Sheamus is entering his 18th year on the WWE roster, but it seems that it's only been in the past few years that the Irishman has been getting his flowers from fans. "The Celtic Warrior" was pushed all the way to the WWE Championship during his first full year on the main roster back in 2009, but as the PG Era rolled on, his passion for the business gradually started to fade.

However, all that changed in 2016 when he was paired with someone who started as a rival, before ultimately becoming a lifelong friend.

"I think the whole part where it really came together was when I started tagging with Cesaro, and we became The Bar. That best of seven series, that's where I really got my passion back," Sheamus said on a recent edition of the "Insight" podcast. 

Sheamus and Cesaro, now known as Claudio Castagnoli in AEW, had five reigns of tag gold as The Bar in WWE between 2016 and 2019, with four reigns coming on "WWE Raw" while the final reign came on "WWE SmackDown."

Once The Bar went their separate ways, Sheamus needed to find something else to get his fire burning again, and what he found was his love of in-ring physicality at a time when the matches looked and sounded more physical than usual. 

"I definitely felt during the pandemic, I really came into my own skin. I really felt like I had an opportunity to kind of recreate myself and show people what I was really about. And that's, I think, where the whole physicality came from. You know how it was, nobody is physical in the ring as I am and then that's where we went into the banger era of Sheamus," he said.

Please credit "Insight" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.