Top WWE star Drew McIntyre appeared on the No-Contest Wrestling podcast to discuss various topics, including the very first day he trained to become a professional wrestler.
McIntyre said, “I was the one that constantly motivated myself. And when I did that first lesson, I was like, ‘I’m ready. I can do suplexes, I can do body slams, I can jump off the top rope. I’m an athlete.’ When I started doing the actual technical wrestling and taking the falls, and it wasn’t coming as natural as I thought it would, I thought, ‘Oh no!’ I was so convinced I’d walk in the first day and the guy was going to go, ‘Hey everybody, we’ve got the next Stone Cold Steve Austin here. This guy’s going to the next Rock, by the way.’ And it was, ‘Oh crap, I’ve got so much to learn.’ So I had to work 10 times harder and I thought I was going to have to work. And I was somewhat like Bambi on ice for the first year in that wrestling ring.”
On the first character that was pitched to him in WWE:
“There was a couple, but I think the one… I was gonna be the Runway Man. I remember he pitched to me [by] John Laurinaitis, who was head of talent relations at the time. And telling me, you know, Florida Championship Wrestling, which was there prior to [the] NXT we know today. The original developmental. And he built it up. I was listening to him describe the character and thought, ‘Oh no, oh no, oh no.’ Then he went, ‘And the name? The Runway Man, you’re going to have your own model runway, and you’re going to walk down like a model.’”
On his reaction to the character:
“I was picturing in my head, basically all my dreams were going to hell. The life’s work of a Scotsman, it was all going down the toilet. The next meeting after Johnny was to go to Vince himself and pitch this idea. And I kind of sat silent, and Johnny pitched it to Vince. And I think Vince saw my face the whole time. He just said, ‘What do you think?’ And I thought, ‘Whatever you need me to do, I’ll make it work.’ But I had my head down the whole time and I think he read me like, ‘He doesn’t want to do this.’ And thankfully, they let me play closer to myself. But I learned years later, it was nowhere close to myself. Because it took me until I returned to WWE after getting fired — which we’ll probably talk about — before I finally found myself as a wrestler and as a human.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
