WHY DREW MCINTYRE DISAPPEARED FROM THE MAIN EVENT OF SMACKDOWN (UPDATED)

[Big Red Machine]

Source: PWInsider

By Mike Johnson on 2019-04-11 13:03:00

As those of you watching Smackdown this past Tuesday know, Drew McIntyre disappeared towards the end of his six man tag team match with The Bar against The New Day.

PWInsider.com readers who were live in Brooklyn sent along that McIntyre exited via the timekeeper's area from ringside and returned to the back. This spurred on concern that perhaps McIntyre had been injured over the course of the match. We are told that was not the case and he is not injured.

What did happen, according to a source who was backstage during the main event, was that time was cut from the bout. Since the finishing sequence was to focus on New Day beating the Bar, there was no time to explain taking Drew out of the equation. So, Drew was instructed to return to the back.

2:05 PM Update: Earlier I wrote, "One might wonder why they even booked McIntyre in the bout to begin with then, but we don't have any answer for that." Well, now we do. The original pitched main event for Smackdown this past Tuesday at WWE Champion Kofi Kingston vs. Drew McIntyre. It was changed into a six man tag as the day progressed.

So, there's no injury issue.

[Big Red Machine]

Source: PWInsider



What did happen, according to a source who was backstage during the main event, was that time was cut from the bout. Since the finishing sequence was to focus on New Day beating the Bar, there was no time to explain taking Drew out of the equation. So, Drew was instructed to return to the back.

Um... WHAT?! How about "Drew gets hit with someone's finisher and just stays on the floor selling?!"

[cero2k]

Meltzer had a completely different story saying that they didn't want to have Drew lose again since he lost at Mania, so he disappeared so fans and TV wouldn't see him 'lose' when the bar got pinned.

[Serujuunin]

Source: PWInsider



What did happen, according to a source who was backstage during the main event, was that time was cut from the bout. Since the finishing sequence was to focus on New Day beating the Bar, there was no time to explain taking Drew out of the equation. So, Drew was instructed to return to the back.

Um... WHAT?! How about "Drew gets hit with someone's finisher and just stays on the floor selling?!"

This... hurts my brain. Even if they didn't want him to look weak in the loss, leave him on the ground and out of the camera's view. Easy.

[Big Red Machine]

Meltzer had a completely different story saying that they didn't want to have Drew lose again since he lost at Mania, so he disappeared so fans and TV wouldn't see him 'lose' when the bar got pinned.

Okay... SO DON'T PUT HIM IN THE F*CKING MATCH! Put Bryan in there or Rowan or Harper or Gallows or Anderson or Zayn or Shelton or F*CKING ANYONE ELSE!

[XIV]

Source: PWInsider



What did happen, according to a source who was backstage during the main event, was that time was cut from the bout. Since the finishing sequence was to focus on New Day beating the Bar, there was no time to explain taking Drew out of the equation. So, Drew was instructed to return to the back.

Um... WHAT?! How about "Drew gets hit with someone's finisher and just stays on the floor selling?!"

You would think? It takes 5 seconds for him to take a Trouble in Paradise / Big Ending / Midnight Whatever from New Day and Bam, he sells.... having him LEAVE raises more problems!

[cero2k]

hell, even hide him under the ring where only a handful of people see him

[XIV]

hell, even hide him under the ring where only a handful of people see him

Even make him just walk out up the ramp. He's a heel. It wouldn't matter as it would get heat regardless.

[Big Red Machine]

Exactly. This is yet another sign that their obsession with production has gone so far that their thought process has been driven totally off the rails to the point that they seem to have these delusions of omnipotence. I mean really! The match didn't even go eight minutes! We're not going to forget that Drew was in it just because you take him off of the TV screen! It's one step away from the Soviets editing people out of photographs after they fell out of favor with Stalin. Or 1984. We don't care what the reality The State told you was true five minutes ago was, this is how The State wants you perceive reality right now, so that's what you're going to do.


