Drew McIntrye Says WWE Talent Don't Have "That Fire" Like In NXT Or During The Attitude Era
Drew McIntrye spoke to Planeta Wrestling during the WWE European tour, which concluded this past weekend. Below are some highlights:
WWE talent lacking motivation:
"As I was hurt, I had time to sit back and watch the show, and was able to watch more wrestling than I have in a long time because I have been so busy in general. I was really sitting back and watching WWE Raw and studying it, and I noticed basically that it wasn't necessarily all killer. They have some great athletes, obviously, but they don't necessarily... they don't look like they should be there. I went backstage in one of their shows, and I said this in another interview on WWE.com, and I noticed that the atmosphere was a bit different than when I was first here. There wasn't any tension in the air. There was a lack of that competitive spirit backstage with each other.
"Back in the day, WWE and WCW used to have this rivalry, and the reason why they were so good was because they had to bring their 'A Game' every single week until it closed. WWE had all these alpha males; they had the best of the best all fighting for the top spot, and made great TV for the fans and it grew the audience and that was a great thing about it, but now there is only a few people willing to fight for the top spot which means that we have 3 hours of Raw and 2 hours of SmackDown, that is a lot of open air of people who are just happy to be there and happy to be in WWE, and do what is asked of them, and collecting a paycheck. Now, whenever I look at the screen and since I've been doing this for a long time, I can look into their eyes and tell if they want to be here, and if they have that fire into their eyes, and when I don't see that it frustrates me. I know down in NXT there is about 100 people with that fire in their eyes who are willing to take that spot from them in that second, so I am here to start eradicating the people that don't want to be here, and to set an example for everybody and bring back the way things used to be."
WWE firing being the best thing that happened to him:
"I was one of those people. I would sit back, and yeah, I had all these aspirations about how I wished I would do this, and I know I can do this, but was I willing to fight for it? Was I in the gym looking as best as I can look? Was I pitching ideas? Was I doing everything 100%? No, I was working hard when I left the company and I had no guarantee money coming in. I became one of the top wrestlers outside of WWE in the world, and it all happened because I started giving it my everything. I really wasn't giving my everything in the top company in the world. I can make all these comments and all these judgements now because I was one of those guys. Being fired was the best thing that ever happened to me. I tell people that the best thing that can ever happen to you is getting fired and you can either sink or swim and I swam like hell. The reason why I swam the way I swam was because there was nothing else for me. All I know is professional wrestling and sports entertainment. This is all I know and I wanted to give it everything that I had."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Planeta Wrestling with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.