Drew McIntyre (@DMcIntyreWWE) is a professional wrestler currently signed to WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Nashville, TN to discuss his shock WWE Championship win in Berlin and bringing the title home to Scotland the next night, a possible match with SmackDown GM Nick Aldis, why he faced The Big Show at WrestleMania 36 after defeating Brock Lesnar, not getting a singles match with John Cena on the retirement tour, being in The Undertaker’s final live match, and more!
You look like you’ve taken it up a level with your fitness recently. What’s been the biggest change?
“Roughly nine months ago, I’d had five weeks off, which was the first five weeks off I’ve ever really had in my life. I came straight from school to WWE to being released back on the road a few weeks later, where I was like, oh my goodness, I’m not injured. I’m not doing rehab. I’ve actually got this time off, let’s have an honest look at myself, especially approaching 40 and wrestling 25 years, everyone thinks I’m as old as Punk or something, but I’m not, old man. But honestly, I looked at myself in the mirror and said, what’s going on with you? Let’s take some inventory here. Okay, good shape, one of the best built guys in WWE, that’s cool, but things are starting to catch up. Things are hurting. Is there anything you can do about that? I never really followed a diet. I was still eating burgers all the time, pizza all the time, sometimes eating two times a day, sometimes eating eight times a day. I decided to get a trainer who actively came to my garage and worked with me and helped me out with training and diet and the big thing, mobility, which I’ve never done, proper mobility work. I worked with Rob McIntyre for years. He’s phenomenal, but he was sending my workouts, especially when I moved to Nashville five years ago, and it was a lot more difficult not working one-on-one with him. Having this new trainer, Jeff, coming to the garage and pushing me. He’s five foot tall, five foot wide. He’s a very angry little man, and he was pushing me through my paces. But the big difference was the mobility work. I couldn’t throw a super kick, not that I wanted to, because everybody and their mother throws a super kick these days, but I’d love to be able to and have the choice to do it, but my hips were so tight, it just wasn’t physically possible. Things were locking up. I was aware, oh, my goodness, maybe you’re closer to the end than the beginning, not just because of your age, but because of how my body felt and going through all this mobility work. The new diet, which reduced inflammation dramatically, I not only saw a difference in how I looked on screen, but how I felt overall. I was throwing head kicks, I could literally kick Omos in the face right now, and I feel better now than I did at legitimately 30 years old.”
So what is range of motion? Is it more stretching?
“It’s more active stretching, and these things I never heard of, called CARs [Controlled Articular Rotations]. So all the boys and girls out there, if you’ve not heard of CARs, it’s just basically creating space in the joint, with the hips, with the shoulders, you can do it with anything, the hands, the fingers. But it’s for me specifically, the biggest difference maker was in the hips, the knees and the shoulders. I really thought to stretch my shoulders, I would spend 20 minutes in the gym just holding stretches made zero difference whatsoever. But now doing some active stretching and some prehab, instead of rehab, like when I tore my bicep, for example, and I had rehab, I was doing things to strengthen up the knees, strengthen up the shoulders and these CARs creating space in the joints and movements I may actually do in the ring. And I just could not believe how good I felt as the month started passing by.”
You turned 40 last year. Do you think about how much longer you want to do this?
“Yeah. I mean, I know my wife feels like it’s gonna be a lot shorter than I probably feel it’s going to be, especially with how I feel now and how creatively fulfilled I feel these days. But as long as I’m happy, as long as she’s happy, and as long as the fans are happy with what I’m doing, I don’t see any reason to slow down anytime soon, especially when I see guys getting up there in age right now and moving as well as they’re moving right now, because we’ve just moved so far forward with athletes. Look at LeBron James or Ronaldo, for example, the same age as me, and they’re just still at the top of their game.”
So creatively fulfilled at work right now?
“Very creatively fulfilled. There were a couple of moments where I was like damn, it sucks personally, but I can also look at the big picture these days. I’ve been knocked down enough times and fed a few disappointments sometimes where I didn’t always deal with it the right way for the bigger picture and understanding, okay, the company needs this right now. How does this screw me up? It doesn’t really. It actually works for the character, and as long as it works for the character, I can be personally disappointed, but professionally, I know we’re still on the right track, and the fans are still going to be emotionally invested, and that’s all that matters, because I’ve been in situations where they were not emotionally invested. And the worst thing in the world in pro wrestling is silence.”
Have you had silence?
“Not for years, but I’ve had it. It’s not fun. I can still clearly remember moments. Actually, the worst one ever, if anyone wants to get on the YouTube, as those older people call it, my first pay-per-view match was following Randy Orton versus John Cena, Hell in a Cell, the peak of Cena vs. Randy, their first big feud. The end of their blood feud, Hell in the Cell, beat each other to death. Hell in a Cell finished, and the next match was R-Truth versus Drew McIntyre, not with Broken Dreams, just me strolling out, hi everybody, and I’m 1,000% sure I could have heard a pin drop as I walked out there with that many people in the building. It was very depressing. But never want to feel that again. I feel bad for anybody when I see I want to message them and go, Okay, let’s figure out how to get any kind of noise. If you have to show your arse, then show your arse.”
You’re in an interesting spot because, like you said, you’re speaking the truth. You’re doing things that make sense, but you’re still doing it from a heel’s point of view.
“The way that I just see is a very logical, human point of view. I always tell everybody when they call me a heel, debate me, and you will lose. Every interview I do, when they say you’re a heel, whatever, every fan goes I am the bad guy, explain to me how I’m the bad guy. I’ll explain my point of view, how I got to this point, the PTSD I’ve suffered, the trauma I’ve suffered. The things I went through with The Bloodline and the likes, the amount of titles I was screwed out of, the moments have been taken away from me, including even recently. And I react the way I react. If you’re in my position, you’re as big as me with the job I’m in, would you do what I do? Of course you would. I’ll win every single debate, because I’m very, very conscious about the details. And just tell them the truth like a good relationship. If you never lie, you never have nothing to worry about.”
How is Cody Rhodes the champion right now? He was not supposed to get a rematch ever.
“I was under the impression that contracts, not someone’s word. If you’ve looked back at the clips, I literally said I got the clause put in there that Cody Rhodes will not get a title match if he loses against me in Berlin. That was in there in a contract. Those exact words, I said it in London. I said a few times, go back and fact-check, but I definitely said it in London for sure. Then he was in the Royal Rumble, [but] wait a minute, if he wins the Royal Rumble, he’s gonna get a title match. That’s not what the clause says. So I have to fix that, helping Nick out to do his job properly. Suddenly, Elimination Chamber, I had to get in there as well. Wait a minute. It says no title match, not go ahead and win this match, or go ahead and win that match. So all I’m doing is trying to do the right thing. Make them not breach contract. And they still breached the contract, because they’re always screwing Drew McIntyre.”
What did this most recent championship win mean to you?
“Awesome. Nobody saw it coming, for one. I think everybody assumed that the Cody Express would keep moving on forward. He’s been in that position for a long time. After he finished the story, he was on fire. I’m not saying he wasn’t doing a great job. He’s a great champion, he’s a great performer, but it was a lot of the same. I think there needed to be a shake-up, and there was a shake-up that no one saw coming when I won in Berlin. I could hear the crowd, I could hear the response, I could see the response, and it put Cody in a position where he had to chase. Gave Cody a bit of that edge back, which he, in my opinion, desperately needed. For me, it gave me some of that legitimacy. ‘Oh yeah, Drew can win the big one,’ and not going to be so sympathetic that we need to start cheering for this guy if you feel so bad for him. Where I could be more of a, like I mentioned, if I got the title and people challenge me to fight, what would I gain? No, I’m Gollum from Lord of the Rings. This is my precious. I’m not letting this go, no matter what. So it did a lot of things, but I know it made SmackDown way more compelling at the time, especially so many people hate me for some reason. So now you’ve got the champion right in the middle with the target on him. And as Cody mentioned, you know, it’s not just we want the title. It’s because you’re an arsehole, they’re all coming for you, which made SmackDown more interesting for me personally. I win it in Berlin, and the next night was Glasgow, so I got to walk out in Glasgow with the title for the first time as champion, with live fans, with a whole family in attendance. I tell Scotland, I promised you would bring you the championship, and I brought you the championship, and the only ever, not just Scotland person to do it, but British person to do it.”
