‘Promised Indian fans I’ll be back’

As a fiveyear old living in the sunny seaside town of Ayr in Scotland Drew McIntyre remembers watching his favourite wrestler Bret lsquoHit Manrsquo Hart on television and mimicking his signature posemdashthe sharpshootermdashwhile wrestling with his brother John At some point he told his family that he would grow up to be like the world wrestling championldquoI sounded like a crazy person reallyrdquo McIntyre 38 shares over a video call adding ldquoI told everyone I would be in WWE World Wrestling Entertainment Inc one dayrdquoMcIntyre left no stone unturned to make his dream come truemdashtravelling over 16 hours every weekend from his tiny hometown Ayr to London to train ldquoScotland has only five million people and Ayr is very smallhellip not a lot people get out of here We have our share of famous people like poet Robert Burns Alexander Fleming physician and of course Drew McIntyrerdquo he laughsDrew McIntyre in action after he rejoined the WWE in 2017 after a breakHe went on to open the first wrestling training centre with his friends and worked there until he finally got into WWE at age 25McIntyre will be visiting India this week to participate in the WWE Superstar Spectacle in Hyderabad ldquoJohn Cena will be there and it will be probably one of his last times in India so you know itrsquos going to be goodrdquo he says WWE is exclusively telecast on Sony Sports NetworkThis is not his first time in the country McIntyre visited Mumbai in December last year ldquoWhen I walked out of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International airport no one recognised me at first But then someone screamed lsquoIts Drew McIntyrersquo and suddenly people were falling all over me They were so kind and knowledgeablerdquo remembers the 31st triple crown championLiving the wrestling dream though has come with its share of ups and downs In 2010 McIntyre was relieved of his spot at WWE due to drop in performance ldquoI came back home revaluated things and had a real talk with my wife Kaitlynrdquo McIntyre tells us adding that not being part of a sport he had committed his loyalty to as a child had been very difficult on him ldquoIt was something that had me look hard at where I was headedrdquo He was finally brought back into the fold in 2017 and has since then been a permanent member But juggling between the US where WWE is based out of and Scotland where his family lives hasnrsquot been easy ldquoItrsquos been hard staying away from family I am very close to them but I never really get to see them except for once or twice a year I will be seeing them this October so I am excited about thatrdquo he says ldquoMy wife in particular has been very understanding and she comes all over the world with me when she canhellip she knows that this is my dream and has been supportiverdquo Only last week McIntyre lost his dear friend American wrestler Windham Lawrence Rotunda better known as Bray Wyatt in the wrestling world ldquoThat the news of his death was difficult for me because he was one of the first people I trained with in the Florida Championship Wrestling when I came down from Scotland and we sort of came up togetherrdquo says McIntyre ldquoAll we can do is make sure that we keep telling his stories and donrsquot let his memory fade and many of us did already do that and we will continue to do sordquoFor now he is looking forward to returning to India ldquoThis WWE Superstar Spectacle is something we promised our fans back in 2017 and I am glad we could make it possiblerdquo says McIntyre ldquoOnce there Irsquom going to have a pakora partyrdquo