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Drew McIntyre won the Royal Rumble 2020 to earn a place at WrestleMania. Finally, the Scottish Psychopath has fought his way to the main event of WWE. It was indeed a long time coming and when it did happen, it felt so right.
The reaction of the fans when McIntyre threw Roman Reigns off the top rope said it all. A crowd of around 40 thousand people roared in joy as the former NXT Champion became the last man standing inside the squared circle.
To think that he got cheered after throwing a much over babyface Reigns out of the ring is a testament to how much the fans wanted to see this – and that is even though McIntyre hasn’t completed his face turn yet.
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There were some great lessons to be learned from McIntyre’s achievement last night and here are three of them.
#3 Storytelling
When Drew McIntyre entered the Rumble as the number 16 contender, Brock Lesnar had already eliminated 13 participants and was looking like an unstoppable force of nature.
The Beast was on a roll and it seemed as though there was nothing that could have stopped the juggernaut that Lesnar had become at that point. However, after being low-blowed by Ricochet, McIntyre seized the opportunity and Claymore kicked Lesnar out of the ring.
After that, the two stared down each other, with McIntyre starting to gain momentum with some quick eliminations himself. This was a great spell of storytelling from the company.
WWE might have gotten a lot of criticism in the past for lack of cohesion in their storylines but they nailed this one properly. Not only did they make Lesnar look like an unstoppable beast in the first half of the Rumble match, they calmly introduced McIntyre as his opponent and then made him Lesnar’s worthy adversary with the Claymore elimination.
Ricochet’s assist in there was also a brilliant touch since it helped Lesnar look strong even when eliminated.
And now, Lesnar and McIntyre have already carved The Road to WrestleMania with a subtle start to their feud.
#2 Freedom is good
Good wrestlers should be given the freedom to at least some extent as a means to express what they are capable of. Granted, not every Superstar has the capability to do well when given the freedom of expression but there are a lot of people in WWE who could connect far more with the fans if given some freedom.
The classic example of this is Drew McIntyre’s Royal Rumble moment. After winning the event, almost every fan rose to her/his feet while clapping for him. This showed how far McIntyre has come in the last few weeks.
Even though he was being portrayed as a psychopathic force of nature ever since his return to the main roster in 2018, he looked very limited and could barely get the fans to react to him.
There were some boos here and there but nothing that warranted him a shot at the main event. However, in the past few weeks, McIntyre looked more eased up and relaxed in his body language, expressing himself with more clarity on the mic.
His 3, 2, 1 movement became an instant hit with the fans and now he finds himself as the winner of the Royal Rumble, with a chance to earn glory at WrestleMania.
#1 Failure leads to success
This is the biggest life lesson learned from Drew McIntyre’s success at Royal Rumble last night. While John Cena might have used the ‘Never Give Up’ slogan to death in his time in WWE, it is McIntyre’s career path that screams those three words.
In 2014, McIntyre was let go by WWE, just a few years after being dubbed as the Chosen One by Vince McMahon. Many would have fallen into the deep depths of self-loathing at this point but The Scottish Psychopath just got back up and worked as hard as he could in the independent circuits.
His physical transformation is a testament to how much work he put in to develop himself into a main event caliber talent, and then in 2017 WWE noticed the Scotsman again and brought him back into the company.
And now, just a little under three years later, he finds himself having an opportunity for the Championship at the Grandest Stage of Them All.
This is an inspirational story about failure, hard work and diligence – and McIntyre is the main protagonist in it.