And there was a moment there where the WWE Champion and the NXT Champion were both from Scotland.
“I text Joe Hendry all these facts. I don’t have them off the top of my head, but the percentage of people from Scotland who are legitimately from Scotland, you know, [in American accent], ‘I’m from Scotland.’ Yeah, sure you are, mate. Everyone always says, ‘I’m Irish’ or ‘I’m Scottish.’ No one ever says I’m English. No one ever admits to that. But there’s legitimately 5.5 million of us. I’m just pulling these off my head. I had to text them to Joe, the actual figures, but there’s about 63 million English people, America is like 362 million? It doesn’t matter. It’s a lot. But the percentage of the world who are Scottish is so significantly lower than people think. We’re a tiny country. We invented everything, television, radio, penicillin, you’re welcome, cloning. We invented literally everything for such a small nation. And the fact that two of the three top male WWE champions were Scottish was unbelievable.”
The feud with CM Punk is now behind you. How do you feel about CM Punk now?
“A piece of crap. Can’t stand him. I watch him every week, and I see he is doing good things with the world title, good for you. That’s a good run right there. As a fighting champion, I think fighting champions are stupid, because I was one, and why would you defend it all the time? That’s just disrespectful to the title. The opponent should earn it. So I did it before, that’s why I can say that stuff. But at the same time, he’s nowhere close to what he did with me, and it pains me to admit I’m still chasing the dragon for what I did with him. So opposites attract.”
We talked earlier about how Cody Rhodes got this rematch, Nick Aldis made this thing happen. A lot of animosity with Nick Aldis. There are a lot of fans calling for maybe a match with Drew McIntyre and Nick Aldis. Would you love to go in there and have a match with him?
“Oh yeah, I can feel it when I’m out there with him. Whenever we go back and forth on the microphone, I can feel the people starting to get into it. I don’t feel it with Jacob. And I think Jacob and I turned a big corner after fighting like Peter Griffin and the giant chicken for three straight hours before we fell off a giant platform where I dragged him to hell with me. So we’ve turned a big corner for our feud, even though Jacob and I, you look at the basics of it. It could just be Godzilla Kong, two big guys fighting. People are happy to see it. But we have this story. We’ve screwed each other along the way. He took away the biggest moment for me, being champion at WrestleMania. We have the story built in, and then we have the physicality and how good the match is going to be, how good the people know the match is going to be, and then the big fight on SmackDown, and who knows where it’s going to go. I’ve got plenty of ideas about what I want, so it’ll be good. But at the same time, there’s this Aldis thing simmering at the side, and every time we go back and forth, you can feel the tension. You can cut it with a knife. We’ve known each other a long time. I name-dropped his son because I have known him for that long. But what a corporate stooge he is, his Donovan must be ashamed of him having such a corporate stooge for a father instead of backing me, the one who’s in the right and the one that he’s known for years, and his one is his actual friend. So when the time is right, be it Mania, be after Mania. I think we should have a match, and I don’t think there should be any sanctioning around it. I don’t think anyone should be allowed to interfere. He tapes up the fists. He’s been up in the ring a long time. He thinks he can go with a four-time former world champion in WWE in the big leagues. He’s probably the greatest NWA champion of the modern era, since Billy took over NWA. But he’s not been in there for a long time. He’s a big guy. I would love to get in there with him, and I’d love to see what damage I could do, and no one’s allowed to interfere, then come up close and ask me to stop politely.”
You talk about winning the Rumble in 2020 which leads to the WrestleMania match, which right before they decide there can’t be any fans there. I’ve always wondered, why was there this extra match with Big Show, like a dark match main event. What was the story behind that?
“I don’t know. I mean, I guess I do know that the story is, but we’re just trying to throw things against the wall and see what sticks. I guess it was some kind of hook for the next Raw rather than just, I come out as champion, and here’s a promo in an empty warehouse with zero people reacting. Oh, by the way, there was also this match that happened once the cameras went off the air. I’ll never quite know, but it does allow me to say I beat Brock Lesnar and The Big Show in one night within about 15 minutes. That’s pretty cool.”
So how did Highlander come about?
“I don’t go into the ins and outs backstage in these things, but I had the chance to talk to a couple of people and get offered an opportunity. When we talk about this next time, if something’s out there and it’s not edited, and I don’t feel like an arse, because some people have been edited out, we just look like arses. And then we will go into details about it. But if it comes around the way you just mentioned, and Dave ends up killing me, I have an idea that we just keep doing feature after feature after feature where he murders me. I think he even mentioned me one time, ‘We can keep this going, and then you can get me the next time.’ No, screw that, I want it to be like Undertaker’s streak. I want it to be like 20 films in a row [where] I just get murdered, and then just out of nowhere, I go, ah! Like Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, where he gets the Sheriff of Nottingham, just out of nowhere, and the whole place pops and lose their minds. I finally broke the streak.”
You had a match where not only did you beat Kurt Angle, but you made Kurt Angle tap out to his own finisher, the ankle lock.
“I did it twice.”
How did this come about?
“Well, the big one is obviously in WWE. I believe they were both in Manchester? That’d be crazy. Someone can fact-check it for me and get it in the comments. But yeah, the one in WWE, I want to say there was some kind of injury, or somebody was out, and it might have been when Roman was sick, and we had to start building some big, credible main event performers, and I needed some significant moments. That’s what makes you a top-level Main Event performer, racking up moment after moment after moment. I believe it was maybe when Roman went out sick initially, especially to build an opponent for when Roman came back, and that’s what came of it. I wasn’t going to not just beat Kurt Angle, I was going to annihilate Kurt Angle, and I was going to tap him out to his own submission, the ankle lock. Thankfully, Kurt was gracious enough to do it, because obviously, he could tie me up like a pretzel if he wanted to. But, you know, he was great. I was in his face. I was mocking him, basically tears in his face. I was ripping on his family, his kids, beating his arse and just being a terrible, terrible human being. He did so much for me that night, but he’d also done that for me a few years prior, in TNA, where he told me, I want you to not just beat me, but tap me out, because we’re trying to make me in TNA as the top babyface at the time, and I believe it was Manchester. I’m almost convinced they’re both in Manchester. Maybe Kurt likes to tap out in Manchester. Someone definitely needs to check that out for me. But I was tagging with Johnny Gargano at the time, Evolve Tag Team Champions. I couldn’t think of a submission. I’ll do the Gargano escape as a tribute to Johnny there. So I got Kurt with a Gargano escape there, then the ankle lock. So thank you, Kurt.”
When you talk about plans changing, John Cena said in an interview on the No Contest wrestling podcast that it was supposed to be you versus him at Crown Jewel. Do you feel like your match with John Cena got taken away from you?
