Drew McIntyre Discusses Being Fired By WWE In 2014

Former WWE Champion Drew McIntyre was interviewed on the Not Sam Wrestling podcast to promote his upcoming book, "A Chosen Destiny: My Story."

During the interview he talked about his first run in WWE and getting fired in 2014:

“I had to get a bit of a reality check, that’s for sure. I’ve always been fortunate. The top feud in Europe was myself and Sheamus before we got signed and came to America. I was the fastest developmental Superstar to TV from OVW, I was on TV three weeks later on SmackDown. Then I went to FCW and was tag team champion there with Wade Barrett. I was suddenly the heavyweight champion there. I was Dusty’s main guy and was always used to being on top. I was like, this is perfectly normal. I’m just the top guy wherever I go.

Then, all of a sudden, I made my debut on SmackDown. I didn’t know I was going to be ‘The Chosen One’ storyline until that night when I was backstage watching Vince cut the promo and I had to walk in and shake his hand and act like this was perfectly normal. As I found out later, it was far from normal and I did go through some hard things professionally, but especially personally that did affect my professional life and I fell hard. That’s where I got that reality check where I got perspective. I go into great detail about it in the book. Without that journey after the success initially and all the times I fell down, I would not be the wrestler I am today. I wouldn’t be the businessman I am today. I certainly wouldn’t be the man I am today because I was quite frankly, a body bag then.

“I was blaming a lot of other people and I wasn’t looking at myself honestly. As many difficult things I was going through personally, like my mom being sick and so far away in Scotland, which affected me dramatically, I wasn’t looking honestly at myself saying, ‘Where can I improve? You’re in good shape, but you can get in better shape. You have this accent. You’re not so comfortable with interviews. You’re trying to remember everything word for word, and it’s pretty clear to me that you can work on articulating yourself better.’

Then outside the ring, that’s when things started coming unglued. Instead of the usual couple of beers after the show, I wasn’t burning the candle at both ends at that point. The whole candle was engulfed in flames with gasoline thrown on top of it. I wasn’t in a good place. The truth is, I never told the company where I was at mentally or what I was going through, especially after my mom passed. That was me off the deep end. There was no saving me at that point. I was out of control. They checked in on me and I just kept a smile on my face. She would have wanted me to push forward.  She would have wanted me to keep going, which she would, but I was in a very bad place. I needed to step away and I didn’t step away. If they knew, they would have made me step away. They would have got me mental help. They have so many different programs in WWE to help if you’re having some difficult times. I just kept trying to push through. It was absolutely necessary for me to get fired to find myself.

Professionally, I had to step outside the bubble and realize, ‘Wow, you really let it slip through your fingers. This was your dream. You would have been happy to be the waterboy when you first got signed and you were complaining about not being in the top match every single night. You believed you should have been in the main event without putting in the work. Also, more importantly, I really had to find myself as a man because I was lost at the time and it required me to step away from the company and all that time outside the company. All the opportunities and platforms that were provided to start building my confidence and finding who I was going to be instead of playing all these characters that I played that were parts of my personality that were never the real me. Outside the company is when I started to relax and the more I was being myself, the more people started reacting to me. For the first time, I was getting these genuine reactions. The more I let them in, and the more I talked as Drew Galloway, the real person, the more they responded.”