Drew McIntyre Recalls Winning 2020 WWE Royal Rumble

Drew McIntyre was surprised how things turned out for him regarding the 2020 Royal Rumble.

The 2020 Men’s Royal Rumble had a different structure compared to earlier editions. Instead of starting chaotically and ending in the same way, the 2020 version saw Brock Lesnar dominate almost the entire first half. As if recreating a WWE video game with himself being controlled by the player, Lesnar eliminated one entrant after another without much effort.

It wasn’t until Drew McIntyre entered the match that Lesnar received an actual challenge. And it was McIntyre who eliminated Lesnar from the match and later won the whole match.

Both Drew McIntyre eliminating Lesnar and his Rumble match win were big career moments. But neither of them were part of any long-term plans. As McIntyre described in an interview with Darren Stone of Faction 919, he didn’t know he’d be winning until the day of the show.

“I got there on the day, heard rumblings it was something with Brock. I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, if I did something with Brock that’d be great. I’d love to wrestle Brock Lesnar.’

Eventually, I eliminated Brock Lesnar in the Royal Rumble. I heard the reaction of 40,000 people considering the performance he had in that Rumble, eliminating everybody single-handedly, half of the Royal Rumble himself, and my goodness, that’s amazing.”

Drew McIntyre also mentioned that he was worried that fans would boo him for eliminating Edge, who made his surprise return to WWE after a nine-year absence. And yet, McIntyre didn’t get the bad reaction he expected since the crowd cheered his Rumble match win despite him eliminating Edge.

If you want to hear about a similar story of a big match win being announced the day of, check out this Inside The Ropes story from Chris Jericho.

h/t WrestlingInc for the transcription