The Forbidden Lore Of WWE's Drew McIntyre

Okay, it is time for another edition of your new favourite What Culture Wrestling series, my friends

And this time we are cutting into the forbidden lore of a certain Scottish warrior

slash legendary Twitter hater, slash chosen one whose rise to the tippy top of the industry

along with being one full of twists and turns, exposed a rather awkward truth about WWE

So I am Gareth, this is WhatCultureWrestling, and here is the forbidden lore of WWE's Drew McIntyre

Drew McIntyre enjoyed a dream-started life in WWE. That is, he would have, had he not re-debuted on the main roster in August 2009

Now, you would think a man personally endorsed by Mr. McMahon as a future world champion

who went by the nickname of, you know, The Chosen One, would have a very significant role to play by that same time in 2010, right

Well, it did not happen. After a promising early run in which he became the Intercontinental Champion

and was booked to torment the endearing SmackDown general manager, Teddy Long, book him in a tag match against The Undertaker, damn it

He was partnered with fellow midcard also-ran, Cody Rhodes, to give him something to do

I wonder what ever happened to that guy. Drew had won two titles in under a year

He and Cody captured the WWE tag team titles. But this was a time when WWE thought that the belt would make the man

And as we know, that's not always the case. The increasingly meaningless straps were wrapped around any old promising developmental prospect

in an attempt to fool the audience that WWE could still make stars

Then when they invariably failed to make stars of those wrestlers, they were quickly and mercilessly relegated

Drew's baffling Wikipedia and cage match pages read like a series of disjointed answers to impossible trivia questions, really

It's a grim and yet somehow accurate reflection of the half-hearted, haphazard and chaotic way in which Vince McMahon barely ran WWE during that time

One day you were the chosen one, the next you were just some geek dreading your release

Drew's career trajectory, while completely pointless, was typical of this stop-start 50-50 era

Across April and May 2011, he was trading wins with Chris Masters on SmackDown and Superstars

Generic in-house matches with absolutely no meaning at all. McIntyre was doomed, and a year later, he had joined music-themed comedy jobber outfit 3MB

It was often said that WWE got more wrestlers over by accident than design as the 2000s morphed into the 2010s

The company was both impressively incompetent and deliberately hostile all at once

They could not and would not create new stars. No, no way, damn it

Yeah, wonderful. Daniel Bryan is the most infamous example of this demented trend

WWE actively resented the idea that he could be the face of the company

Like CM Punk, before him, WWE only wanted to push him to a certain level

A level he only reached by effectively ignoring WWE's direction and getting over on his own

This was true of McIntyre too, though it would take a while for that to, you know, take hold

He invented his claymore finish by accident, not design. When the 3MB member was clad in his 1980s style rockstar leather trousers He attempted a big boot and the trousers were so tight that he had to kick up his other leg just to get him off the ground Sensing that there was yeah probably something to it

he developed both the flying aspect and crowd interaction element over the subsequent years

It was a cool move, yes, but his rock and roll fantasy camp gimmick

lacked the obnoxious charm of even WCW's three-count stable. Remember them? Nope, if you don't, well, here's an image on screen

you are not getting that out of your brain anytime soon. Drew's problem is that he also did not resemble nor work like

the popular internet darling of the day. WWE fans got behind Daniel Bryan and CM Punk and to a lesser extent even Dolph Ziggler

because in a time before work rate inflation, they offered a refreshing, exhilarating contrast to the methodical power-based WWE style

and larger, slower main eventers. McIntyre, both in gimmick and wrestling style

was, well, not remotely cool, like me. In the ring, he was good, not great

Not that he received many opportunities to prove people wrong, though. He was neither nothing nor something

Tall, but not really imposing. Not slow, but not tremendously exciting either

He sensed this, too, when he was inevitably released from his WWE contract on June 12th, 2014

he set about transforming himself physically. The process would take time. When he debuted for TNA Wrestling in February 2015

he didn't look like a man reborn. He was a typical ex-WB guy in that he looked bigger in a different ring

but only relatively. He was still pale and lacking in definition, but things were happening already

