{"id":152557,"date":"2026-02-11T06:30:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T11:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=152557"},"modified":"2026-02-10T20:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T01:53:12","slug":"the-three-biggest-threats-to-drew-mcintyre-on-the-road-to-wrestlemania-42","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2026\/02\/11\/the-three-biggest-threats-to-drew-mcintyre-on-the-road-to-wrestlemania-42\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Biggest Stars Who Could Derail Drew McIntyre’s Road to WWE WrestleMania 42"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drew McIntyre won the WWE Championship from Cody Rhodes in a three-stages-of-hell match on the first Friday Night SmackDown episode of 2026. McIntyre then retained the title against Sami Zayn at the Royal Rumble and has been feuding with Cody Rhodes and Jacob Fatu on SmackDown. As WWE approaches <\/span>WrestleMania 42<\/a>, here are three major threats to Drew McIntyre’s title reign.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cody Rhodes<\/h2>\n

Cody Rhodes should have had a rematch clause for the WWE Title after losing it to McIntyre. However, McIntyre played with words in the contract they signed and legally assured that Rhodes would not be guaranteed a rematch clause. Rhodes decided to win the Rumble to get back in the title picture, but McIntyre illegally eliminated him and unceremoniously screwed him out of the Rumble.<\/p>\n

Clearly, the feud between McIntyre and Rhodes is not finished. Rhodes is obsessed with getting his revenge, and he has not stopped giving McIntyre a hard time on SmackDown. He continues to brawl with him on a weekly basis until he gets a title shot. Elimination Chamber seems to be Cody’s last chance to punch his ticket to Mania, unless he pulls some strings with Nick Aldis and The Rock<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Jacob Fatu<\/h2>\n

Jacob Fatu<\/a> was heinously attacked by a mystery assailant and got his teeth knocked down his throat back in October. Ever since then, he has been on a scavenger hunt to figure out who did it. His main suspects are Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre. Fatu firmly believes that McIntyre did it since Fatu was supposed to battle McIntyre to determine the next contender for Cody’s WWE Title at the time.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo Credit: By Diego Serrano<\/a> – WWE Royal Rumble 2025, CC BY 2.0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=159687920<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fatu suspects that McIntyre did that to get a shortcut to the title after seeing Fatu as a threat. Granted, McIntyre denied attacking Fatu and claimed that he never lies and would not be afraid to admit that he did such a dastardly deed. Nonetheless, that didn’t faze Fatu, as he has not stopped giving McIntyre a hard time and continues to brawl with him on a weekly basis until he gets a title shot.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Randy Orton<\/h2>\n

Randy Orton is the dark horse candidate to win the WWE Title from Drew McIntyre. Ironically, he is the dark horse when this could be his fifteenth world title in his career. However, he does have an agenda to avenge his Legacy star pupil, Cody Rhodes, and dethroning McIntyre would do the trick. Also, there have been clues hinted at Orton being a potential suspect for the Fatu attacker.<\/p>\n

Orton is heavily connected in some way with everyone pertinent to the WWE Title in the main event scene. He already qualified for the Elimination Chamber, so anyone would be remiss to not see him as a threat to the title on the road to Mania. Despite how lackluster his momentum has been in 2025-2026, he is an established megastar who will always fit like a glove in the title picture.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not down with just that and would like even more WWE SmackDown Coverage from <\/span>Mark Justice<\/span><\/a>, check out more of his articles right here on LWOS and subscribe to his popular YouTube channel by clicking <\/span>HERE<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/strong><\/p>\n

Header photo \u2013 WikiMedia Creative Commons \u2013 Stay tuned to the <\/i><\/em>Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>for more on Drew McIntyre and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the significant news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.<\/i><\/em><\/amp-ad><\/p>\n

You can check out WWE programming on\u00a0<\/i><\/em>Netflix<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Raw),\u00a0<\/i><\/em>USA Network<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(SmackDown),\u00a0<\/i><\/em>The CW<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(NXT),\u00a0<\/i><\/em>Tubi<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(WWE Evolve),\u00a0<\/i><\/em>A&E<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(WWE Superstar Sunday \u2013 Rivals, WWE LFG, and Greatest Moments), and\u00a0<\/i><\/em>Peacock<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(WWE Main Event, as well as archives and premium live event streaming). Follow WWE on social media to relive top moments and matches on\u00a0<\/i><\/em>YouTube<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>, and catch fast-paced action on X (<\/i><\/em>WWE Speed<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>).<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drew McIntyre won the WWE Championship from Cody Rhodes in a three-stages-of-hell match on the first Friday Night SmackDown episode of 2026. McIntyre then retained the title against Sami Zayn at the Royal Rumble and has been feuding with Cody Rhodes and Jacob Fatu on SmackDown. As WWE approaches WrestleMania 42, here are three major […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5747,"featured_media":145375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[686],"class_list":["post-152557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","tag-drew-mcintyre"],"modified_by":"Michael Joseph Sugue, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5747"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152557"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152963,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152557\/revisions\/152963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}