Drew McIntyre's feud with CM Punk was phenomenal, but he's since been stagnating in the upper midcard. At last weekend's Saturday Night's Main Event, the Scottish Warrior once again lost a match to Cody Rhodes while challenging for the Undisputed WWE Championship.
It was another disappointment for McIntyre's fans at a time when viewers appear to be growing increasingly frustrated with how WWE is booking its shows.
WWE's X account recently posted a link to a video highlighting many of McIntyre's recent failures. "From being attacked by @CMPunk to controversial calls by the official, relive @DMcIntyreWWE’s toughest defeats in World Title Matches," the post read, prompting McIntyre to respond with, "Read the room."
While there may be an element of character work here, McIntyre's comments echo the way fans feel about many recent creative decisions. The gloss has worn off after Triple H took over from Vince McMahon, and WWE has been in something of a holding pattern since WrestleMania.
The formation of The Vision was a big deal, but that quickly grew stale, while the complaints about how John Cena's final year in WWE has been handled before his retirement are plentiful.
Will anything change for McIntyre? As of now, it looks like the plan might be to have him feud with Jacob Fatu when he returns from injury. Alas, with the Samoan Werewolf's star on the rise, it feels an awful lot like that'll be another feud McIntyre comes out on the losing side of.
"I think finishing the story at this point is very different from last time," McIntyre said shortly before Saturday Night's Main Event. "I finished the story first, and Cody followed in my footsteps, but obviously a unique time during the pandemic, and I haven't had my title read in front of fans yet."
"It's finishing the story in the sense that I have my proper title reign with life fans there as I envisioned as a kid, even though it's the fourth time I'm going to be World Heavyweight champion," he continued. "When I finished the story this time, I'd always envisioned fans cheering, everybody on the same page. But it's not going to be that."
"I'm going to finish this story and start a new story. It's Cody's never-ending story of, you know, me getting screwed all the time," McIntyre added. "Cody's closed the story. He finished his story. And from now on, people are just going to get the truth. Cody's sunshine and lollipops fairy tale, that's not the real world. The real world is hard."
Do you think WWE has dropped the ball on McIntyre's booking?