For Drew McIntyre, main-eventing WWE Clash at the Castle is bigger than a WrestleMania moment.
At WWE’s first stadium show in the United Kingdom in over 30 years, McIntyre will challenge Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion. “The Scottish Warrior” has been pushing for a major event in Europe for a long time, and it’s finally happening.
Speaking with Ariel Helwani and Rob Armstrong of BT Sport, McIntyre was asked whether the show meant more to him than a WrestleMania moment, and he said yes. The former WWE Champon emphasized the atmosphere he’s looking forward to experiencing at the show.
“For me personally, yeah, it does. In the future, this is a blueprint,” he answered. “The next one, we’re gonna have the week-long event, we’ll have the Axxess, etc. But it feels like a WrestleMania. The superstars are amazed when they arrived and they’re looking around the streets and seeing all the imagery. A few of them have seen the set-up in the stadium, Thayer absolutely blown away. For me personally, when everybody gets to witness the event itself, I’ve tried to explain to people but they can’t comprehend, and I try to give them a comparison, I’m like check out a European soccer match (football), and watch the crowd. Watch how mental they are, watch the chants they’re doing, and just watch some of the old RAWs and SmackDowns from the UK, how passionate the fans are, and imagine 70,000 of us in the same place.
“Aside the spectacle of it, aside the amazing setup in the Principality and the lower roof and the physicality in the ring, just watch the crowd. It’ll be like ECW One Night Stand, except the Hammerstein’s bloody tiny. This is huge, and people are gonna remember it, not just for what happened on the show but what the crowd were up to during it, singing songs like perhaps, ‘Drew McIntyre, Roman Reigns is terrified.’ And, ‘Na, na, na, na na na na, hey Drew.’ Not you encourage you, but those are a few of my favorites from the past.
Earlier in the interview, he noted that headlining the show is beyond his wildest dreams because it previously wasn’t something that even existed.
“It’s beyond surreal,” McIntyre said. “This isn’t a dream come true because this wasn’t something to dream about. It didn’t exist. I dreamed about main-eventing WrestleMania and winning the title, and I did that. The idea of main-eventing the first UK stadium show in 30 years wasn’t in my mind because we didn’t have it on the regular.”
