Drew McIntyre was pleased to celebrate his WWE Championship victory at WrestleMania 36, despite being confident part of his celebration would be cut.
McIntyre’s win over Brock Lesnar marked the Scottish Warrior’s first of two WWE Championship wins, with his second coming in late 2020 over Randy Orton.
His win also came over a decade after being declared ‘The Chosen One’ by Vince McMahon, and nearly six years after his release from the promotion.
Cutting it Short
McIntyre’s monumentous title win was a long time coming but played out in front of zero fans due to COVID-19 protocols at the time.
Speaking to SEScoops correspondent Steve Fall, McIntyre spoke about his post-match moment, when he reached out to the camera.
“I was so grateful for that moment and wanted to let them [the fans] know ‘hey you might not be here but you’re here with me and it was an organic moment.”
McIntyre was thrilled to see his moment with the fans make it to the broadcast, as he first believed it would be cut by WWE.
“WrestleMania was pre-taped the week prior. I assumed that moment would be edited out because generally we don’t look down the camera lens and break the fourth wall, but it just felt like the right thing to do with nobody there because I couldn’t look out to the crowd and make that connection because there was nobody there.
“I assumed that moment would be edited out because generally we don’t look down the camera lens and break the fourth wall.”
Drew McIntyre on reaching out to fans after his WrestleMania 36 win.
“So I just looked right into the camera lens had that moment assumed they would never see the light of day, and it was cool to see it during WrestleMania and people to have such a positive response.”
The Pandemic Champion
Drew would carry WWE as the World Champion throughout the majority of the Pandemic, defending his title to absolute silence several times.
It wouldn’t be until Summerslam 2020 that WWE would introduce the ‘Thunderdome’ allowing a fan-like atmosphere without live audiences
Addressing what was an unprecedented time, McIntyre acknowledged his work as the face of the company, but called it a team effort.
“I appreciate when people give me credit for stepping up during that period but I always say everybody stepped up during that period. Our entire rosters across Raw, Smackdown and NXT when every other entertainment and sports company shut down, we pushed ahead.
“Everybody [in WWE] said ‘okay if we’re gonna be the only place around to take people’s minds off what’s going on in the world, we’re going to give it our all.’ And for me personally as champion, I get to lead by example.”
WWE would bring back fans for WrestleMania 37 in April 2021, before allowing audiences to return full-time in July that same year.
3MB
Years before McIntyre became WWE Champion, he was part of 3MB, the comedy trio of wannabe musicians comprising of himself, Jinder Mahal and Heath Slater.
While McIntyre has said in the past that the group felt like a downgrade from the lofty heights once expected of him, he acknowledges how the group has remained popular.
“I think Nostalgia is a hell of a thing because I don’t know if a lot of people who were watching 3MB as kids maybe and got a little older or just people remember it different than actually was but the way that people talk to me about 3MB now you would think over the shield. So I’m like ‘okay you remember a little different than me I’m gonna go with that.'”
McIntyre and Mahal would be released from WWE in 2014, with both returning and becoming WWE Champion.
Slater was released by WWE in 2020 and has since gone on to work in Impact Wrestling.
For use of these quotes please give a h/t to SEScoops.
