{"id":95456,"date":"2021-07-06T12:00:16","date_gmt":"2021-07-06T16:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=95456"},"modified":"2021-07-06T09:57:20","modified_gmt":"2021-07-06T13:57:20","slug":"drew-mcintyre-recapture-2020-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/07\/06\/drew-mcintyre-recapture-2020-magic\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Drew McIntyre Recapture his 2020 Magic?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>2020 was a great year for <strong>Drew McIntyre. <\/strong>The Scottish Warrior\u2019s reversal of fortunes was a pro wrestling Cinderella story. Upon first signing with the WWE in his early twenties he was fast tracked to main event status, on the <em>Friday Night SmackDown <\/em>roster, \u00a0declared the \u201cChosen One\u201d and a future WWE champion by no less than <strong>Vince McMahon, <\/strong>and became Intercontinental Champion. The bottom fell out hard and fast just a short while later, as McIntyre lost his push and was demoted to a comedy stable, the air guitaring <strong>3MB<\/strong>, along with <strong>Heath Slater, Jinder Mahal, <\/strong>and, occasionally, <strong>Hornswoggle.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After being released by WWE in 2014, McIntyre hit the ground running on the indie scene, rebuilding his skills and credibility at promotions like <strong>ICW, AAW, AAA, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, <\/strong>and returning to televised pro wrestling on <em>IMPACT!<\/em><strong><em>.<\/em><\/strong> McIntyre traveled the globe capturing championships and reinventing himself, and his former employers took notice. McIntyre returned to WWE, on the <em>NXT <\/em>roster, and was later called up to <em>Monday Night Raw. <\/em>While he was initially cast as a heel, \u00a0in 2019 he won the <em>Royal Rumble <\/em>and turned face, \u00a0pitted against the formidable<strong> Brock Lesnar. <\/strong>McIntyre captured the WWE championship from Lesnar in 2020, at <em>WrestleMania 36.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Drew McIntyre wins the Royal Rumble Match: Royal Rumble 2020\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZbCZdkfXR8k?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>During his first championship reign, McIntyre basked in the glory of achieving his childhood dream, and successfully defended his title against challengers like <strong>Seth Rollins, Dolph Ziggler, Bobby Lashley, <\/strong>and <strong>Randy Orton. <\/strong>It would be Orton who proved to be McIntyre\u2019s most enduring foe in 2020, with Orton\u2019s villainy hyped to sinister levels, and McIntyre posed as his noble, heroic foil. McIntyre lost the title to Orton at 2020\u2019s <em>Hell in a Cell, <\/em>but regained it in a rare championship bout on Raw. In 2020, McIntyre conquered his bete noire, Orton, squared off with old friends turned adversaries like <strong>Sheamus, <\/strong>and veterans like <strong>Goldberg, <\/strong>all while schilling an upbeat \u2018dreams can come true\u2019 underdog narrative of overcoming adversity to reach the top of the card.<\/p>\n<p>McIntyre fell from this hard-won perch at 2021\u2019s <em>Elimination Chamber<\/em>, losing his title thanks to an opportunistic move from then Mr. Money in the Bank <strong>Miz, <\/strong>who cashed in on McIntyre as he was fresh off an impressive victory against Orton, Sheamus, <strong>Jeff Hardy, Kofi Kingston,<\/strong> and <strong>A.J. Styles.<\/strong> Miz lost the title to Lashley, who has been McIntyre\u2019s tundra to cross ever since.<\/p>\n<p>Raw\u2019s storytelling hit a slump of repetitive events in 2021, and McIntyre\u2019s character trajectory has been no exception. His holding pattern has been challenging Bobby Lashley for the WWE championship, and being pulverized by the punishing All Mighty One, usually with sneaky interference from <strong>MVP<\/strong>. In the meantime, McIntyre went from Apollonian hero to seething and frustrated lone wolf.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-94548\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/06\/Drew-McIntyre-WWE-Raw-card-e1624309592124.jpeg\" alt=\"Drew McIntyre WWE Raw card\" \/><\/p>\n<p>An alliance angle with <strong>Braun Strowman <\/strong>petered out, the absence of <strong>Keith Lee, <\/strong>and Sheamus\u2019s United States championship reign, have left McIntyre without one of the elements of his 2020 bit, drawing on the history between himself and the others as they tentatively became a team. 2021 has seen McIntyre largely without other performers to bounce off, and without a chance against Lashley.