Exclusive: Drew McIntyre Thought Fourth Wall-Breaking WWE WrestleMania 36 Moment Would Get Edited Out

Drew McIntyre has admitted he believed his memorable fourth-wall breaking moment at the conclusion of WWE WrestleMania 36 would be edited out of the final broadcast. 

As the COVID-19 Pandemic took a grip across the world last year, WWE made the decision to hold WrestleMania 36 on a closed set and pre-tape the event for the first time in the company's history.

The main event of the first-ever, two-night WrestleMania saw McIntyre challenge WWE Champion Brock Lesnar, winning the Title from The Beast in front of zero fans. 

With no one in attendance, McIntyre broke one of WWE's biggest production rules by acknowledging the camera at ringside, before speaking directly to the watching audience. 

The Scotsman thought his moment would be edited out of the show which went live on the WWE Network a week later, but was pleasantly surprised to see it was kept in.

Speaking exclusively to Cultaholic's Tom Campbell, he said: "It wasn’t exactly how I dreamed about it as a kid. What it was supposed to be was in Tampa, Florida, in my American home town, in front of 90,000 people, family and friends from Scotland and wife in the crowd - that’s what it was supposed to be.

"I was so excited. I couldn’t believe I’d won the Royal Rumble. I was going to fight Brock Lesnar, one of the baddest men on the planet, for the WWE Championship on the grandest stage of them all, at WrestleMania. Things were going exactly to plan, until they weren’t.

"Initially when the Pandemic hit, I was so angry, disappointed, ‘woe is me’ attitude. And then I find out we’re still doing WrestleMania but we’re not going to have people there, we’re going to bring it from a closed set. But every other sport was shutting down, every other entertainment company was shutting down, and we’re pushing ahead and we’re giving the whole world an escape with WrestleMania - not over one day, but over two days  - during this period of history that no one has ever lived through before. It was almost inconceivable. 

"When I sat down and I was watching the news, and realised the gravity of the situation, I thought ‘you’re pretty selfish, thinking about yourself and your career and your moment while people are suffering right now’. It changed my perspective right way when I started thinking about it that way.

"The match itself was pretty quick - I beat Brock Lesnar in five minutes, which is a pretty cool thing to say. And when I had the Title in my hand, the noise I heard was complete silence. But it still meant the world to me. I had the title in my hands and I could see Brock’s body just lying there, having been pinned by me. 

"What I remember is the image of me crawling towards the floor camera, and we never break the fourth wall - you don’t see that in movies - but I looked right down the camera and thanked everybody for choosing WWE during these difficult times and for helping me to reach the top of the industry. That was me feeling the moment.

"We recorded WrestleMania the week prior and I was watching with the rest of the world, and I honestly thought it was going to get edited out. But they kept it in and said ‘there was no way we were going to lose that because it was 100 per cent feeling the moment’."

You can watch Drew McIntyre's full, exclusive interview with Cultaholic's Tom Campbell in the video player below!

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