Drew McIntyre is very excited about his very underwhelming match at WrestleMania 38

Drew McIntyre has slipped down the WrestleMania card this year. His opponents over the last three years were Roman Reigns, Brock Lesnar, and Bobby Lashley. It doesn’t get much bigger than that. This year he’s dealing with...Happy Corbin? Yeah, he’s wrestling Happy Corbin.

WWE has tried to conjure up some vaunted undefeated streak for Happy during this feud, but it’s not working. A lot of fans find it impossible to take Corbin seriously at Drew’s level, and the announcement of the match was met with a lot of disappointment.

McIntyre knows it hasn’t been received well by fans, but he’s still excited and optimistic about working with Happy on Apr. 2 in Arlington, Texas.

In an interview with Metro.co.uk, Drew explained why Corbin is a suitable opponent for him:

“I’m very excited about it, personally. I’ve seen some of the comments when the match was made, the internet can be very harsh place.”

“I appreciate all my fans around the world, their reaction is, ‘Drew’s not wrestling for the title? He won the title from Brock...he fought for the title last year, this year he’s fighting Corbin?!’”

“I understand that and I appreciate that, but the way I see it is, aside from his obvious talent in the ring...we actually have a genuine hated bad guy that everyone genuinely dislikes. If people online are saying, ‘This guy’s such a good bad guy, he really entertains me’, that’s not a good bad guy. A true bad guy is somebody you literally despise and want to see get their butt kicked! That’s what we’ve got right now, and that’s what I’ve got in my story with Corbin.’”

McIntyre’s argument would make more sense if people actually hated Happy Corbin, but I don’t sense much heat at all in this feud. All I see is a collective shoulder shrug, lots of yawning, corny jokes, and a flame-generating sword.

Drew is presented as a top guy, a main event star, the kind of babyface who can believably step up to Roman Reigns. Happy Corbin is just some mid-card guy who is surrounded by inept lackeys. As far as I can tell, Corbin has not won a match on the main card of a WWE pay-per-view since December 2019, more than two years ago. Of course the fans are going to have a hard time believing he is someone who can go toe-to-toe with top star Drew McIntyre.

That doesn’t mean McIntyre’s match at WrestleMania 38 will be bad, of course. But Drew is misguided for trying to point the finger at fans for being underwhelmed by Corbin as his WrestleMania opponent. It’s up to WWE to build up matches that fans care about, and WWE has failed to do so in this case. It’s really that simple.