A “Good Chance” Top WWE Star May Leave
A new report suggests there’s a “good chance” that one of WWE’s biggest stars may leave the company when his contract expires.
The subject of Drew McIntyre’s WWE contract situation has been a big talking point of late. Recent reports have suggested that while McIntyre’s deal is expected to expire around the end of 2023, the two sides are apparently not close on a new deal.
There have been reports that McIntyre has been frustrated with WWE regarding his creative direction, so perhaps he might entertain the idea of leaving.
While McIntyre is a former two-time WWE Champion, both of those reigns happened in the Performance Center/ThunderDome aka Pandemic Era when there were no fans to cheer him on despite the fact that he was a top babyface in the company.
In this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter while covering the new look Raw roster, Dave Meltzer noted there was a “good chance” that McIntyre may leave WWE.
“It’s also very clear the company badly needs a main event heel, and now is the wrong time to turn Rhodes or Rollins, meaning it makes all the sense in the world to turn McIntyre. But more, they need to elevate Reed, Priest, Balor or Mysterio to that top heel level.”
“Because McIntyre right now is working with the idea there’s a good chance he’s finishing up, he could do a big program for the title as a challenger and finally leave. Perhaps at that point Randy Orton could return, and there’s always people like Brock Lesnar and Omos that they could add in that spot as a temporary headline program.”
Later in the Wrestling Observer, Meltzer wrote this about Drew: “McIntyre will be out of action for a few more weeks. Nothing has changed regarding his contract situation.”
McIntyre was considered the top babyface on the Smackdown brand for all of 2022 and into 2023, yet he only received one Undisputed WWE Universal Championship match against Roman Reigns. That was at Clash at the Castle in Wales in front of 50,000+ fans wanting Drew to win, but that didn’t happen due to Solo Sikoa interfering. Despite McIntyre getting screwed out of the title, he never got another shot.
A recent story regarding McIntyre noted that WWE had been advertising him for the Money in the Bank Premium Live Event in London, England on July 1st, but then they pulled him from advertising and replaced him with Roman Reigns. Considering it’s a UK show and McIntyre is from the UK in Scotland, it was seen as an interesting choice by WWE to remove him from advertising.