As Drew Galloway, the rebuild almost happened in plain sight. The problem that faced him in WWE was a familiar foe on the independent scene

Now, he was cooler than he was, almost by default, but he wasn't the man generating the most buzz beyond WWE

like CM Punk in 2005 or Bryan Danielson a year later. Who was more interesting in 2016, okay

An earnestly improved Drew McIntyre or Kenny Omega? You know, the Kenny Omega that was the warp speed big match genius

who had the retro cool 80s bad guy look. Yeah, it's a bit of an easy one, that, isn't it

Alright, before we get any further into this video, I've got a quick question for you that I want your answer in the comments below

What is your favourite Drew McIntyre moment from his time away from WWE

As quiet as this transformation was, it was equally astute. As the aforementioned Omega and the Young Bucks embarked on grandiose experiments

to change the wrestling world, with some fans mocking the conflicted melodrama and cutesy snark of it all

Drew Galloway, realising where he ultimately belonged, fine-tuned his act to WWE's exact specifications

He knew what he couldn't do. He instead focused with an incredible level of motivation

on adding literal and figurative muscle to what he could do. Drew presented himself as a manly, blunt force in an era of stylistic flamboyance

He stood out as a result. He was not the guy to set about wrestling the match of the year or anything like that

He just wanted to chop, punch and recklessly throw those guys all around the ring

And this was literally the case in a killer match against Will Ospreay at WCPW Exit Wounds on March 6th, 2017

If you haven't watched it already, go and do yourself a favour. In the two years between his Impact Wrestling debut and this match the transformation was all but complete Drew resembled a completely different person here I mean perhaps a bloke is the better word here A completely different bloke

It might not seem like much, but Drew's decision to grow his body hair in was also very clever

In WWE, he looked like a handsome, clean-cut man who happened to come from Scotland

On the rejuvenated Brit rest scene, he looked like a Scotsman. A hairy, grizzled, big, hulking that you could picture in the roughest pub or even on some mythical battlefield

Probably wielding an axe or something. Or even a sword. Yeah? He was also twice the size, it looked like

He looked incredible. Massive enough to walk back into a top spot in WWE

But also more badass and rugged than the dreaded company prototype. And Galloway's choice of music was simple to a knuckle-headed extent

Where the sting of an entrance theme is a jolt of adrenaline to energize a crowd

Galloway opted for the most direct route possible. He wanted to convey that he could do things now that he could not do in that lame old WWE

and he wanted to present himself as an aggressive hard man. He accomplished that with a song in which the F word was screamed after a heavy, pacy guitar riff

Yep, it was stupid, but it was awesome. It was a great soundtrack to his crunching, super credible ring work

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While the key New Japan Pro Wrestling matches of the era dominated Match of the Year lists

Galloway's reputation soared in certain circles put off by the epic aspirations of New Japan Pro Wrestling and NXT

In 2016, a full year before Braun Strowman tilted the paradigm into the direction of mate

Galloway and Bobby Lashley clashed like damn titans at TNA Slammiversary. Elsewhere, the unappealing-looking Evolve was never the coolest promotion on the planet

and the best matches were never hyped to any great level, accordingly

But Drew's sick war with Roderick Strong in September 2014 was the first premonition of his glorious future

The second was an exceptional styles clash against Johnny Gargano at the WWN Live Super Show on March 28th, 2015

Drew also returned home during his years away from WWE to insane championship wrestling

which, alongside progress, was at the forefront of the UK Graps boom

There, in an excellent bit of matchmaking, Drew was the violent, serious, invincible major star antagonist

for the pudgy, lovable, cult hero underdog that was Grado. In front of 4,000 fans, Drew did the J-O-B

