Drew McIntyre On Why Jinder Mahal's WWE Title Reign Was Rejected

WWE star Drew McIntyre sat down with Give Me Sport to talk about his current feud with former 3MB stablemate Jinder Mahal. In particular McIntyre addressed the reason he feels Mahal's WWE Championship run in 2017 didn't resonate with fans the same way McIntyre's run with the title in 2020 did.

"I think a lot of it came because it just came out of nowhere," McIntyre said. "It wasn't like myself. There was no build to that big moment and telling the story and history. He has a similar story, the exact same story actually when it comes to getting fired, but the position he was in at the time, it was just kind of hotshotted and I think that's why people were kind of negative. I think he did a great job with the opportunity that was presented. Perhaps low on experience at the time, but still, in my opinion, whatever he was asked, he did to the best of his abilities."

Part of the goal of the current feud, according to McIntyre, is that he and Mahal can show just how far Mahal has come as a performer. McIntyre believes he will be able to raise Mahal's game through his own physical style and a higher quality of work rate.

"Where he's at now, we're about to show that he's at a different level right now," McIntyre said. "When it comes to the character stuff, being comfortable, no one is expecting him in a top role from his end. When it comes to the in-ring stuff, I'm going to bring some stuff out of him that perhaps no one has ever seen. That's what I see as one of my strongest points, the physicality and match quality perspective, I want to show every body that he can go at a different level in the ring than you remember him being able to go last time he was in a significant match. You're going to see a lot, I hate to use the word work rate, higher work rate than you've seen in the past from Jinder. From a character perspective, he's so comfortable and knows exactly who he is. That's the most important thing when you're in a deep storyline like we're about to get into. We've barely scratched the surface."

McIntyre also discussed some of the underlying issues in the feud, outside of what's presented on TV. He points to Mahal and McIntyre's runs being compared as a motivational factor for Mahal to go after him.

"You talked about how people resented when he won the title and how universally praised I was when I won the title. For him, that's a slap across the face," McIntyre said. "Like 'wait a minute, I have the same story as this guy. I was fired the same day as this guy. I came back sooner, won the title three years prior to him, and you're all going to say I'm useless and I'm an experiment and a failed champion while praising the guy who did it three years later?' That's BS from his point of view. He's working extremely hard as well so he feels like 'okay, there's a reason I did it quicker than Drew McIntyre and it's because I'm better than Drew McIntyre. I'm going to prove it to him and I'm going to prove it to everyone else.' There are so many avenues we can go and with SummerSlam coming up, from a storyline perspective, we've barely scratched the surface."

You can watch the full interview below.