Drew McIntyre Explains Why It’s Hard to Slice a WWE Ring Rope With a Sword

Drew McIntyre’s WWE presentation has been heavily intertwined with his sword, Angela, over the past few years. “The Scottish Warrior” doesn’t tend to use the sword outside of his entrance for fairly obvious reasons, but he did manage to slice through the top rope at WrestleMania 38 after defeating Baron Corbin. McIntyre explained in a recent interview with Cheap Heat that he wanted to incorporate the spot in order to give their match a bit more excitement but also admitted that the stunt wasn’t easy to pull off. 

“For this WrestleMania, I was frustrated considering I was [challenging for] the title a year prior and I went to Vince [McMahon] and asked him, I was like, ‘Hey, that spot we did, I think I can pull it off.’ He was like, ‘If you can do it, we can work on it but you don’t want a WrestleMania moment where you swing a sword at the ropes, what happened last time [when he tried and failed to cut the rope on a scrapped SmackDown segment]? It doesn’t work. Millions of people [will] just watch you bounce the sword off the rope, that’s not exactly the top babyface to have,’” McIntyre said (h/t Fightful).

How Drew McIntyre Pulled Off His Sword Stunt at WrestleMania

“We got to the day of Mania. I’m backstage practicing with our sword team, they’ve got a rope tied around the ring post pulling it as tight as they can. I’m trying to hit it, it’s not about power, it’s about technique and you have to [hit] that rope at the right angle. I was getting about six out of ten and I was getting worried close to the match, [it was] a little concerning,” he continued. “It’s WrestleMania, tens of millions of people are watching across the world and I’m gonna look like a buffoon. They basically gave me the option to take the risk and [asked me] if I wanted to do this or not, I said, ‘Damn right I wanna do it. If not, I’ll laugh it off somehow.’ Madcap [Moss] was great and did it in a way where I wasn’t running and swinging it, I was controlled as possible. He moved out of the way at the last second to give me the perfect positioning for the best chance of success and thank goodness it didn’t just go through the top rope, it went through the second rope and almost through the third rope. It looked awesome and it was a great visual, I did the pose afterward.”

McIntyre will be in action this Saturday at SummerSlam when he challenges Gunther for the Intercontinental Championship. Despite being a two-time WWE Champion, McIntyre has not held a title since live fans were brought back to WWE events in mid-2021.

WWE SummerSlam 2023 Card

• Undisputed WWE Universal Championship: Roman Reigns vs. Jey Uso (Tribal Combat Rules)
• World Heavyweight Championship: Seth Rollins vs. Finn Balor
• SmackDown Women’s Championship: Asuka vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Bianca Belair 
• Intercontinental Championship: Gunther vs. Drew McIntyre
• Cody Rhodes vs. Brock Lesnar 
• Ronda Rousey vs. Shayna Baszler
• Ricochet vs. Logan Paul
• SummerSlam Battle Royal