The following highlights were sent to us from the interview that Chris Van Vliet did with Drew McIntyre on Insight With Chris Van Vliet:
On fans possibly caring more about a friendship bracelet than championships:
“I’ve seen some of the memes about it being more meaningful, or people have more of an emotional attachment right now than some of the titles, which may technically be true right now. But eventually, the titles will kick up their gear in the storylines, et cetera. But I’m gonna be so bold as to say this right now as perhaps the top prize in all of wrestling.”
On his World Title win at WrestleMania 40:
“Yeah, it did [feel like my moment]. I mean, the match itself, opening WrestleMania, myself and Seth, one of my greatest rivals. We have a big professional rivalry, and the match itself is perfect, just with a story going into it. We’ve had so many matches like technical, high flying, near falls left and right. This was just starting off, Claymore, just unload, unload, unload, unload, till somebody doesn’t get back up. And finally, I put the last round in Seth, and had that moment where the crowd were chanting, you deserve it at WrestleMania. Seth had that moment telling me the same thing, which meant a lot, and then being able to present the title to my wife, who has been such a big part of the journey. But no, I’m not going to talk about what happened after that. But just that five minutes or whatever I dragged it out too, because I made sure I milked every second of it, because that was very real. It was very emotional. To be able to give her the title and say, this is yours too. And hugging my brother, who’s my original tag partner, was very, very cool. And then Punk f*cked it up.”
On his Clash at the Castle loss in Glasgow and if it was the right call:
“That was a tough one. Really, really tough one. The same time, if I win, then I’m right. Sometimes it’s okay to be right. Yeah, that one really stung.”
Was there a moment where you thought are you sure this is the right way to go?
“Yeah, there’s always that moment and in the environment we’re in now, it’s story above all else. I didn’t feel that way in the past. I was like, if we don’t do this now, things could change in a couple of weeks. It’s a lot of pivoting left and right, and characters and stories changing consistently. Now I know we will stick to the story. It hurt, but I see what we are now, and I’m like, Okay, if I won that night, then I’m just, yeah, I did it. I’m right, go screw yourselves. Because of what happened and much as I can’t stand him, that moment was something that would be replayed forever, just the big near fall at the end, everybody in my freaking home country going insane. One two, and it’s that piece of sh*t counting the fall and cost me the match with the low blow. And at the same time, it’s SummerSlam. If you noticed, the way I gave him the low blow was exact same corner, exact same way he did it to me. So he can’t say one word about how things happened at SummerSlam.”
On his war with Sheamus and Gunther at WrestleMania 39:
“I’d say bell to bell, the fact that it was at WrestleMania that could be the best match, probably is the best match of my career. I mean, how can you top being at WrestleMania, having a match that people say is one of the greatest Mania matches of all time, but perhaps the greatest triple threat of all time, and also the history I have with Sheamus? For the past 20 years, in the ring and out the ring, everything we’ve gone through together, and then adding Gunther, was somebody who’s just very similar to us, such an incredible physical in-ring talent. Put us all together and it was amazing. I remember not even 10 minutes into the match. Think it was after Sheamus gave me about 40 beats to the chest and the face. And then the crowd went crazy, and they’re chanting I believe this is awesome. And I was like, wow, we’re not even getting started. Wait till you see and also, why am I seeing double at this point? That was cool. And the story for the match was cool as well, because eventually Gunther disappeared for a while, and Sheamus and I have always dreamed about our one-on-one match at WrestleMania. And we went back and forth for 10 straight minutes, claymores and brogues and hitting our bombs. It was like we were having that singles match. We forgot about Gunther, and at the right moment, he just reappears. Boom, steals it, heads out. So that was cool as well that Sheamus and I kind of got a one-on-one match at Mania we should have had the year prior.”
