During a recent interview with DAZN, Drew McIntyre responded to Will Ospreay’s recent challenge after he won the IWGP World Heavyweight title. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On Will Ospreay challenging him: “He’s a very, very talented individual, and I’m very proud to see how far he’s come and how far British wrestling has come. From the day I was released from WWE and gone back to the UK, I started seeing the level of talent we produced and how much things have changed since I was last there. I was blown away, and that’s when we started getting the British invasion all across the different independent companies, and Will was one of them, myself and few other Brits started traveling the world doing the PWG’s. Myself and Will had a great match at What Culture Pro Wrestling. I’m very happy to see his success. I spoke to him privately. I saw him calling me out. I will not reply publicly (laughs). I’ll just say I’m very happy for him. If we had that match, he knows I would take the back of my hand and smack him if it was in real life (laughs).”
On how he views his 2020 in WWE: “Very proud of the last year. Obviously, I dreamed of winning the title at WrestleMania and getting that big reaction from 80,000 people, family, friends, and my wife all there. That moment being in every highlight video for the rest of time and getting those reactions at every show afterwards and enjoying that period. But realistically, we’re in a time that nobody could possibly have predicted, and I was able to win the WWE Championship right at the height of everything going down when every other sport shut down, and WWE decided we were going to push ahead and keep everyone entertained and give everyone a constant. I was going to be the guy that represents the company. I was so grateful at that moment. Everything happens for a reason. My journey and all the lessons I learned prepared me. I’m so proud of everyone on our roster for busting their butts last year, finding new ways to connect with the fans, be on social media, looking down the camera trying to make that eye contact with everyone at home until we got to Thunderdome that we could bring our fans back virtually. I was so proud of everything I’ve been able to do as a champion and stepping up for WWE, and the fans, but also what all of our different rosters are different shows have been able to do just to keep everyone entertained.”
On how he and Bobby Lashley have grown from their matches in Impact Wrestling: “That’s wild to watch how far we’ve come. I hadn’t watched the match in a while. I need to watch it back to get any ideas of how to mess up Bobby at WrestleMania. I think for both of us at that point, if you asked us, we’d be like yeah, this is as good as we’re going to get. We’ve totally reached our potential. Then to watch the journeys we went on. They know how I feel these days, and I’m sure in a few years from now, we’ll be able to say that I look back at 2021 and realize I had so much further to go. Right now, I feel like I’m where I need to be. I’m fully confident in my ability in every single way, looking the part, feeling the part, being the part.
For Lashley, I feel like that’s the case for himself as well. Like for Lashley, something wasn’t quite there, much like myself last year at WrestleMania. You put MVP and Lashley together, ‘Boom, oh my goodness. Why don’t we do this sooner? You got badass Don King and Mike Tyson combination going on.’ Lashley saying what he has to say but keeping it to a minimum. MVP, unbelievable spokesperson for him. Lashley is just the absolute killer that he is now. To get both of us on our unique journeys, to be in the WWE title match at WrestleMania, and to have a throwback to the heavyweight clash over the past few years all across every sport, be it UFC, boxing. WWE, we see a lot of cruiserweights on top because they’re so talented, and they drive in such large numbers they deserve to be. So this is a bit of a throwback to two heavyweights in the title match. They’re not just plodding around, like putting on a not highly physical athletic contest.
Lashley-McIntyre will be highly physical and be highly athletic. It’ll be like a modern-day heavyweight classic, and I guarantee you that people were talking about it for a very long time.”
