During a recent interview with Wrestlejoy and Jonathan Snowden, WWE World Heavyweight Champion Drew McIntyre commented on WWE returning to live events with fans, his future opponents, and more. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On coming up with a mental game plan for his matches and opponents: “I sit and look at the situation and come up with a mental game plan. Different kinds of opponents equal a different match, but rather than thinking of the match itself and the moves themselves these days, I more think, ‘Okay, what’s the story we’re trying to achieve here and what are going to be the special moments in this match?’ That’s a big thing I learned working with Shawn Michaels when I was with NXT, is to think about what are those moments of the match? So I sit down initially before I think of any moves to figure out ‘What’s the story we’re trying to tell here, what are we trying to get across and what are going to be the moments that are remembered from this match?’ On top of that, I always hear people saying the moves don’t matter. The moves do matter. You can have the story, you can have the moments and you can have the good match on top of it. To me, that’s the perfect combination. There’s been a few times where I came out thinking, ‘I know that was good.’ I don’t need somebody to tell me. That’s how generally I feel these days when I know we got something right. I remember this one tag match in particular (Hell in the Cell 2018), myself and Dolph Ziggler against Seth and Dean Ambrose where I felt like I was really figuring it out. The finish was Seth was going for his roll through Falcon Arrow and I caught him with a Claymore halfway around. I just remember the ride we took the crowd on during that match, with the ups and downs and the action itself. It was excellent. But more importantly, the crowd were so invested. I guess that’s why it comes to mind. When I think about it, that felt as good as it could be from everybody pulling their weight, from the story of the match, from the crowd reaction. That’s one I really did love.”
On trying to learn about wrestling when he was a kid: “I had actually started trying to convince my mother since I was about 11. I sent away to America for the Inside Secrets of How to Enter Pro Wrestling Volume One and Two by Dennis Brent and Percy Pringle. And I kind of learned all the inside terms. I’d go to school and I played along with everybody when they were talking about wrestling being a hundred percent legit. In my head I knew I had to keep kah-fahbee. That’s what I called kayfabe, because I didn’t know how to pronounce the words. I was a very, very, very strange kid. I would say, ‘There’s this guy in Newcastle training people.’ My mother said, ‘No, you’re 11 years old. You’re absolutely not doing that.’ The next year I’d find somebody else who was offering wrestling training in a little ad in a magazine. ‘Drew, you’re absolutely not doing it.’”
On the moment when fans can return to WWE: “I can’t wait for that moment until everybody can get back together. I want to be the first one that walks out there. I don’t want any dark matches. I don’t want any match prior. I want to walk down there as champion and see how the crowd responds.”
On expecting nerves and butterflies when the fans come back: “Obviously that crowd reaction is what we generally go by, but we live in 2020. Social media is huge. We can get a feel of how people are reacting right now by social media. I see what I see on mine. I’m not obsessed with it, but we do have our team that inform me people are feeling very positive about things, which is cool. I will have some butterflies. They’re butterflies of excitement. There’ll be some nerves. But I really do hope that we don’t have that dark match and I do get the opportunity to walk out there with the title and raise it up there and say, ‘I didn’t quite get my WrestleMania moment but this is our fricking wrestling moment.’”
