Drew McIntyre’s pursuit of the Undisputed WWE Championship at Wrestlepalooza is about more than just dethroning Cody Rhodes. The challenger has revealed his primary motivation is to win the title specifically to lure John Cena into a match before his planned retirement in December.
During a recent interview with Peter Rosenberg on the Cheap Heat program, McIntyre spoke candidly about his desire to work with Cena. He echoed Rosenberg’s sentiment that Cena’s past run as a heel was a “wasted opportunity,” explaining that his previous criticisms of the veteran stemmed from knowing he was capable of much more. This history fuels his current urgency to secure a high-stakes match.
McIntyre laid out his strategy in a lengthy promo, which also included a pointed jab at CM Punk.
“Yeah. Call it selfish all you want. I just know and I talked so much trash during the time because I know what he’s capable of, and it’s so much more and we’re seeing it right now. I don’t think it’s deliberate. I know it wasn’t deliberate… For Cena, a Cena two, three is a lot of people’s nine, 10. But, I just know how good he is, what he’s capable of and I ran my mouth, I talked trash because it was just quite frankly p—sing me off watching it because I know how good he is. Now we’re seeing how good he is but what’s p—sing me off now is it’s at the finish line and I might not get that opportunity so I need that title. I need to dangle that carrot or something in front of him that’s gonna make him pay attention and go, alright, maybe I go over here, and I’ll show Drew what’s up. I’ll tear him to shreds and I want him to because I want to be able to prove to the world I can stand on my own two feet with everybody just like I did with (CM) Punk, when he was gonna tear me to shreds on the mic, and absolutely eviscerated him to the point he was begging for his other tricep to get torn so he could get more time off so I would stop shredding him on the microphone…” (h/t Fightful)
The dynamic between these top stars was on display last month when McIntyre teamed with Logan Paul to face the duo of Cena and Cody Rhodes on Friday Night SmackDown.
Before their championship clash at tomorrow’s Wrestlepalooza event, McIntyre and Rhodes are scheduled for a final face-to-face confrontation on tonight’s SmackDown for an official contract signing.