Drew McIntyre Almost Debuted In WWE As ‘The Runway Man’

Drew McIntyre has revealed how he almost debuted in WWE as “The Runway Man.”

Speaking on the No-Contest Wrestling Podcast, former WWE Champion Drew McIntyre revealed that before he made his debut with the Chosen One character, WWE had planned to give him a gimmick that would’ve seen him act like a model. A character named The Runway Man.

“The Runway Man, I remember it was pitched to me by John Laurinaitis, who was head of talent relations at the time, and telling me, you know, at Florida Championship Wrestling, which was there prior to NXT, we know today, the original developmental, and he built it up.”

“I was listening to him describe the character, and thought, ‘Oh no! oh no! oh no!’ And then he went into the name, The Runway Man! You’re going to have your own model runway, and you’re going to walk down like a model, and my goodness! I was picturing in my head basically all my dreams are going to hell.”

Drew McIntyre then stated that when they pitched the idea to Vince McMahon, he saw his face and understood that he didn’t want to do it.

“The next meeting after Johnny was to go to Vince himself and pitch this idea, and I kind of sat silent, and Johnny pitched it to Vince. And I think Vince saw my face the whole time, and he just said, ‘What do you think?’ And I thought, ‘Whatever you need me to do, I’ll make it work,’ but I had my head down kind of the whole time, and I think he read me like he doesn’t want to do this. And thankfully, they let me play closer to myself.”

Drew McIntyre Lost Significant Weight To Play This Character

Drew McIntyre also addressed the fact that he lost 35 lbs to play the character, but stated that it ended up not being necessary as he got to play the formidable Chosen One character instead.

“Yeah, I looked like an anatomy chart,” Drew McIntyre said. “Shane Helms, The Hurricane, described me as an Avatar.  I used to have the ponytail at the time, and the Avatar was the big movie. If you painted me blue, I would have just looked like a giant avatar. I lost so much weight, and yeah, it turns out I didn’t need to lose all that weight cuz I was coming in as an a**kicking chosen one when I thought I was going to be this runway man.”

“I was practicing walking the imaginary runway backstage, and I was like, ‘Oh my god! I’ve got two left feet; this is going to absolutely bomb. Going to have a disaster. I wonder what I’d be doing in Scotland right now if I was Runway Man?’ cuz I would not have succeeded in WWE.”

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If you use the quotes from this article, please credit the No-Contest Wrestling Podcast and give an H/T to WrestleZone for the transcription.

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