Drew McIntyre Subtly Acknowledges Fan Reaction To WWE Title Loss
Drew McIntyre is certainly aware of how WWE fans are feeling after he lost the WWE Championship.
In the main event of WWE SmackDown in Portland, Drew McIntyre lost the WWE Championship back to the former champion, Cody Rhodes.
It was a match full of controversy, just like when McIntyre beat Rhodes for the same title two months earlier in Berlin, Germany. This time, there was a referee bump when Charles Robinson was taken out, and a second referee, Dan Engler, was headbutted by McIntyre during the match, prompting Robinson to take over again.
Late in the match, Jacob Fatu went down to the ringside to prevent McIntyre from using a steel chair to attack Rhodes. Fatu was getting revenge on McIntyre for costing him in Fatu’s Elimination Chamber qualifying match a few weeks earlier.
After the chair was taken away, McIntyre Drew hit a Future Shock DDT. McIntyre went for a Claymore Kick, but Rhodes avoided it and jumped off the top rope with a Cody Cutter. Rhodes then hit Cross Rhodes on McIntyre for the pinfall to become the new WWE Champion for the third time in his career.
While the fans in Portland cheered for the title change, which means Cody will defend the WWE Title against Elimination Chamber Match winner Randy Orton at WrestleMania 42, the reaction online was different.
On WWE’s YouTube channel, the full Rhodes-McIntyre match has nearly 1 million views, but the telling stat is that there are over 100,000 dislikes on YouTube compared to about 25,000 likes.
BREAKING: WWE’s upload of Cody Rhodes winning the Undisputed Title on last night’s SmackDown has officially surpassed 100,000+ dislikes on YouTube in just 15 hours.
It is now one of the most disliked WWE videos of all time. 🤯 pic.twitter.com/x7g0Ln0xgf
— EliteRockerz 𝕏 (@EliteClubS0B) March 7, 2026
Drew McIntyre Is Fully Aware Of Fans Disliking WWE Title Match Finish
While Drew McIntyre hasn’t posted a video or a comment on social media after the WWE Title match on SmackDown, he did post a simple thumbs down reaction, which shows he obviously knows how fans are reacting to the WWE Title change.
👎
— Drew (@DMcIntyreWWE) March 7, 2026
In the days leading up to the Drew McIntyre-Cody Rhodes WWE Title match on SmackDown, it was reported that WWE had decided to go with the Cody Rhodes-Randy Orton match at WrestleMania 42, so the result on SmackDown proved those reports to be correct.
Online fan reaction is one thing, so it will be interesting to see how fans react to Cody Rhodes as WWE Champion and if Drew McIntyre gains fans’ support because his WWE Title reign lasted only two months and he didn’t get to walk into WrestleMania 42 as the WWE Champion like he wanted to do.