Ahead of this Sunday’s WrestleMania Backlash where he’ll compete in a six-man tag team match against The Bloodline, Drew McIntyre spoke with CBS Sports’ Shakiel Mahjouri about working with Randy Orton, growing more confident since his last feud with Roman Reigns, and more.
Check out some of the highlights below:
On working with Randy Orton and being involved in the tag team title feud with Jey & Jimmy Uso:
It’s awesome to be back around… Roman Reigns and The Bloodline have been doing incredible things for a couple of years. Literally running the industry when it comes to Roman and for McIntyre to step back into that picture, but also to be side-by-side with Randy and Riddle who have been having the time of their life this past year, I’ve never seen Randy so happy in the ring and out of the ring.
It’s cool to be involved in that picture. The tag title scene has been so interesting with those two tag teams going at it. With the addition of myself and Roman, you get an interesting dynamic and you get to delay that match. I know everyone wants everything right now. Now you get an interesting wrinkle to the equation and then you get to delay that match that’s going to then build even more anticipation and when it happens, maybe even in a stadium or somewhere else down the line with more elements added to the story, if you finally get that match — I assume that will eventually happen — it’ll be an even bigger deal.
On having grown more confident since his last feud with Roman Reigns:
I was feeling pretty confident in who I was the last time we fought in each other, but maybe still a little tense at times. Thinking a little too much about things before the matches instead of just being. My mind was still going instead of doing everything naturally. I would do most things naturally and overthink a couple of things. These days, I just do what feels right. I go with my gut. It helps when the live crowd is there to get that real-time feedback to know what is the right way to go. Right now, I feel as confident as I did then [and] 100 times more confident. Also, taking that slow burn route rather than jumping in there with Roman as soon as I was drafted to SmackDown. It allowed the crowd to be reintroduced to Drew McIntyre and take time to build that rapport with the crowd.
I’ve noticed and listened over the past six months or whatever, and the reaction is getting louder and louder. ‘Oh wow, this is cool.’ They are kind of sticking with me. A lot of guys flip-flop between good and bad these days. The fans have shorter attention spans or maybe what the person is doing isn’t interesting enough for them and they get over it pretty quick. I’ve had moments like that where I need to take a step in this direction or that direction, but I never once thought I need to turn bad. It’s cool to see the fans have stuck with me the whole time and, if anything, they’ve gotten louder and louder to the point where Reigns and I came face-to-face. It was a SmackDown taping. We had two tapings. They had seen me a few times prior. They had seen Reigns a few times prior. When I took out one Uso and the other Uso, on the turn — which I didn’t mean to do — I locked eyes with him and I could feel the rumbling. I could feel this is a pretty cool moment right now and holding off so long was worth it.
On Bobby Lashley falling out of the WWE ring at a WWE Newcastle event:
For me, it was very quick yet very slow at the same time. When trouble happens, things seem to slow down for me and I’m very aware of what’s going on. I knew when I hit the ropes, something went wrong. I was able to catch myself very quickly and was watching straight ahead and saw how Lashley went over. So, the rope broke as I connected. He was a split second behind me. He had no rope. He went into what should have been the top rope and he continued head over heels at the speed he was going.
Thankfully, I could see how he landed. He went head over heels. Those giant traps hit the ring apron. His head didn’t connect with the ring apron, thankfully. He flipped himself right around onto the mat outside. I could see he was probably going to be OK. Knowing him, he’d be OK.
A guy who just likes to roll around and fight during the day and take unnecessary falls during the day. I always say, ‘There are no cameras watching right now. Why are you doing this to yourself?’ But he enjoys the physicality. I could see he landed safely and knowing him, I know he’d be okay. And thankfully he was okay. In those situations, you can only hope for the best-case scenario. Accidents do happen.
