From 2020 to 2023, Roman Reigns was the undisputed biggest name in professional wrestling.
From the Bloodlines storyline, to his comeback from cancer, to his place at the top of World Wrestling Entertainment’s card, accompanied by the managerial genius that is Paul Heyman, there was no denying who, indeed, was the big dog.
You could even argue that Reigns’ reign goes back further than that, as the company pushed to build him into the next big attraction.
But in 2024, things began to shift.
The return of CM Punk — a motivated and happy CM Punk — began to align the stars for longtime WWE star Drew McIntyre.
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Now, McIntrye has long been a top-of-the card talent, but the return of Punk, who feuded with McIntrye for most of the year, proved to be the magic ingredient to push McIntyre to the next level — in his case, the top of the card.
The McIntyre/Punk storyline had everything: Two very gifted veteran performers, real-life conflict stemming from Punk’s departure from WWE and the fact he was publicly critical of the company for years after leaving and some epic matches. They arguably had WWE’s match of the year at Bad Blood in their Hell in a Cell battle.
But what they also had was the support of the Paul (Triple H) Levesque-led era of the WWE, an era that lets stories breathe and be told organically. Reigns benefited, to a large degree, in the same way.
While former WWE chairman Vince McMahon still had his hand in the proverbial cookie jar at times during the Bloodlines story, it was Levesque and company largely driving the ship.
Because of that, Punk and McIntyre were able to tell a terrific story, have a series of great matches and really propel one another further up the card. In fact, some (yours truly included) would argue that McIntyre is poised to become the top guy in the company as 2025 unfolds.
Now, some of you will point out that he’s on a match losing streak. Yep, he is. And what better way to build him up than to stack the odds against him as we head into WrestleMania season?
McIntyre recently spoke to Postmedia about his work in 2024, toeing the line between being in character and out, much as he does on TV with great effectiveness these days.
Asked about his rise up the ranks in 2024, McIntrye said it took going home after his Hell in a Cell match with Punk to deal with a real-life family emergency to get his priorities in line.
“It’s interesting just the way I think about things these days,” he said on No Holds Barred with Rob Wong and yours truly when asked about how proud he is of his work in 2024. “If you’d asked me that a year ago, I’d be like ‘Yes,’ and have so much gratitude, all the work and everything was worth it.
“But I think back then perhaps I was just trying too hard in every way and being a little bit of a try hard and it wasn’t until I went home dealing with personal tragedy after Hell in a Cell, that I realized ‘I’m with my real family, we’re dealing with a real situation, they’ve sacrificed so much.’”
Meanwhile, he said, the contact from his WWE family wasn’t what he said he’d have expected it to be.
“I’m hearing such a lack of contact with my so-called family, my brothers and sisters in the locker room, and not only that, but the fans had moved right on,” McIntyre said. “Wait a minute, how did I not see this? My entire career doesn’t matter.
“You might be Stone Cold or The Undertaker, but unless you’re right in the fans’ faces, they move on. We’re 52 weeks a year, of course they move on to the next person.”
As such, he said, he returned late in 2024 with his priorities in check — and those priorities are to look out for No. 1.
“I’ve got to get out of this industry what I want, so that I’m not sitting there one day with regrets and what-ifs because they’re going to move on anyway,” he said. “I’m going to stop giving, giving, giving so much and caring so much. Take, take, take and do it for myself and do it for my family.
“Coming with that mindset, which I had leading into 2024 but really do these days and seeing the response, it’s like ‘Alright, I should have done this a long time ago because I’ve got these accolades lying around my room for like talker of the year and all of this stuff,” he said, showing off a plaque in his room. “As much as it would have meant to me before, my mentality now is ‘Yeah, you’re damn right.’
“With the freedom we have now, I know if they give me the ball, I’m going to put it in the back of the net. As much as I’ve got gratitude, it’s more ‘You’re damn right, I am the best.’”
McIntyre’s ability to meld reality and fiction, sometimes meticulously, are what have made his character so intriguing and have him on the brink of greatness.
Could a storyline with the returning-and-then-retiring John Cena be what puts him over the top in 2025? If McIntrye has it his way, it will.
“It’s not would, either. I think it’s should, 100%,” he said when asked if he’d like to be involved in the storyline with Cena, who will work a final year for WWE in 2025 before retiring. “When CM Punk first came back, peoples’ instant reactions were ‘I’d like to see this or this and my name wasn’t mentioned. I was like ‘Hey, there are plenty of stories here,’ with my personal feelings and the environment we live in and if I get the chance, I’m going to make this frigging count.
“With John, I’ve got 10 times the stories. There are very few people who were around him, especially those growing up around him, left. Cody and I are the only two who are under 40 from that previous generation that grew up around John and have a lot of things to say, a lot of them are chummy, chummy. I may have some more interesting things to say. I do have some more interesting things to say and when, not if, I get the opportunity, on the microphone, much like Punk.
“I know how good John is, I want to be able to get that chance to go back and forth and say our piece and make people think, just like Punk and I, ‘Oh my god, there’s something really special here.’ I’m not letting him retire and disappear into the night without getting that match because we have never, ever had a one-on-one match.
“We’re going to have that one-on-one match and I’m going to be the one who sends him packing, not some new guy. “
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