The more I think about it, the more it becomes clear to me that WWE's main problems are rooted in production/branding (which I am going to consider the same thing since the goal of both is control over the viewing audience's perception of the show). Bad booking is obviously bad, but people stood by TNA for years and years of disaster simply because they liked the wrestlers in the company enough to keep watching, and quite frankly have been doing pretty much the same thing for WWE recently (although WWE's numbers are definitely going down even with that). The bad booking would be so much more bearable if it didn't come attached to all of this cult-lingo "WWE Universe/Women's Evolution/WWE Superstar/WrestleMania Moment/Championship Opportunity" bullsh*t stuck to it and announcers talking in this horribly unnatural manner that makes it clear that they're being told exactly what to say by someone else and having them all use the exact same phrases like "the one time a year that Superstars from Raw and Smackdown Live face off in head to head competition" that makes it all sound so fake, and this insane idea that glitzier lights are somehow going to make the show look better when you've already sold out a f*cking football stadium so you set them up and shine them in the eyes of the people who bought tickets making it so they can't see, and wrestlers standing backstage to watch monitors or have conversations in completely unnatural positions so that they're all facing the f*cking camera that we're all supposed to pretend they can't see... and then they'll go right back to Paige watching the monitor in that same way with that same camera shot and then the interviewer will come up to her with a microphone and ask her a question and all of a sudden we're supposed to pretend that the camera does exist again. It's SOOOOOOOO dumb! It's just not possible to have that sort of dictatorial control over everyone's thoughts and try to tape in this insane utopia of line-straddling.
I mean COME ON!
What kind of diseased mind does it take to think that you can demand credit for fixing your past mistakes while simultaneously trying to paint over those same mistakes as part of this same program of fixing and refusing to acknowledge that you ever made any mistakes! The difference between Torrie Wilson and- to pick another large-breasted blonde fitness model for the truest comparison- Dana Brooke is that Dana has been presented as an athlete while Torrie was never presented as anything other than a piece of meat for people to masturbate to. Even someone like Mandy Rose who is a lot more sexualized than Dana Brooke is (and is also a large-boobed blonde bikini model) is presented as more of a character with goals and a personality than Torrie Wilson ever was. Mandy's sexuality is a large part of her character, yes, but it is a tool she uses to achieve her goals. She has been holding a grudge against Naomi for three years so she will use her sexuality to try to ruin Naomi's marriage like she blames Naomi for ruining her own past relationship. Her goal is not- as Torrie's often seemed to be- to be in Playboy or do bikini contests or be hooked up with a wrestler. But if you're not willing to acknowledge that you made any mistakes with Torrie and try to pretend that she's the same as Mandy Rose or Dana Brooke or Alexa Bliss!, then why is anyone who buys that line of bullsh*t supposed to give you any credit for fixing things that you're telling them were never even broken?!

Or which nutjob thought it would ever work to have the wrestlers all position themselves in such an unnatural manner that makes it clear that they're trying to play to a camera that they're not supposed to know is there unless some yahoo with a microphone shows up to ask them questions, and yet even though the camera isn't supposed to be there the f*cking announcers can see everything that happens? These people have become so drunk with power that they start obsessing over ridiculous little details to make things fit into their insane utopia, and have hit the point where they think they have that power over out minds of people outside of their fictional universe (as evidenced in the "how to talk about WrestleMania" instructions they gave out for WM36).

I really, truly hope that AEW (plus additional market pressure from ROH/NJPW, TNA, MLW, etc.) and the alternative that is now offered to people like Ambrose, Gallows & Anderson, Sasha Banks, The Revival, and even people like Sami Zayn, Kalisto, Luke Harper, Bobby Roode, Apollo Crews, Tyler Breeze, or anyone else who is getting fed up and just wants the chance to to show their talents as a professional wrestler without WWE's insane restrictions- verbal, booking competence, management perceptions, etc.- has the chance to do so and to tell Vince to go f*ck himself on their way out the door.

[Big Red Machine]

hell, even hide him under the ring where only a handful of people see him

Even make him just walk out up the ramp. He's a heel. It wouldn't matter as it would get heat regardless.

And you could even use it to turn Sheamus and Cesaro (or even just one of them if you split them up in the draft) babyface, which would be the first babyface run for either of them in a damn long time. As it currently stands, this is the only way to save this from a kayfabe POV, anyway, so they might as well run with it.

[NWK2000]

I love professional wrestling so goddamn much. Deciding MID WAY THROUGH A MATCH "Oh shit Drew we don't want you to lose. Get out of there!"
Just proves that wrestling never really moved on from it's carnival worker bullshit.

