top of the WWE. #VMSportStories | @WillDalton01 pic.twitter.com/gxMa5h69cv
— Virgin Media Sport (@VMSportIE) January 4, 2024
I was doing IT. I think everybody in the late 90 and early 00s just ended up doing up IT. Somehow it was a thing, it was like 'what are you going to do' and it was 'I'll just do IT'. I ended up getting into IT that way.
I remember waking up one morning and they had this package on the WWE that on in the morning, it was Smackdown. There was a package for Edge and it was that My Sacrifice song and something just clicked in me. I always wanted to do it but never knew how. That kind of opened the door for me.
Funnily enough, I met Bret Hart in Lillie's on a night off. He gave me some information about schools. In 2002 I packed up the job and went over to New Jersey...
I saw him there and went over and talked to him. He was super cool man, very chatty and very conservational.
He gave me his agent's number. I emailed her and she gave me a bunch of schools.
While this meeting with Bret Hart would point Sheamus in the right direction, he still had a long way to go before he could make it in the pros.
That included a trip to New Jersey to join a wrestling school, although it's fair to say that he wasn't all that impressed with the education on offer.
It was independent, this guy called Larry Sharp owned the school. It was a load of kids trying to follow their dream. I'm going there and I had no idea what to expect.
When I got there, Larry Sharp the first thing he did was took the cash. Then he never showed up to train me, they had some other guy that was there.
My thing was 'I'm paying money because you've trained all these legends like Bam Bam Bigelow, Big Show, Raven, all these guys', then he wasn't even there and was in the bar most of the time.
I didn't have a good feeling about it. The guy who was training me was a lunatic. It was just weird and wasn't what I expected.
You're selling me this thing of Larry Sharp, the guy who has trained all the stars, but you get there and Larry Sharp is nowhere to be seen.
Thankfully it all worked out in the end.
After starting in Irish Whip Wrestling, Sheamus would eventually make his way to the UK before WWE interest arrived. After making his first appearance in the promotion back in 2006, he has never looked back.
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