Drew McIntyre signed a development contract with WWE in 2007, and spent some time in Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) and Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) before debuting on SmackDown in 2009 as "The Chosen One."
In storyline, he was Vince McMahon's hand-picked next big thing, but after winning the WWE Intercontinental Championship and the WWE Tag Team Championship, he slipped down the card and was a glorified jobber as a member of 3MB when he was released by the company in 2014.
McIntyre reinvented himself on the independents and eventually returned to WWE as a bona fide main eventer. Now, ahead of his Undisputed WWE Championship match against Cody Rhodes at this weekend's Saturday Night's Main Event, McIntyre talked about nearly debuting as..."The Runway Man."
John Laurinaitis, who was Head of Talent Relations at the time, came up with the idea, and the Scottish Warrior was understandably concerned.
"I was listening to him describe the character and thought, 'Oh no.' Then he went 'The name, the Runway Man, you’re going to have your own model runway and you’re going to walk down like a model,'" McIntyre recalled. "And you’re like, "Oh my goodness.' I was picturing in my head [that] basically all my dreams were going to hell. The life’s work of a Scotsman, it was all going down the toilet."
"The next meeting after Johnny was to go to Vince himself and pitch this idea, and I kind of sat silent, and Johnny pitched it to Vince, and I think Vince saw my face the whole time," he continued. "He just said, 'What do you think?' [I was like] 'Whatever you need me to do, I’ll make it work.' But I had my head down the whole time. and I think he read me like he doesn’t want to do this."
It's definitely for the best that McIntyre avoided this gimmick, as it would have likely killed his career in WWE before it even got started. Heading into Saturday Night's Main Event, he's a favourite to dethrone the American Nightmare and end what's been a pretty disappointing title reign for Rhodes since he beat John Cena for the title at SummerSlam.
After returning to WWE in 2017, McIntyre has won the NXT Championship, the RAW Tag Team Championship, the 2020 Men's Royal Rumble match, the 2024 Men's Money in the Bank ladder match, two WWE Championships, and the World Heavyweight Championship.
Check out the full interview in the player below.