WWE champion Drew McIntyre is planning to head home to Scotland and the rest of the UK as soon as possible to show off his belt.
The 35-year-old Scot became the first Briton to win the championship when he pinned Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania 36 back in March.
Originally from Ayr, they champion, who's real name is Drew Galloway, worked for the WWE for seven years before being sacked.
He returned in 2017 after three years on the independent scene.
Since then he has climbed the ranks until he became the main man on the company’s flagship Raw brand, and admits he can't wait to return home and celebrate his accomplishment.
Currently the coronavirus pandemic is preventing him from doing so, but McIntyre says at the first opportunity he'll return to the UK to show off his belt.
READ MORE: The heavyweight way to kickstart Glasgow's first live-audience sporting event audience campaign
He said: “The second the governments agree we are good and the flights are normal you will see Drew McIntyre on that first flight, flying straight back with his title and then doing my open-top bus tour."
“It is the coolest thing ever, it is still surreal I’m the WWE Champion, it is still surreal I’m the first UK WWE Champion ever.
At @SummerSlam, it will be @DMcIntyreWWE vs. @RandyOrton for the #WWEChampionship!#WWERaw pic.twitter.com/pRoPmYEEbx
— WWE (@WWE) July 30, 2020
“I just really want to get back home and show everybody and say, ‘hey, here it is. It is possible sometimes that if you work hard enough and believe hard enough, the biggest dreams do come true’.”
WWE programming has continued despite the Covid-19 outbreak, with Wrestlemania taking place over two nights in front of an empty arena at the company’s Performance Centre in Florida.
McIntyre revealed the differences between performing to a regular wrestling crowd and then having to adjust to not having them in place.
“The WWE Universe, that is our fans, are the number one superstars,” he added.
READ MORE: Scottish rugby deserves a National Lottery windfall
“They create the atmosphere, they kind of dictate where the matches go and where the interviews go and we do play off of their emotions so we have had to think outside the box.
“With WWE and Drew McIntyre we always innovate and adapt to the situation, nobody has been in this situation so it is a case of throwing things against the wall and see what is working.
“Now to reach the fans I tend to look down the camera lens so I can actually look them in the eye, which I wouldn’t have done in the past.
“I think it is a pretty cool time to develop some deeper characters with more layers, when the crowd is there you do your thing and play up to them, you have your character but there is only so much you can do.
“This is basically like a regular television show right now I guess, the attention is all on you, you have got that moment and got that time.”
McIntyre’s rise to the top can be surmised by the fact he is the number one card in the WWE’s new Slam Attax Reloaded trading card game.
“I never get tired on my face to do with anything to do with WWE,” he said.
“The coolest thing of all this time, it still blows my mind, is my card is the ‘101 card’ which means it is completely unbeatable – it is the kind of thing a (Hulk) Hogan or Rock or (Stone Cole Steve) Austin would have got in the past or like a Brock Lesnar perhaps.
“Now that card is for myself and for the UK so that is just like a dream come true for me.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here