He was once decided to be Vince McMahon’s chosen one, but rather than bringing balance to the WWE he, unfortunately, was let go. With his goal to return to the top position, Drew McIntyre worked tirelessly to build a reputation for himself. Working through wrestlings independent scene and performing with promotions like ICW and Impact Wrestling, Drew finally made his way back into the WWE starting with NXT and slowly made his way back to the main show, RAW. Now, Drew is teaming with the showboat Dolph Ziggler and are making their presence known to opponents like Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, and Bobby Lashley.
Drew has come a long way from his initial WWE run. Which is why when Steelchair got the opportunity to have a chat with him, we wanted to take the chance to ask some burning questions surrounding his career.
The first thing we wanted to find out was regarding his time outside of WWE’s walls. Being self-employed is always a risk but not impossible to succeed, as stated Drew worked with Scottish Promotion ICW (Insane Championship Wrestling) and was there to help it grow and become one of the popular wrestling promotions within the UK. When we asked what did he missed most with his time in the indies, he had this to say.
“The biggest thing is being back home and I guess as often as I was, I was in the UK a lot. Specifically, in Scotland a lot which meant I got to go to my hometown. I was there with ICW basically every month and was flying between the UK and Europe every three weeks being back and forth back and forth for a few years. So do miss being back home and seeing my family and friends and everybody. The crowds, they’re smaller obviously but they’re rabid they up close they’re intimate. When you’re on last with these, super indie shows that I was on last a lot of the time, it forces you to up your game. I love that pressure and I still keep that pressure in my self right now, there are a lot of things I miss but being home is definitely number 1.”
An understandable point of view, no matter how far you’ve come in your life there’ll always be that part of you that wants familiarity. It shows that his connection to Scotland is still burning strong, seemingly if there were a chance for him to go back to the UK and perform once again to his home crowd then surely he’ll take it. Maybe NXT UK will be a window of opportunity…
The conversation shifted to his return to RAW and his team up with the man who’s here to show the world, Dolph Ziggler. Once the duo was revealed to be working together, it was hard not to notice the similarity to a classic pairing within classic WWE/WWF. I’m sure you’ve already realised this, but the team up does have a striking resemblance to Diesel and Shawn Michaels. Now, WWE has had an issue in the past of repeating themselves in modern wrestling. But whether this was a conscious effort by the creative team or just a pure coincidence (unlikely), how did Drew feel to be compared to Kevin Nash’s Diesel?
“We’re a modernised 2018 version. They were fairly successful I’d say, winning all the titles, chaps with all the straps. I take that as a compliment, I’ve even had Dolph refer to me as big daddy claymore. Diesel and I don’t necessarily wrestle the same way but you know [Diesel & Shawn] were a heck of a unit, very different styles but got everyone’s attention so if we’re doing the same thing then I appreciate it.”
Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre got a little Shawn Michaels and Diesel going on. I like this.✔#RAW #SuperStarShakeUP pic.twitter.com/WYJWrz8C4B
— Wrestle News Daily (@thewrestledaily) 17 April 2018
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Lastly, the conversation shifted to what Drew feels about his career so far. You can’t develop into a better wrestler without learning from your past, so our final question to Big Daddy Claymore was this; is there an opponent that he has faced in the past that he would love to wrestle again? He left us with some intriguing answers.
“It is impossible to think of and single anyone out. from the time I was gone I had so many matches that I was so proud of in front of not many people to in front of a lot of people. I know a lot of people talk about the matches that I had in the independents with Ospreay and Richocet and the likes which I’m very proud of. There are other ones we mentioned the Coffeys, Joe Coffey and I tore it up a few times… My couple matches I had with Kurt Angle were just unbelievable the way he put me over in front of everybody. I tapped out Kurt Angle which is pretty insane to see.”
“I’m leaving matches out, I’m leaving people out. Building the Scottish scene from 1500 people to 2000 people to 4000 people with Grado and me in the main event to over 7000 people in the biggest independent show of all time before ALL IN. It’s so much, I’ll literally sit down, write it down and take it all in because there’s been so many and so much more to come.”
There was not enough time for him to tell us every single opponent, but even if we had a whole day with him we bet that he’d still have some more in his memory that he’d want to get that shout out. Whether Drew manages to climb his way into the WWE Championship picture, or he continues to run the roost with his pal Mr Ziggler, there is no denying that the man has worked hard to earn his place in the company and that it’ll take a huge force to budge him from his spot yet again.
All Images courtesy of WWE.com
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