Drew McIntyre getting ready to make a ‘Quantum Leap’

WWE champion Drew McIntyre wants to right a wrong and take the WWE title from Roman Reigns for his younger self.

Drew McIntyre knew from the beginning that he wanted to be a professional wrestler.

“I was an interesting kid, a little different, there is nothing wrong with being different,” McIntyre told FanSided. “At six years old I got my family together for the family meeting my mom, my dad, my brother. I am going to be in WWE one day.”

Family meetings called by a child are definitely different. Subscribing to X-Factor magazine at 10 to read about aliens, UFOs, paranormal activity, strange diseases, strange bugs and the Ebola virus — also, different. Writing a letter to the FBI requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act and having your father extremely worried about you when pamphlets of information showed up at your home in Scotland — extremely different.

But staying with your six-year-old goals and ultimately becoming a WWE champion is the best kind of different. It took McIntyre roughly a decade to convince his parents that he was serious.

“It was all the way to age 15 of harassing my mother let me go train to wrestle and she finally agreed,” McIntyre said. “But the deal with my parents was you stick with it at school you get your education.”

McIntyre did just that getting his degree in criminology when he was 21, the same time that he turned professional. The first turn with WWE did not end as planned with McIntyre being released, but now he is back and has a storyline of one of his favorite TV shows in mind.

“If you ever watched the show Quantum Leap, Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) used to leap from life to life making right what once went wrong,” McIntyre explained. “Having a chance to leap back into myself and have a chance to get a redo at SmackDown to put right what once went wrong.”

That will in all likelihood mean squaring off with Roman Reigns, who come January 6, 2022, will have held the WWE Universal Championship longer than anyone in the history of the sport passing Brock Lesnar’s 503-day record. Reigns is the target.

“That is the goal, but let’s look at the landscape right now,” McIntyre said. “I was on fire in RAW for a while but I’ve lost a couple of big matches. I am not going to make excuses for that but realistically Roman is on fire. He is all the momentum in the world and I want the time to build up to that level where people say we need this match right now.”

Time to build up yes, but the goal-setting mindset McIntyre had when he was a child is alive and well today to become a champion once again.

“Absolutely, it’s going to be Drew [me] that takes the title from him. He [Roman] knows that, the world knows that, I’m just giving it time. That match is going to come,” McIntyre said. “For me also, it’s a chance to get a kind of redo. Things have come full circle. I started my career at 22 years old on Smackdown. I was the chosen one of Vince McMahon. I was going to be the future of the company, future world champion and obviously, things didn’t work out that way and inevitably I got fired and everything worked out when I came back to WWE on RAW.”

McIntyre has kept himself in great shape during the pandemic in creative ways including becoming a Special Olympics Champions Ambassador leading fitness classes.

“We were able to create an awesome program called “School of Strength” which encouraged athletes to stay healthy at home. I was the one leading the exercises and I was the one struggling to get through it so it was kind of a case of we are having fun together and learning together so that was awesome. We’d set online challenges through social media such as the jump rope challenge where I would challenge my fellow superstars and celebrities to either get a jump rope and jump for 30 seconds or use an imaginary jump rope and jump for 30 seconds.”

The group ended up having their first in-person meeting with McIntyre in September. It was a day to remember for McIntyre.

“Everything that happened online I was inspired by but in person, what a day, it was unbelievable and they surprised me at the end of the day by announcing me as the new Champion and Global Ambassador for Special Olympics. As cool as all the things in wrestling I’ve done are — being world champion a couple of times — that really caught me off guard. It means the world to me and I am so excited about the future and what we are going to do together with the renewal of the partnership with Special Olympics and WWE.”

Sounds like McIntyre will keep on multitasking as he chases down another title sometime, sooner or later.

“I ain’t going anywhere. I’ll be here as long as I possibly can,” McIntyre said. “I’m 36 years old, everybody thinks I am in my mid-40’s because I debuted when I was so young. I still have at least 10 years in me. Don’t count me out yet.”

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