WWE’s Drew McIntyre on Why He Finishes With the Claymore Kick Over the Inverted Alabama Slam

Wrestler tells TheWrap the first thing he thought of when being informed about his Dolph Ziggler alliance was “Zig-Zag/Claymore”

Drew McIntyre
WWE

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.

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