{"id":17813,"date":"2018-04-23T23:23:14","date_gmt":"2018-04-24T03:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=17813"},"modified":"2018-04-23T23:23:14","modified_gmt":"2018-04-24T03:23:14","slug":"drew-mcintyre-hail-conqueror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2018\/04\/23\/drew-mcintyre-hail-conqueror\/","title":{"rendered":"Drew McIntyre: All Hail The Conqueror&#8217;s Return (VIDEOS)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On tonight&#8217;s <em><strong>Raw<\/strong><\/em>, the tag team of <strong>Dolph Ziggler<\/strong> and <strong>Drew McIntyre<\/strong> continued to impress, with a decisive victory of <strong>Titus Worldwide<\/strong>&#8216;s <strong>Titus O&#8217;Neil<\/strong> and, more specifically, <strong>Apollo Crews<\/strong>. Following the match, Ziggler told the WWE Universe that his problem before was that he had no one to watch his back in the locker room and now he does, before handing the mic to the 32-year old Scotsman that towered over Ziggler&#8217;s own six foot, 220 pound frame. The pairing may seem oddly random at first, but in many ways it makes perfects sense. For nearly a year, the two had an on-again off-again partnership, under the management of <strong>Vickie Guerrero<\/strong>. Starting in late 2010, they teamed against such teams as <strong>Matt Hardy &amp; R-Truth<\/strong> and <strong>MVP &amp; Kaval<\/strong> (Low Ki), last teaming to take down <strong>The Big Show<\/strong> in a Handicap Match on Monday Night Raw in July of 2011.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"SmackDown: MVP &amp; Kaval vs. Dolph Ziggler &amp; Drew McIntyre\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XDqb8CA54Wk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Drew McIntyre: THE CHOSEN ONE<\/strong><\/h3>\n<figure id=\"attachment_17824\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17824\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17824\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/04\/the_dashing_ones_by_mr_igfx-d6s9pcu-e1524539125915.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-17824\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>By 2013, the two were on a rocket pace to stardom in the WWE. Drew McIntyre was a 23-year old Intercontinental Champion and Tag Team Champion with <strong>Cody Rhodes<\/strong> in The Dashing Ones. Meanwhile, Ziggler had had a meteoric rise with an Intercontinental Championship, US Championship and\u00a0<em>two\u00a0<\/em>reigns as World Heavyweight Champion, including one of the greatest Money In The Bank cash-ins in arguably one of the greatest Raw After Mania moments of all time.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dolph Ziggler cashes in Money in the Bank to become World Heavyweight Champion: Raw, April 8, 2013\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MKqtFqpRLEk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Drew McIntyre: THE EXILE<\/strong><\/h3>\n<figure id=\"attachment_17816\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17816\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17816\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/04\/SUR12_Photo_001-e1524536775203.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-17816\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But by 2014, the tables turned. For Ziggler, some injuries stopped his momentum, and he seemed to plateau. Sure he&#8217;d win four more Intercontinental titles and one more US title run, but his unlikely rise from <strong>The Spirit Squad<\/strong> and a <strong>Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW)<\/strong> demotion (after being a former World Tag Team Champion) to World Heavyweight Champion plateaued and he became the Gatekeeper to the main event. He may have his flirts with the big belt, but he was forever the standard bearer for the midcard. For Drew McIntyre, his stock fell considerably farther. He went from being &#8220;The Chosen One&#8221; (in kayfabe and Vince McMahon&#8217;s eyes) to being the least likeable character of <strong>3MB<\/strong>. By the end of June 2014, he was released from the WWE. But instead of going into a funk at losing his dream job, he took it as motivation to be better than he&#8217;d been. In an interview with <strong>SportBible<\/strong> earlier this year, McIntyre stated that he &#8220;saw being released as an opportunity, and thought &#8216;Right Drew here you go, you can either be miserable or really show the world what you can do. Take everything you&#8217;ve [learned] and apply it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Drew McIntyre: THE CONQUEST BEGINS<\/strong><\/h3>\n<figure id=\"attachment_17825\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17825\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17825\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/04\/Is-NXT-WWEs-Top-Brand-Like-Drew-McIntyre-Thinks-696x404-e1524539427623.