A few points.
Isn't Sheamus Trips' Bag Carrier/gym buddy?
Anyway, it can be a good move to put the title on him. Cena-Orton-HHH main events have become stale, the 'E now has a big young Heel who will be around for years hopefully. Cena looks set to be be on 'the road to Wrestlemania', so hopefully Sheamus will be booked against fresher faces. Perhaps the 'E could push Swagger, Kofi, maybe even DiBiase for the run up to 'Mania. I was hoping that when Cena won the strap in the summer, we'd see the other heels pushed a bit more, but we didn't, we just had Orton-Cena continued.
Also, did anyone else notice that Christian had to walk Benjamin through the ladder match? He kept whispering the spots in his ear, very blatantly and looked to have to repeat them a few times. On one occasion, it looked as though Bejamin screwed up a spot when Christian was on the ladder; he seemed to stop and start and almost shouted the spot to Benjamin.
Obviously, anyone who watched TLC would've picked up on Striker's mare when he stated a)the IC belt hadn't changed hands in Texas for decades, despite Rey winning the strap at 'Mania in Houston and b) Sheamus is the first non-US born World Champ since Yokozuna... not taking into account, of course, Hart, Edge et al...
Speaking of the 'H' word, I really would not be suprised to see him back on WWE TV. I felt last year they were really teasing it, with HHH and Dreamer using the Sharpshooter as well as pushing the Hart Dynasty under that name, with Bret's music and the whole Pink and Black gimmick. Dennis Miller's suggestion on RAW would seem quite pointless if they weren't planning on using him and, of course, the internet rumours were abundant a few months back about it.
One final thing; I really didn't like the finish for the Taker-Batista match, but then, I suppose they need a reason for Taker to not kill Teddy Long.