Perhaps more than anyone, Drew McIntyre is looking forward to the return of live crowds when WWE resumes its touring schedule next month.
With the ThunderDome Era is coming to a close, the former WWE Champion reflected on the challenging aspects of this different environment in an interview with Joey Hayden of The Dallas Morning News. “The Scottish Warrior” emphasized the opportunity the ThunderDome presented, as it allowed WWE stars to develop their characters in entirely new ways.
“I watched a few of our talent come out and start doing their interviews when they were looking at imaginary people, and I was like, ‘Oh this is cringeworthy,” said McIntyre. “If this is cringeworthy for me, it’s obviously gonna feel like a disconnect for our fans. So I was very adamant about walking out and just embracing what I had around me.
“I just kept trying different things, and when it came to the interviews themselves, obviously, generally we had 20,000-plus people screaming over the top of you, and you gotta raise your voice, a lot of them are more shouting than anything because you are trying to hear yourself over the crowd and you’re participating with the crowd and going with what they’re giving you. Sometimes they’re giving you the ‘What?’ treatment, or they’re trying to entertain themselves when they’re talking so you have to I don’t know, deviate from the script, let’s say?”
McIntyre then described how the ThunderDome turned promos into an entirely different challenge. The former WWE Champion stated that it allowed WWE Superstars to flesh out their characters during this unique period. McIntyre also expressed his confidence that when live fans return, they’ll bring a deeper understanding of the characters with them.
“But without fans then suddenly it’s just silence, and it’s just you and a microphone,”McIntyre added. “And it makes things has very different, and I saw that as a gigantic opportunity. If you knew who you were, you knew who your character was, you had the chance to develop that character at such a deeper level, add layers to the character. Speak in a regular voice, like the way I’m speaking right now, not having to raise your voice, put more bass in your voice so everybody could hear you and understand you, especially somebody with an accident.
“So I think a lot of people really maximized their minutes, really developed their characters. When we’re back in front of live fans in a regular basis, like we’re about to be in Texas, I think the fans are going to really understand a lot of our characters on a lot deeper level than they would have, had we not had this period, and a lot of our talent maximized it.”
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The full interview is available here:
