Enter your email address to receive exclusive content from CVV!
Drew McIntyre On CM Punk Feud, Jack Perry Photo, Beating Brock Lesnar, "The Killer's Game"
Drew McIntyre (@DMcIntyreWWE) is a professional wrestler currently signed with WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Los Angeles, CA to discuss his role in the upcoming movie "The Killer's Game" with Dave Bautista, how Batista got him in the movie, if he plans to star in more movies in the future, his losses at both Clash at the Castle shows, his rivalry with CM Punk and if he has ever gone too far in his promos, the viral photo with AEW star Jack Perry and how it came together, his war with Gunther and Sheamus at WrestleMania 39, beating Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 36, why he believes in Joe Hendry and more.
Quote I'm thinking about: "Most people tell themselves that if they felt better, they'd do the thing – when it's actually doing the thing that makes you feel better." - Mark Manson
Complete this survey for your chance to win $500: https://bluewirepods.com/survey
Sponsors:
FACTOR MEALS: Get 50% off your first box and 20% off your next month at http://factormeals.com/Insight50
BONCHARGE: Use the code CVV to save 15% off your infrared sauna blanket at https://boncharge.com/cvv
MAREK HEALTH: Get a 10% discount on Marek Health's Optimization Package with code CVV: https://marekhealth.com/cvv
BLUECHEW: Use the code CVV to get your first month of BlueChew for FREE at http://bluechew.com
ROCKET MONEY: Join Rocket Money today and experience financial freedom: https://rocketmoney.com/cvv
PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank which was designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/
PLUNGE: Get $150 off your Plunge with the coupon code CVV150 at http://plunge.com
"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."
"I mean, it's all across the board. Just with the new management coming in, new creative process, Hunter kind of leading the ship and giving a lot of people, basically everybody, but specifically the ones that have been there for a minute, the chance to hey, if you've got more to show, then show it, this is your chance. There's no wrong answers, go for it, and if it fails, it's on you. If you're willing to take that wrist slap, and I'm willing to take a wrist slap, a fining a firing to be true to myself and the relationship now I have with creative, how much they know the character, because it's essentially me with the volume turned up. When it comes to the Punk stuff, especially because I can’t stand the guy, it's easy, but it's awesome. And to see across the board, not just for myself, just how many characters have stepped up and standing out right now and Raw is a lot easier to watch. Three hours is still a lot, but it's a lot easier to digest these days. The show flows so well. There's so many popular characters. It's amazing just to see wrestling so healthy and everybody thriving."
"He [Batista] called me and had a pitch. I thought it was just the catch-up, and he mentioned that he's working on his new movie, The Killer's Game. Told me a bit of the premise, which I loved. The Hitman that takes out the bad guys and is never going to have that happy part of his life. He does what he does, and he finds the right girl and everything's perfect until it's not perfect, and he decides to take a hit on himself. We're not going to ruin it any more than that. But it gets pretty exciting. A lot of people come to kill him, including this guy. And then you need some extra characters. The director, J.J. Perry had said, I've got this idea for this Scottish brothers, the Mackenzie brothers. I have one of them. The other one, I just want to be, you know, the big, imposing guy that can feasibly and realistically beat you up. I just want them to have these thick Scottish accents and be just wild, kind of drinking party badasses that are somewhat unintelligible because of their thick accents. And Dave basically said, I actually know that guy, he exists. He called me."
"I’m trying not to spoil anything, but it was fun, like just having J.J say Just go ridiculous, use whatever Scottish slang you want, because I don't know it. So just thinking back to all the crazy words I used to say back in Scotland and the current slang, asking my friends, you know, what's some of the current slang that we find? Using this, and there's no swearing restrictions that we might have in WWE sometimes. Come on Netflix! So yeah, I got to freely use a lot of words, including my favourite word in the world, the C word. People are so offended by that word in America, and I've never understood why. The Butcher [from The Boys] is doing a heck of a job right now helping acclimate Americans to it, but Australians and Scottish people use it as a term of endearment, and I was horrified to see this reaction the first time I used it. In 2007, somebody sat down and almost cried because I mentioned in their presence. So, yeah, if I do anything from this movie, I just want to get people more comfortable with words. I don't think this will hurt them, they’re just words."
"We’ll see. It's just a fun journey as far as I'm concerned. All I ever wanted to be was a wrestler since I was five years old. Very lucky to get signed straight from university. Have the journey I've had, and if the right opportunity comes up, like the character, you saw it yourself, it wasn't big bruiser number three, just standing being big and angry. I was like, I'm not gonna do that. Like, thankfully, wrestling provided a living where I can pick and choose what I want to do and I want to wrestle. But I was like, this looks fun, and it was fun. So something comes up like that, I'm gonna do it."
"He's killing it. It's awesome. I mean, to a lot of people, it's oh my goodness, this overnight sensation. Joe Hendry is not an overnight sensation. He's been working hard. He's been paying his dues. He's been perfecting his shtick that we're all seeing right now, and I always put over his video. He's got one on me, I'm Drew, so make sure you look it up. I always tell the story just if you've not heard me say it. I didn't know what the video was. I told them, Don't show me. I want to have a legitimate reaction in the ring to his video. So I’m Drew came up to the tune of I'm blue, and I was supposed to be angry, and I was laughing so much. Had my hair in my face trying to cover my laughter. It's just so entertaining. There's always that entertainment aspect. But he's come so far in the ring as well. He's put it all together, and, yeah, he's about a 10-year overnight sensation."
