Drew McIntyre is a pretty effective WWE heel (the professional wrestling term for a bad guy). How effective? I’m a 38-year-old man and had more than a few butterflies for our “SummerSlam”-timed interview. McIntyre told us the children of his WWE colleagues are also pretty frightened of him, which was probably not a compliment to my admitted nerves.
Fortunately, this writer was safely locked in his Beverly Hills hotel room, long outside of Claymore Kick range — even for an athletic giant like “Raw” Superstar McIntyre. With enough courage mustered up to talk wrestling and more with the “Scottish Psychopath,” I asked McIntyre (real name Andrew McLean Galloway IV) why someone as big and powerful as he prefers a flying kick as a finishing maneuver over his devastating Inverted Alabama Slam.
McIntyre told us he likes the Claymore Kick as a finisher “more” because with the Inverted Alabama Slam, “I’ve got to wear my opponent down enough where it calls for it.”
Alternatively, with the Claymore, “It’s a case where I can do it to everyone. I know I can do it to Braun Strowman. But to actually get someone worn down enough to get hooked into the Reverse Alabama Slam takes a second.”
“With the Claymore, as you’ve seen over the past, it hasn’t been years, but a year and a half I’ve been back — it can come from literally anywhere,” McIntyre continued. “And I think I’ve hit more of my Claymores on the floor outside the ring than I have inside the ring.”
“I’m 6’5 legit — with my boots on I’m about 6’7 — and at 265-270 [pounds], and when I’m coming at you full speed, kicking through the air and kicking you in the face, that’s a pretty effective finish,” he added. “It can come from any time, on the turn, off the ropes, on the floor — it can take anyone down.”
It’s also proved a pretty awesome combination move for his recent alliance with fellow WWE baddie Dolph Ziggler.
“The first thing that crossed my mind, the second I heard [about our alliance], I looked down and went, ‘Zig-Zag/Claymore,’” McIntyre said of their perfectly synced-up respective finishers that have terrorized WWE TV and house shows. “Like, I knew right away what our finish was.”
“It’s like a great song,” he told us. “Like you always hear famous musicians [answer questions about] how long it took you to write this great hit: ‘That one came easy, but this [other] one took forever.’”
Catch McIntyre kicking people’s heads off Monday nights on WWE flagship series “Raw,” which airs from 8-11 p.m. ET on USA Network.
“SummerSlam 2019” will live-stream Sunday on WWE Network, starting at 7/6c. Brave fans can get an autograph from McIntyre at his Metro Toronto Convention Centre meet-and-greet on Friday beginning at 5 p.m. ET.
Check back with TheWrap soon for more from our conversation with McIntyre, who we promise is actually a very nice guy in real life — so go take a picture, Toronto.