[Big Red Machine]

I love professional wrestling so goddamn much. Deciding MID WAY THROUGH A MATCH "Oh shit Drew we don't want you to lose. Get out of there!"
Just proves that wrestling never really moved on from it's carnival worker bullshit.

This isn't carny bullsh*t. It's just stupid, not scuzzy.

[XIV]

hell, even hide him under the ring where only a handful of people see him

Even make him just walk out up the ramp. He's a heel. It wouldn't matter as it would get heat regardless.

And you could even use it to turn Sheamus and Cesaro (or even just one of them if you split them up in the draft) babyface, which would be the first babyface run for either of them in a damn long time. As it currently stands, this is the only way to save this from a kayfabe POV, anyway, so they might as well run with it.

I think between us we've come up with many many more logical, less bullshit ways to do it.

Like, if it was a house show, no-one would care... make the decision, whatever... but to do it on a televised show, when you know people are going to notice and that word is going to get out from the live crowd. I just, don't understand.

[Big Red Machine]

Even make him just walk out up the ramp. He's a heel. It wouldn't matter as it would get heat regardless.

And you could even use it to turn Sheamus and Cesaro (or even just one of them if you split them up in the draft) babyface, which would be the first babyface run for either of them in a damn long time. As it currently stands, this is the only way to save this from a kayfabe POV, anyway, so they might as well run with it.

I think between us we've come up with many many more logical, less bullshit ways to do it.

Like, if it was a house show, no-one would care... make the decision, whatever... but to do it on a televised show, when you know people are going to notice and that word is going to get out from the live crowd. I just, don't understand.

Exactly. And the fact that they did it in such a weird way has turned it into a big story and thus ensured that more people will remember that Drew was involved in this match and on the losing side than ever would have remembered that he was in this match if they had just done something f*cking NORMAL! The incompetence is completely staggering.

[XIV]

And you could even use it to turn Sheamus and Cesaro (or even just one of them if you split them up in the draft) babyface, which would be the first babyface run for either of them in a damn long time. As it currently stands, this is the only way to save this from a kayfabe POV, anyway, so they might as well run with it.

I think between us we've come up with many many more logical, less bullshit ways to do it.

Like, if it was a house show, no-one would care... make the decision, whatever... but to do it on a televised show, when you know people are going to notice and that word is going to get out from the live crowd. I just, don't understand.

Exactly. And the fact that they did it in such a weird way has turned it into a big story and thus ensured that more people will remember that Drew was involved in this match and on the losing side than ever would have remembered that he was in this match if they had just done something f*cking NORMAL! The incompetence is completely staggering.

Vince is shot to pieces. He’s gone. He is mental.

[Serujuunin]

I think between us we've come up with many many more logical, less bullshit ways to do it.

Like, if it was a house show, no-one would care... make the decision, whatever... but to do it on a televised show, when you know people are going to notice and that word is going to get out from the live crowd. I just, don't understand.

Exactly. And the fact that they did it in such a weird way has turned it into a big story and thus ensured that more people will remember that Drew was involved in this match and on the losing side than ever would have remembered that he was in this match if they had just done something f*cking NORMAL! The incompetence is completely staggering.

Vince is shot to pieces. He’s gone. He is mental.

If you are just figuring this out, I worry about your powers of observation.

[XIV]

Exactly. And the fact that they did it in such a weird way has turned it into a big story and thus ensured that more people will remember that Drew was involved in this match and on the losing side than ever would have remembered that he was in this match if they had just done something f*cking NORMAL! The incompetence is completely staggering.

Vince is shot to pieces. He’s gone. He is mental.

If you are just figuring this out, I worry about your powers of observation.

I’m a Prison Officer. Half of my job is observation! BUT... it becomes more evident with every passing Wrestlemania season.

[Serujuunin]

Vince is shot to pieces. He’s gone. He is mental.

If you are just figuring this out, I worry about your powers of observation.

I’m a Prison Officer. Half of my job is observation! BUT... it becomes more evident with every passing Wrestlemania season.

That’s fair. For me it’s when my mom or boyfriend ask me why they’ve done something and I don’t have an answer...