WWE champion Drew McIntyre is planning to head home to the United Kingdom as soon as possible to show off his belt.
The 35-year-old Scot became the first Briton to win the championship when he pinned Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania 36 back in March.
Born in Ayr, McIntyre – real name Drew Galloway – worked for the WWE for seven years before being sacked. He returned in 2017 after three years on the independent scene.
He is now the main man on the company’s flagship Raw brand and admits he is waiting for the first opportunity to return home and celebrate his accomplishment, with the coronavirus pandemic currently preventing him from doing so.
“The second the governments agree we are good and the flights are normal you will see Drew McIntyre on that first flight, flying straight back with his title and then doing my open-top bus tour,” he said.
“It is the coolest thing ever, it is still surreal I’m the WWE Champion, it is still surreal I’m the first UK WWE Champion ever.
“I just really want to get back home and show everybody and say, ‘hey, here it is. It is possible sometimes that if you work hard enough and believe hard enough, the biggest dreams do come true’.”
WWE programming has continued despite the Covid-19 outbreak, with Wrestlemania taking place over two nights in front of an empty arena at the company’s Performance Centre in Florida.
McIntyre revealed the differences between performing to a regular wrestling crowd and then having to adjust to not having them in place.
“The WWE Universe, that is our fans, are the number one superstars,” he added.
“They create the atmosphere, they kind of dictate where the matches go and where the interviews go and we do play off their emotions so we have had to think outside the box.
“With WWE and Drew McIntyre we always innovate and adapt to the situation, nobody has been in this situation so it is a case of throwing things against the wall and see what is working.
“Now to reach the fans I tend to look down the camera lens so I can actually look them in the eye, which I wouldn’t have done in the past.
“I think it is a pretty cool time to develop some deeper characters with more layers, when the crowd is there you do your thing and play up to them, you have your character but there is only so much you can do.
“This is basically like a regular television show right now I guess, the attention is all on you, you have got that moment and got that time.”
McIntyre’s rise to the top can be surmised by the fact he is the number one card in the WWE’s new Slam Attax Reloaded trading card game.
“I never get tired on my face to do with anything to do with WWE,” he said.
“The coolest thing of all this time, it still blows my mind, is my card is the ‘101 card’ which means it is completely unbeatable – it is the kind of thing a (Hulk) Hogan or Rock or (Stone Cole Steve) Austin would have got in the past or like a Brock Lesnar perhaps.
“Now that card is for myself and for the UK so that is just like a dream come true for me.”
