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Last night (Sun., Feb. 19, 2012) in Milwaukee, Daniel Bryan won the Smackdown Elimination Chamber match to retain the world heavyweight championship after submitting Santino Marella.
And Sheamus immediately made his way down to the ring to lay him out.
This, of course, makes official that Sheamus has chosen Daniel Bryan to challenge for the world heavyweight title at WrestleMania 28 on April 1 in Miami, Florida. And to think, they were the dark match at WrestleMania 27 last year.
This comes as no surprise, really, considering the ongoing feud between CM Punk and Chris Jericho, which continued after last night's show in the form of a promo from the latter in an interview with WWE.com.
A program between Bryan and Sheamus works well considering the current character portrayal of both guys. Bryan is still the weasel heel champion who constantly finds a way to sneak away with his title while Sheamus is the powerhouse babyface who bludgeons his opponents into submission.
In fact, they had a match on Smackdown just this past week that saw Bryan win via disqualification after taunting Sheamus into going overboard. I imagine that's largely the way the feud will play out going forward.
What's really interesting, though, is whether or not Randy Orton will find his way into the match to make it a triple threat. The idea of the second biggest babyface on the entire roster having nothing to do at the biggest show of the year is entirely unacceptable. That may not mean he'll find his way into the world title match but there's plenty of reason to believe WWE won't be exactly comfortable having Sheamus vs. Bryan on its own.
Orton's health is a factor, of course, as he's apparently dealing with a concussion. There's plenty of time for him to recover by WrestleMania, though, so speculation regarding his place in all this is fair game until we see otherwise.
Sheamus vs. Bryan (and maybe Orton) at WrestleMania 28, Cagesiders. What do you think?