The Forbidden Lore Of WWE's Drew McIntyre
As quiet as this transformation was, it was equally astute. As Omega and the Young Bucks embarked on grandiose experiments to change the wrestling world, with some fans mocking the conflicted melodrama and cutesy snark of it all, Drew Galloway, realising where he ultimately belonged, fine-tuned his act to WWE’s exact specifications. He knew what he couldn’t do. He instead focused, with an incredible level of motivation, on adding literal and figurative muscle to what he could do.
Drew presented himself as a manly, blunt force in an era of stylistic flamboyance. He stood out as a result. He wasn’t the guy to set about wrestling the Match of the Year. He wanted to chop, punch, and recklessly throw those guys around. This was literally the case in a killer match against Will Ospreay at WCPW Exit Wounds on March 6, 2017.
In the two years between his Impact Wrestling debut and this match, the transformation was all but complete. Drew resembled a completely different person. Perhaps “bloke” is the better word here. It might not seem like much, but Drew’s decision to grow his body hair in was very clever. In WWE, he looked like a handsome, clean-cut man who happened to come from Scotland. On the rejuvenated ‘BritWres’ scene, he looked like a Scotsman: a hairy, grizzled, big hulking bastard you could picture in the roughest pub, or even on some mythical battlefield. He was also twice the size, it looked like. He looked incredible - massive enough to walk back into a top spot in WWE, but also more badass and rugged than the dreaded company prototype. Galloway’s choice of music was simple to a knuckle-headed extent.
Where the “sting” of an entrance theme is a jolt of adrenaline to energise a crowd, Galloway opted for the most direct route possible. He wanted to convey that he could do things now that he couldn’t do in that lame WWE, and he wanted to present himself as an aggressive hard man. He accomplished that with a song in which the word “F*ck!” was screamed after a heavy, pacy guitar riff.
It was stupid. It was awesome. It was a great soundtrack to his crunching, super-credible ring work.
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