<\/p>\n<p>Real life<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/05\/25\/wwe-should-tread-carefully-drew-mcintyre\/\" target=\"_self\"> online chatter began <\/a>to build to grievances that McIntyre has been in the WWE championship title race picture-even on the losing end-for too long, at 500 plus days. Going into 2021\u2019s <em>Hell in a Cell, <\/em>a stipulation was placed on his bout with Lashley that if McIntyre lost, he would be forbidden to challenge Lashley again. Lose, he did, yet again.<\/p>\n<p>It was unclear at times if, as before, McIntyre was losing his push after attaining great heights, or if he was being repositioned anew as an underdog who beats the odds and rises to the top, slays giants, and defeats behemoths.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Drew McIntyre plans to become the next Mr. Money in the Bank: Raw Talk, June 28, 2021\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/S3sigjx3pzU?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 seems to be the latter. On June 28\u2019s Raw, McIntyre\u2019s fortunes reversed, yet again. On June 21, McIntyre lost a qualifying match for the upcoming <em>Money in the Bank<\/em> pay per view to <strong>Riddle. <\/strong>The two met again, with Riddle fighting as Randy Orton\u2019s proxy, along with A.J. Styles in a triple threat for a last chance at entry to MitB. Styles was rescued from a pin by Riddle by his bodyguard\/tag partner <strong>Omos, <\/strong>narrowing down the field to Riddle and McIntyre.<\/p>\n<p>McIntyre took advantage of Riddle\u2019s incredulity to fell him with a Claymore kick, and scored a pinfall victory over the \u201cBro.\u201d McIntyre is now one step closer to being Mr. Money in the Bank.<\/p>\n<p>However, if he does claim the distinctive green briefcase, there is still the stipulation of not being allowed to challenge Lashley again to work around.<\/p>\n<p>Then, there is A.J. Styles. The Phenomenal One was dragged away before the count of three on Riddle\u2019s pin, meaning he didn\u2019t lose his shot at the MitB ladder match by being defeated in the triple threat. He could still be a dark horse spoiler, somehow.<\/p>\n<p>However it comes to pass, 2021\u2019s hard slog proved to be crafted as a chance to reiterate that McIntyre has a knack for overcoming the odds. It looks like he is being positioned to do so again, recapturing 2020\u2019s magic.<\/p>\n<p><em>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/watch.wwe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WWE Network<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.peacocktv.com\/watch\/home\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Peacock<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Looking to talk wrestling, pro football, or any number of sports? Head on over to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/boards\/index.php\" target=\"_self\">LWOS Boards<\/a>\u00a0to engage in conversation with fellow fans!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2020 was a great year for Drew McIntyre. The Scottish Warrior\u2019s reversal of fortunes was a pro wrestling Cinderella story. Upon first signing with the WWE in his early twenties he was fast tracked to main event status, on the Friday Night SmackDown roster, \u00a0declared the \u201cChosen One\u201d and a future WWE champion by no [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3715,"featured_media":77206,"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":[2,25,26,4,3],"tags":[145,183,255,167,686,267,151,2633,730,270,7033,6984,76,399],"class_list":["post-95456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-raw","category-smackdown","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","tag-aj-styles","tag-bobby-lashley","tag-braun-strowman","tag-dolph-ziggler","tag-drew-mcintyre","tag-goldberg","tag-heath-slater","tag-hornswoggle","tag-jinder-mahal","tag-keith-lee","tag-omos","tag-riddle","tag-seth-rollins","tag-sheamus"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95456","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\/3715"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}