Drew McIntyre’s run as a top babyface in WWE has endured for nearly a year and a half, with no end in sight. We’ve seen plenty of Vince McMahon’s hand-picked chosen ones get rejected by wrestling fans over the years, but Drew is not one of them.
Of course, it helps that most of his performances these days come in front of large monitors and piped in audio inside WWE’s ThunderDome. I can’t imagine that WWE’s fake noise machine will ever mix boos into Drew’s perceived fan reaction.
While promoting his new book A Chosen Destiny: My Story during an interview with Bleacher Report, the former WWE champion explained that even though he’s an obvious good guy in kayfabe, he didn’t know what to expect from the live fan reaction last month at WrestleMania 37, which was the first time he’s had to deal with a live audience in over a year:
“I didn’t know what to expect to be honest with you. You mentioned I’ve been in the WWE title scene since January 2020. Literally a year and a half of constant Drew content. Drew’s normally opening the show, main-eventing the show, multiple segments. He’s all across social media. You’re seeing a lot of Drew.
In the past when that’s happened, sometimes our fans look for the next cool thing and their attention span wavers and perhaps they’re not going to stay into that person because they’re like, ‘OK, we like this person, but what’s the new thing I can get into right now?’ Or even reject the person who’s supposed to be the good guy.
I really didn’t know. All I knew was that I didn’t mind. I’ve been around long enough where as long as they care, one way or another, as long as there’s no silence when I walk out there, that’s all I care about. I’ll roll with the punches and adjust on the fly. When you have live fans, you’re about to do that and adjust to how they’re reacting. It’s how you dictate the pace of your match and interviews, etc. But just to walk out and hear the cheers initially blew my mind.”
“We’ve seen good guys in the past get massive, massive boos, but people are emotionally invested one way or another. I think it’s pretty crazy that from what I gather, people have been pretty much digging what I’ve been doing for a solid year and a half. That’s not lost on me with how difficult that is to do in this day and age.”
Are you still digging what Drew is doing as a main event level babyface in WWE?