Drew McIntyre Feels It Was Worth Holding Off On A Feud Between Himself And Roman Reigns
Drew McIntyre is happy the fans are still behind him.
Drew McIntyre is going to team with RK-Bro, Randy Orton and Riddle, to go against Roman Reigns and The Usos at WrestleMania Backlash. This is the first time that Drew McIntyre and Roman Reigns will be on the opposite ends of a match on pay-per-view since Survivor Series 2020 despite the fact that they have been on the same brand since October 2021.
Speaking with CBS Sports’ Shakiel Mahjouri, Drew McIntyre spoke about how special it is for him to be added into this match and how he feels about the current tag team title picture.
“It’s awesome to be back around… Roman Reigns and The Bloodline have been doing incredible things for a couple of years. Literally running the industry when it comes to Roman and for McIntyre to step back into that picture, but also to be side-by-side with Randy and Riddle who have been having the time of their life this past year, I’ve never seen Randy so happy in the ring and out of the ring. It’s cool to be involved in that picture. The tag title scene has been so interesting with those two tag teams going at it. With the addition of myself and Roman, you get an interesting dynamic and you get to delay that match. I know everyone wants everything right now. Now you get an interesting wrinkle to the equation and then you get to delay that match that’s going to then build even more anticipation and when it happens, maybe even in a stadium or somewhere else down the line with more elements added to the story, if you finally get that match — I assume that will eventually happen — it’ll be an even bigger deal.”
Regarding the wait for a match between himself and Roman Reigns, Drew McIntyre says he believes it was worth the wait because the last six months, the fans have stuck with him as a babyface on SmackDown.
“I was feeling pretty confident in who I was the last time we fought in each other, but maybe still a little tense at times. Thinking a little too much about things before the matches instead of just being,” McIntyre said. “My mind was still going instead of doing everything naturally. I would do most things naturally and overthink a couple of things. These days, I just do what feels right. I go with my gut. It helps when the live crowd is there to get that real-time feedback to know what is the right way to go. Right now, I feel as confident as I did then [and] 100 times more confident. Also, taking that slow burn route rather than jumping in there with Roman as soon as I was drafted to SmackDown. It allowed the crowd to be reintroduced to Drew McIntyre and take time to build that rapport with the crowd.
“I’ve noticed and listened over the past six months or whatever, and the reaction is getting louder and louder. ‘Oh wow, this is cool.’ They are kind of sticking with me. A lot of guys flip-flop between good and bad these days. The fans have shorter attention spans or maybe what the person is doing isn’t interesting enough for them and they get over it pretty quick. I’ve had moments like that where I need to take a step in this direction or that direction, but I never once thought I need to turn bad. It’s cool to see the fans have stuck with me the whole time and, if anything, they’ve gotten louder and louder to the point where Reigns and I came face-to-face. It was a SmackDown taping. We had two tapings. They had seen me a few times prior. They had seen Reigns a few times prior. When I took out one Uso and the other Uso, on the turn — which I didn’t mean to do — I locked eyes with him and I could feel the rumbling. I could feel this is a pretty cool moment right now and holding off so long was worth it.”
Recently, Drew McIntyre admitted that he prefers two separate WWE World Champions as long as the brands are split. Learn more here.
We will have full coverage of Wrestlemania Backlash as it airs. You can see the full card here.
