WWE Clash at the Castle: Oddsmakers Pick a New Favorite in Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre Main Event
WWE's Clash at the Castle pay-per-view on Sept. 3 will see Drew McIntyre challenge Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship. Despite Reigns' run as champion eclipsing 700 days, the oddsmakers at BetOnline actually gave both "The Tribal Chief" and "The Scottish Warrior" equal odds of winning the main event when the initial bettings odds were published. However, since then news of McIntyre dealing with a back injury resulting in him getting pulled from live events has been made public. As a result, Reigns is once again favorited to win the match, with Thursday's odds placing him at -150 to McIntyre's +110.
Despite the back issue, McIntyre was still on Monday Night Raw this week and cut an excellent promo before a match with Kevin Owens. That bout wound up getting thrown out when The Usos hit the ring.
McIntyre spoke with Chris Van Vliet about the event on the Insight podcast earlier this week. Having a major WWE pay-per-view in the UK for the first time since 1992 was something McIntyre pushed hard for back when he was WWE Champion in 2020.
"When I say that I dreamt of moments when I was a kid, I dreamt of main eventing WrestleMania and all these big moments that seemed attainable. In my mind they were attainable but nobody else believed that I could do it, coming from Scotland to the WWE. But the idea of main eventing a UK stadium show the level of SummerSlam 1992 didn't seem possible because they didn't run UK stadium shows. This is something I actively talked about, actively pursued and actively asked questions about for years, especially when I became WWE Champion. I had a lot more media going around at the time, especially high-profile media, and I mentioned it all the frigging time," McIntyre said.
"Thankfully I guess that there were some talks going on behind closed doors that I didn't know about," he continued. "It got to a point where I talked about it so much that someone had to say to me 'Do you know something you shouldn't know?' I said 'Nope, I know nothing. I have just got certain goals that I have been pushing for a while. You do what you are doing and I will do what I am doing and hopefully this will work out.' Thankfully it did work out, I got involved in the process eventually and it is happening now. I would love to take the credit for it but it's the unsung heroes behind closed doors that work in WWE that make these things happen. The problem with it being that if it did happen and nobody cared and nobody bought tickets for it, they kind of needed a public scapegoat. The fans would go 'McIntyre you were wrong you idiot!' The blame would fall here so I am happy that it worked out and happier, proud that I am main eventing and fighting for the title in the first stadium show in the UK in 30 years."