"I guess in certain ways. But a lot of people did not like it backstage, so I didn't feel as much backstage with the professional jealousy that I didn't realize how significant it was and the things that were being said then it was all out of jealousy. Why is this kid getting this huge opportunity when I've been here for all these years? But for the opportunities on TV, I certainly did for a period. And looking back, I know obviously I could have done things a little bit differently, but at the same time, I just didn't have those tools in my wheelhouse to do things differently. And we all go through our journeys for a reason to end up at the final destination."
"Yeah, it did. 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 fly, near falls left and right. This was okay, 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. 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 to 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."
"I think so. It's weird, because you look at certain moments and in the moment when you're living them you’re like this is ridiculous. We should have found a way out of this. Theory could have cashed in, and I could have pinned him because we had to protect The Bloodline and Roman at that time, that's the top story in the company, the top character. And perhaps at that time, I was like, I just feel this is a bad move. That thing with Tyson Fury. That was stupid. There's no excuse for that. That's the worst moment in my entire career. We did the bit, the song, and then I told him, Hey, you want to sing Sweet Caroline, because British fans [love it]. They're upset that I lost. They don't know American Pie. He was like, Nah, I'm good. I'm not gonna fight you, you’re Tyson Fury. I figured we're off the air that's why I started doing the Oasis bit and singing Don’t Look Back in Anger. Just got the crowd going. And I was like, Oh, this sucks, but we're off the air. Then I found out we're still on the air. It was a whole thing. But anyway, I digress, Oasis are back together. Gotta get some tickets for that. Yeah, that night, I was very upset. How does McIntyre rebound from this, which took a minute to do, but because I didn't win that night, the way things worked out, the story we've been telling that was such an integral part of the story, especially initially with the character shift with Jey Uso moving from SmackDown to Raw and bringing up the trauma and PTSD McIntyre had from The Bloodline of what they had done to cost not just me, but my family that moment, who were all in the front row. My dad, my wife, my brother, my sister-in-law, my cousin, like everybody is there who's been missing me for all these years and I've not seen my nephews grow up. That was going to be our moment. This trauma is brought up by this Bloodline member just showing up and everybody cheering him and saying a silly little word Yeet and doing his little silly dance. And now, wait a minute, this guy's a bad guy, and then suddenly people start turning on me. So if it wasn't for what happened at Clash, if it wasn't for the journey and the way we tell stories now, we can tell stories now, we wouldn't be where we are right now."
"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."
"Yeah, there's always that moment and I like 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."
"I was flying to LA and they just did a show the night before. I'd seen Roderick Strong at the airport, a buddy of mine, and we got to catch up, which was awesome. He was heading to an ROH show I believe. And then on the flight, just saw Jack, had a little chat with him and his missus, and then we snapped a picture, and the internet had a freaking meltdown. It was hilarious."
"I think it lasted 45 minutes. The numbers I heard were 2 million impressions or something insane for 45 minutes. It was pretty wild. People enjoyed that immensely. So, yeah, I'm always dancing on that line of what's acceptable, not acceptable. Make people question things."
"That's probably back of 100 yards that way. That's where I live. And yeah, I just do what was fun. And then Did someone tell me? Didn't someone tell me? Was it by design? Did I choose to remove it? I'll never answer that question, because I love people asking questions."
"I could write a book the size of War and Peace about the amount of lines I've used, because I've been holding it all together since January, did 99.9% of the heavy lifting. So, yeah, I've got so many. One I like in particular. My wife doesn't think I'm funny at all. Thankfully, the boys, and a lot of the fans do. But I was in the shower, I remember, I shouted her. I was like, Caitlin, come here. She runs through thinking something's wrong. I said I need you here for a line, she goes oh God what? I was like Punk is Straight Edge. He doesn't do drugs, he doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't do anything. So what's the line? I was okay. Here's what's ironic about CM Punk. He's straight edge, doesn't drink, doesn't do drugs, yet he spends all this time in rehab. She just rolled her eyes. He's on TV not long after and it was during the Chicago everyone talks about. And again, that was one of my favorite moments. Whatever I feel about him personally, when he's on, he's not always on and I crush him on the mic, he was on in Chicago, and we went back and forth, like I mentioned, Seth, and I like, OK, corral, like, verbal bombs on each other. And he got the one at the end where I was like, All right, he wins this one in Chicago because I'm not gonna go down there, because I'm not willing to hurt the company or whatever. That's kind of person I am, a company guy. He plays the company guy, wears the suit, kisses all the corporate ass. I don't do any of that stuff, but I do the stuff that actually matters, like not hurting the company's image."
"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. Nice. 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 Seamus 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're 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."
"There was no seed being planted. I was just angry. I left the ring and I stormed out. I mean, try to talk about it. I was pissed off. [That he was there? That you didn't know about it?] I guess a number of things I can understand, business reasons that's not for me to make those decisions personally. Yeah, I was pissed off, and I chose to leave the arena because I'm not going to cause an incident that's going to affect everybody's mood afterwards and the guys in the match that worked so hard. People asked me about Seth's and my reaction, maybe that was Seth’s legit reaction, but to me, I couldn't have stood out there if somebody's that close to me that I don't like that much. I wouldn't stand and swear and have people hold me back. I would have walked right up to him and punched him in the face, so I chose to leave the building. I mean I get to do that now, and it's amazing. I guess we're good to make money for a hatred for each other."
"Family, health and the wife."
