Drew McIntyre has found his way back into the WWE fold, and his second run with the company is looking very promising.
McIntyre first signed with WWE back in 2007 and was assigned to the then-developmental territory known as Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW). After two years there he was called up to the main roster on SmackDown and went on to win the Intercontinental Championship.
In 2011 McIntyre began a losing streak and eventually fell out of the eyes of fans as serious competition. He joined the comical Three Man Band (3MB) faction alongside Jinder Mahal and Heath Slater. In the summer of 2014 WWE decided to release him from his contract.
He spent three years on the independent circuit before getting a second shot with WWE. Having already experienced what it’s like to travel the road, and being a former Intercontinental Champion, many fans assumed McIntyre would go straight back to the main roster. Instead he was sent to WWE’s new-and-improved developmental system now known as NXT.
McIntyre had a run with the NXT Championship before dropping it to Andrade “Cien” Almas and debuted back on the main roster, alongside Dolph Ziggler, on Monday Night RAW shortly after WrestleMania 34. The Scotsman recently joined former WWE ring announcer Lilian Garcia’s podcast, Chasing Glory, to talk about his journey back to WWE.
During the interview he actually revealed that the idea for him to go back to NXT was his:
“That was what I wanted. I told my wife in the beginning when NXT really started catching fire,”You know what babe, ideal when I go back there first, if I do my thing here and I get a reputation in the independent scene, then I believe I can get an angle to NXT because it’s such a passionate fan base.
“I think that would be the place for me to go to really show what I can do. And then when the time is right, because the transition is so much smoother from NXT to RAW and Smackdown, because it moves so fast. RAW and Smackdown, there’s so many hours of unique TV every single week all year round.”
“That was the way I saw it and that’s what I told her in the beginning. I told Chris Jericho, he was the first podcast I did, another one who really helped me in the beginning and really get my message out there was Chris and I told him, “I will be back.”