“It sucks, and I wish I did get that opportunity with John, not just for a one on one match, which we never had, as long as we were around each other, but a chance to get the microphone with him after showing what I could do with like CM Punk and so many others that are known for being the best on the mic. John is unbelievable. I would love that moment. Love the chance to go back and forth with him. I mean, the public never knew about it. I knew there was a plan before that, actually, that had to change. Then there was that plan, and there was a pivot again. I believe it came down to like John said, because initially people thought, Oh, my God, you see what Cena said? What? The match with Drew never happened. And then the match with AJ happened, and the way they worded it was like, you know, John said it was public, or whatever it was. It wasn’t public. Nobody knew. He tweeted, ‘Want to see me and AJ’ and they went hell yeah we do! If he tweeted, ‘Want to see me and Drew?’ They probably would have been happy to see both as well. So like, yeah, behind-the-scenes stuff, you know, that did happen, and it was disappointing. But at the same time, a great match with John and AJ. They got John’s last few months back on track, which I was happy for him, because I felt like we could have done a little better in that first part of the journey, and maybe I would have got one of the matches. But again, crap happens. Sometimes you go one path. It doesn’t work. You got to go back on the path and just fall out from it. I can be personally upset, or I can be like, All right, I’m in a tag match here. It’s disappointing, but I was around him. I learned for years, and he’s retired now. I was the World Champion for a few months, so I’m fine.”
This fact is crazy to me. So it’s you and Shane McMahon versus Roman Reigns and Undertaker at Extreme Rules 2019, it has 107 million views on the WWE YouTube channel. That’s Undertaker’s last match in front of a crowd. You get to be part of it.
“I’ve talked about this publicly in my book, My Chosen Destiny, still available now, where Vince put Undertaker in charge of me. ‘You don’t listen to anybody but The Undertaker, he’s your mentor.’ I spent so many years with him, around him, learning from him, and to have his last match in front of a live audience was insane. Obviously, we didn’t know that was the case at the time, but looking back, it’s absolutely wild. The match was coming off the other match, it was a big disappointment. We don’t have to mention what it was, but we know, and we really wanted to give Taker a match to remind everybody who The Undertaker is, that he can still go. We went out of our way to make sure that night he was The Undertaker and back whole again. At the start, I got in his camera shot. Shane and I were in the ring, and I used to stand chest up, shoulders back, and I felt like I always had to be the big, tough guy. I see people doing it now, and I’m like, relax, relax. But it’s easy for me to say, because Triple H every week going relax. We know you’re a big guy. You don’t have to stand like this the entire time. Your money’s here, body Lucy goosey, you’re blowing yourself up. But I was standing there waiting for him to come in the ring. I didn’t realize I was in his camera shot. He’s doing the whole presentation, taking off the jacket, getting ready for the hat. Looks at me and says, ‘Back the f*ck up.’ Oh, f*ck! Got out of his camera shot. Didn’t realize I was blocking his camera shot, yeah, that was my first so far, so bad. But the crowd were unreal. We were on first, the match was unreal. You could say whatever you want at the end for the tombstone, like being a little split second off. But there’s something to things not going perfect in pro wrestling, because in real fights, nothing goes perfect.”
You are now the US title away from being a Grand Slam champion. Sheamus is the Intercontinental Championship away from being his Grand Slam champion. Who becomes Grand Slam champion first?
“Me, definitely. I’ve got no plan to do it, or don’t know when it will happen, but if he keeps talking about it, then they’re just gonna rib him and just give me the US Title.”
It’s funny, though, like you’re both one title away, and you’re right, he mentions it just a little bit more than you.
“It does mean a lot to him. He’s achieved so much and he really would love it, but, yeah, he gets driven and driven. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and it’s going to happen. It’s just, yeah, it’s hilarious how much has been mentioned at this point, and I’ve not mentioned the US title, and it’ll happen. Then I will make it a big deal, and I’ll make it seem like I really cared so much about it. I’ve got four world titles now, That’s what it’s all about. It’s a storytelling aspect of our business. I’ve already achieved everything I wanted to achieve. If we keep those stories going, the fans interested, I’m good. If it happens, cool; if it doesn’t, cool.”
What is Drew McIntyre grateful for?
“My wife, health and the world we live in.”
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