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"348\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-17825\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Impact Wrestling<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>He returned to his former UK indie name of <strong>Drew Galloway<\/strong>, got himself in the best shape of his life, and took the international independent scene by force. &#8220;I applied everything I [learned] and traveled across the world, became the busiest wrestler on the entire planet,&#8221; said McIntyre to SportBible. &#8220;I built my brand and during that time I grew up a lot, as a man, but I also learned a lot as a professional \u2013 how to be a main event guy, how to conduct myself in every possible way and apply everything I&#8217;d learned in WWE.&#8221; A product of the Scottish indie scene of the late 2000s, he became a big star in the UK via Glasgow&#8217;s ICW (the Scottish promotion that has also provided talent to the WWE such as <strong>Wolfgang, Noam Dar, Nikki Cross<\/strong>, and Mae Young Classic competitors <strong>Piper Niven<\/strong>\/<strong>Viper<\/strong> and <strong>Kay Lee Ray<\/strong>). When he left the WWE in the summer of 2014, he returned home literally in every sense of the word &#8211; back to ICW. But he didn&#8217;t stay full time &#8211; he also became a regular with <strong>EVOLVE, Impact Wrestling<\/strong> and <strong>WCPW<\/strong> (now Defiant Wrestling), as well as working with the likes of <strong>PWG, RevPro, AAA, wXw, OTT , House of Glory (HOG), AAW<\/strong> and many, many more. He wasn&#8217;t lying when he said he travelled the world to get better. He did and he\u00a0<em>did<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"EVOLVE Mini-Doc: Drew Galloway\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/q8rUA4GOnBc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Everywhere he went he dominated, with his intensity, his passion and his brutal combination of athleticism, technique and power. In many ways, Drew&#8217;s post-WWE career was the <strong>Batman<\/strong> to <strong>Cody Rhodes<\/strong>&#8216; <strong>Joker<\/strong> &#8211; but let&#8217;s be honest. The villains always just seemed cooler. But as Galloway, he won over an entire internet fan base that was sure that 3MB had been the final kiss of death on a once promising career. In August 2014, just two months after his release, he defeated <strong>Chris Hero<\/strong> (now <strong>Kassius Ohno<\/strong>) to become the new <strong>EVOLVE<\/strong> Champion, a belt he held for 336 days. He then returned to Glasgow and won ICW&#8217;s World Heavyweight Championship (holding it for 378 days), before heading to Denmark and winning the <strong>Dansk Pro Wrestling (DPW)<\/strong> Heavyweight Champion, holding <em>that<\/em> one for 302 days. In Australia, he won the <strong>Outback Championship Wrestling (OCW)<\/strong> Heavyweight Championship (175 days), the <strong>Scottish Wrestling Alliance (SWA)<\/strong> Heavyweight Championship (217 days), won the <strong>Dragon Gate USA<\/strong> Open The Dragon Gate Championship (104 days), TNA\/Impact Wrestling World Heavyweight Champion (89 days) and WCPW World Champion (150 days). He had literally conquered continents. He also excelled in tag team wrestling, in EVOLVE Tag Team Championship runs with both <strong>Johnny Gargano<\/strong> and <strong>Chuck Taylor<\/strong> (aka DUSTIN).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Drew McIntyre&#039;s Return to WWE on Wrestlemania Weekend\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BR4bp3qKHBE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In early 2017, his contract with Impact Wrestling expired and he became a free agent once again, finishing out dates with EVOLVE and in the UK as well. Months later, he appeared at ringside at <em><strong>NXT Takeover: Orlando<\/strong> <\/em>over WrestleMania weekend, later announcing he was returning to the WWE Universe after three years.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Drew McIntrye reveals he has signed with NXT: NXT Takeover: Orlando 4K Exclusive, April 1, 2017\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qjU3i2HCprg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s now April 2018, and both men are returning to <em>Monday Night Raw<\/em> after lengthy absences (some longer than others). A year of uncertainty and departure rumors for Dolph Ziggler, and a solid run in NXT as NXT Champion for McIntyre (before injury sidelined him for the past several months), exploding onto the screen from two different directions of the same story. Dolph Ziggler was arriving fired up show people what they&#8217;d been missing for years (as in, WWE Creative) for the plateau of stagnation his character has had the past few years, while Drew McIntyre (nee Galloway) has is returning to the Great Battlefield having conquered the independents of the United States, United Kingdom, and mainland Europe, conquered Impact Wrestling, and conquering NXT, all in a span of three years. He&#8217;s like the wrestling version of <strong>Alexander The Great<\/strong>. And now he&#8217;s back in the WWE.