Drew McIntyre Admits He’s Surprised WWE Fans Haven’t Turned On Him Yet

It’s been over a year now since Drew McIntyre beat Brock Lesnar in the main event of WrestleMania 36, captured his first world championship and became the top star of Monday Night Raw. And while he has spent the majority of his time atop the Red Brand without any live crowds to play off of, he has seemingly managed to buck the trend of vocal WWE fans turning on whichever star gets positioned as “the guy” in the company (see Seth Rollins in 2019 and Roman Reigns’ pre-SummerSlam 2018 babyface run). That fan support was on full display last month at WrestleMania 37 when fans at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium gave McIntyre a massive ovation to begin the two-day event.

McIntyre talked about that reaction during a recent interview with Bleacher Report, saying, “I didn’t know what to expect to be honest with you. You mentioned I’ve been in the WWE title scene since January 2020. Literally a year and a half of constant Drew content. Drew’s normally opening the show, main-eventing the show, multiple segments. He’s all across social media. You’re seeing a lot of Drew.

“In the past when that’s happened, sometimes our fans look for the next cool thing and their attention span wavers and perhaps they’re not going to stay into that person because they’re like, ‘OK, we like this person, but what’s the new thing I can get into right now?’ Or even reject the person who’s supposed to be the good guy,” he continued.

McIntyre added, “I really didn’t know. All I knew was that I didn’t mind. I’ve been around long enough where as long as they care, one way or another, as long as there’s no silence when I walk out there, that’s all I care about. I’ll roll with the punches and adjust on the fly. When you have live fans, you’re about to do that and adjust to how they’re reacting. It’s how you dictate the pace of your match and interviews, etc. But just to walk out and hear the cheers initially blew my mind. We’ve seen good guys in the past get massive, massive boos, but people are emotionally invested one way or another. I think it’s pretty crazy that from what I gather, people have been pretty much digging what I’ve been doing for a solid year and a half. That’s not lost on me with how difficult that is to do in this day and age.”

McIntyre will take part in a triple threat match for the WWE Championship this Sunday at WrestleMania Backlash, taking on current champ Bobby Lashley and Braun Strowman.