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Drew McIntyre Comments On Earning Vince McMahon’s Trust

By TJR Staff • Published 24th September 2021

Drew McIntyre is a two-time former WWE Champion that had a long journey to the top of the company and part of the journey involved earning the trust of WWE’s boss Vince McMahon.

McIntyre made his WWE debut in 2007 when he was just 22 years old with McMahon proclaiming that Drew was “The Chosen One” that was also going to be a future World Champion, according to McMahon. It was a lot of pressure on a young kid.

In 2017, McIntrye returned to WWE after he was fired three years earlier. McIntyre’s rise to the top of WWE was impressive as he won the 2020 Royal Rumble, which was right before the pandemic hit that shut down the world. McIntyre won the WWE Title twice in 2020 (including the WrestleMania 36 main event against Brock Lesnar) and was unquestionably one of WWE’s most important performers during the toughest year in company history since there were no fans for about nine months of shows.

Even though he’s not WWE Champion right now, McIntyre is a main event player and will be for many more years. He’s an established top guy now.

In a recent interview with Kenny McIntosh of Inside The Ropes prior to WWE Live in Glasgow this week, McIntyre talked about how his relationship with WWE Chairman Vince McMahon has evolved:

“It definitely grew during that period. Yeah. The opportunity to have more one on one time with the boss, if you’re involved in more significant segments, and obviously opening RAW most weeks, having long matches, I would get the chance to be in his office a lot more so it was awesome in the sense of building a relationship which is important in any job, to have a relationship with your boss, especially WWE. And also learn.”

“Every time I was in there, it’s always something he would say, I’d be like, “Wow, of course!” I’m trying not to sell it but a light bulb just went off. It’s something obvious to him, but not obvious to myself. So I got to learn a lot during that period, but also start building that trust with him where he can trust me to go out on television and know my character. And if I feel something, go in in that direction. And also outside the ring, you know, interviews and representing the company. Building that trust during that time, that was very important to me to keep doing that. I feel like I’ve done it to a significant degree now that he knows he can put me in any situation, and trust me to represent the company and knock it out of the park.”

WWE Extreme Rules takes place this Sunday night and McIntyre is not a part of the show. It’s rare to see Drew not wrestling on a WWE PPV, but he was part of the WWE Live tour of Europe that had mostly Smackdown talent. McIntyre is still in Europe with his wife while asking for some Paris food recommendations.