And this was the peak of the promotion. Drew was already on his way as a worker

The ICW fans received the casting of Drew so seriously was the first indication that he could become a bona fide star

Just shy of a decade later, amid a boom of its own, Drew feuded with CM Punk in one of the best programs in the modern history of WWE

Drew was never more overt as Punk's trolling tormentor. Drew's intense pleasure of Punk's suffering was magnificent

He'll work in an era so lacking in it. Drew's use of Twitter was also excellent

Now, while it did help that he had so little competition, you know, many wrestlers had already left the toxic, pointless platform

Drew still had to be good at it, otherwise he'd be accused of just being a team-oo Becky Lynch

Drew was very good at it. posting a photo of himself alongside Punk's real-life rival Jack Perry was a hilarious and

incredibly bold touch And in an ironic twist on that Punk feud Galloway actually was once injured by a Future Shock DDT in a WCPW match with Joseph Connors I don think Connors prayed for it and it happened though I not sure

Drew made his return to WWE on April 1st, 2017, when he was spotted sitting in the front row at

NXT TakeOver Orlando. In his return match, he defeated Oney Lorcan on the April 12th edition

of the network show, and it was infinitely better than anything that he'd ever done in his previous

stint. To ultra-cult fans of a certain disposition, it was better than most everything else that WWE

promoted that year. It was a ridiculously hard-hitting sprint wrestled with a deranged urgency

in which Lawken was lucky to still have nipples after one particularly savage McIntyre chop

A great introductory match makes the winner look like the damn business. But this was something

even better than that. Lawken was not a small boy by any means. The spot in which McIntyre caught

his flying crossbody and then smashed him back first against the apron, it just absolutely rocked

Even better was Drew's celebration here. Taking time to put his new personality across, he relished

the idea of inflicting pro-wrestling violence. Drew soon went through the obligatory chapter of

being NXT champion. It's just what they did at this point. They signed somebody big from the

independent scene. They had him beat a few people. They won the belt. It just happened. He was then

promoted to the main roster after being put on the injury list with a biceps injury. This

run wasn't amazing. Very little in 2018, one of the worst years ever was to be honest. But Drew

was propelled to the WWE title picture after strange, unproductive associations with Dolph

Ziggler and Shane McMahon. Remember that? The late 2019 babyface turn was a bit sudden, but

it didn't really matter. Drew revealed the witty, gregarious side of his personality to win the fans

over just as quickly. And while his 3, 2, 1 crowd interaction ahead of the Claymore kick was almost

offensively simple, the most effective tricks in wrestling often are, aren't they? Drew's

reinvention was bloody awesome. Now you could argue that WWE almost did too accurate a job of

telling that story. In an attempt to solidify his bond with the audience, Drew frequently talked

about how hard he had worked during his hiatus from WWE in the mid-2010s. Many weeks on Raw

Drew would just openly talk about how he could only really reach the current level that he was at

outside of the WWE system. Simply put, he had to go away to get good. This isn't so much forbidden

lore about McIntyre himself, but rather the company that utilised his services as an independent

contractor. What's strange here is that WWE said the quiet part loudly. At the exact same time as

they recruited collegiate athletes with zero pro wrestling experience, they told the entire world

that to actually make it in WWE, you had to leave WWE and gain experience elsewhere

In a pandemic era of garbage monsters, ninjas, and underground fighting rings

this right here was amongst the most questionable things that WWE did

WWE being counterproductive to one's own career was canon. As crazy as it was for WWE to admit it, it was damn true as a certain Olympian would say

McIntyre does not get over without undergoing his early humiliation ritual, folks

And if nothing else, it has helped fuel his excellent, bitter heel persona

that we get to enjoy on screen today. Now carry on your WhatCultureWrestling YouTube journey

by tapping on another one of our videos right here. Or here. They might be everywhere. I'm not sure

Just do it, have some fun, and I will see you later on. Bye-bye