The Forbidden Lore Of WWE's Drew McIntyre

How the Chosen One gave WWE no choice.

Drew McIntyre Cody Rhodes
WWE.com

Drew McIntyre enjoyed a dream start to life in WWE. That is, he would have, had he not re-debuted on the main roster in August 2009.

You would think a man personally endorsed by Mr. McMahon as a future World champion, who went by the nickname ‘The Chosen One’, would have a very significant role to play by that same time in 2010. It didn’t happen; after a promising early run, in which he became the Intercontinental champion and was booked to torment the endearing SmackDown General Manager Teddy Long, he was partnered with fellow midcard also-ran Cody Rhodes to give him something to do.

Drew had won two titles in under a year - he and Cody captured the WWE Tag Team titles - but this was a time when WWE thought the belt would make the man. The increasingly meaningless straps were wrapped around any old promising developmental prospect in an attempt to fool the audience that WWE could still make stars. Then, when they invariably failed to make stars of those wrestlers, they were quickly, mercilessly relegated.

Drew’s baffling Wikipedia and Cagematch pages read like a series of disjointed answers to impossible trivia questions. It’s a grim and yet somehow accurate reflection of the half-hearted, haphazard, chaotic way in which Vince McMahon barely ran WWE during that time. One day, you were the Chosen One; the next, you were some geek dreading your release. Drew’s career trajectory, while completely pointless, was typical of this stop/start 50/50 era. Across April and May 2011, he was trading wins with Chris Masters on SmackDown and Superstars. Generic, in-house matches with no meaning: McIntyre was doomed, and a year later, he had joined music-themed comedy jobber outfit 3MB. Drew was chosen to be a geek.

It was often said that WWE got more wrestlers over by accident than design as the 2000s morphed into the 2010s. The company was both impressively incompetent and deliberately hostile, all at once. They couldn’t and wouldn’t create new stars.

Daniel Bryan is the most infamous example of this demented trend. WWE actively resented the idea that he could be the face of the company. Like CM Punk before him, WWE only wanted to push him to a certain level - a level he only reached by effectively ignoring WWE’s direction and getting over on his own.

This was true of McIntyre, though it would take a while for that to take hold...

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Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!