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Titus Worldwide vs. Dolph Ziggler &amp; Drew McIntyre: Raw, April 23, 2018\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JVUhI8ao1SQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Announcing his intentions tonight on <em>Monday Night Raw<\/em>, Drew McIntyre laid down the gauntlet to the entire locker room. He has seen the brass ring and let it slip away out of laziness, and had gone on to become an main event player every promotion he worked for after, including WWE&#8217;s &#8220;developmental&#8221;. And he called the entire locker room out for what he had previously suffered from, with a warning that he was not slowing down his momentum. &#8220;I&#8217;m especially dangerous to a locker room that has gone soft,&#8221; he told the crowd. &#8220;When I walk around I see no fire! No ambition! People walking around collecting checks and it makes me sick.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_17823\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17823\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17823\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2018\/04\/drew-mcintyre-e1524538965985.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-17823\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>For a man that was once considered one of <strong>Vince McMahon<\/strong>&#8216;s greatest hopes and legitimate &#8220;Chosen Ones&#8221; (McIntyre ever referred to himself last week as The Prodigal Son returning), his sentiment shared a certain sentiment of an infamous conversation that <strong>Kevin Nash<\/strong> recalled having with Vince McMahon at one of his WWE returns in an interview with <strong>Jim Ross<\/strong> this year.\u00a0&#8220;I remember one time I was talking to Vince \u2013 it wasn&#8217;t the last <em>WrestleMania<\/em>, I think it was the one before \u2013 and I just asked him how things were,&#8221; said Nash. &#8220;And he goes, &#8216;The thing that&#8217;s changed more than anything, [is] back when you broke in here in the fed, it was a shark tank. Like, everybody went after that top prize, and it was a battle. Now, [wrestlers] wait for him to come around with a sword and anoint them.&#8217; It&#8217;s just not the same anymore.&#8221; (<em>Transcription:\u00a0<\/em><em>The Ross Report via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wrestlinginc.com\/wi\/news\/2018\/0101\/635463\/kevin-nash-on-what-vince-mcmahon-recently-told-him-regarding\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WrestlingINC<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s almost like The Prodigal Son is speaking the sentiments of Vince McMahon as his new Chosen One.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DMcIntyreWWE?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@DMcIntyreWWE<\/a>, drive and focus brought him to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WWENXT?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@WWENXT<\/a>, which brought him opportunity back to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Raw?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Raw<\/a>&#8230;but he doesn\u2019t want to be \u201cchosen\u201d \u2014 this time, he\u2019ll take it. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/WeAreNXT?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#WeAreNXT<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/jzqZ0YdwX2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/jzqZ0YdwX2<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Triple H (@TripleH) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TripleH\/status\/986963919670407168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 19, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3><strong>SOME OF DREW GALLOWAYS TOP MATCHES FROM HIS 3-YEAR CONQUEST OF THE INDEPENDENTS:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Will Ospreay vs Drew Galloway - WCPW Title (Exit Wounds 2017)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AR-QHXaAaJU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Drew Galloway vs Ricochet - English World Cup Bonus Match\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BjYlMxfld8g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=s9nAnhWYYgY<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On tonight&#8217;s Raw, the tag team of Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre continued to impress, with a decisive victory of Titus Worldwide&#8216;s Titus O&#8217;Neil and, more specifically, Apollo Crews. Following the match, Ziggler told the WWE Universe that his problem before was that he had no one to watch his back in the locker room [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":649,"featured_media":17828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_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":[2,25,3],"tags":[167,686,51],"class_list":["post-17813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-raw","category-wwe-universe","tag-dolph-ziggler","tag-drew-mcintyre","tag-raw"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17813","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\/649"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}