MGP: Right place, wrong time for Drew McIntyre to win the World Title – Selambe

Welcome to another edition of the ‘Monday Gorilla Position’! A weekly column here at Cageside Seats that dissects the latest shows and reports in the world of WWE & AEW. In addition to interviews with your favorite professional wrestlers.

To paraphrase stand-up comic Tom Segura (which considering his disdain for the business, I’m sure he’d be just thrilled about his material getting a reference here) pro wrestling is all about timing. When to take that big risk. Finding that perfect moment to pull the trigger on a heel turn or World Title victory.

Since taking over as the Chief Content Officer of WWE, Paul “Triple H” Levesque, has proven time and again that he cannot be tempted by the moment. The company’s corporate website still proudly boasts that Monday Night Raw is the longest running weekly episodic TV show in the United States, but ironically, with Triple H at the helm the product may be the least episodic it’s been in three decades.

Think of it in terms of going from The Simpsons style of doing things, where — more often than not — the events of each episode don’t really have an impact on the following week, to hiring Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan as the showrunner.

When Levesque has a destination in mind for a story — barring unforeseen circumstances like an injury or high-ranking TKO board member interjecting their own creative ideas — Triple H will not be deterred from seeing it through. Even if he has to give the fans five seasons of Walter White cooking meth to get there.

This is why Drew McIntyre failed to capture the World Heavyweight Championship in front of his countrymen Saturday afternoon at Clash at the Castle.

While it was clearly the right place to strap McIntyre for the fourth time in his career — and what a moment it would have been — the timing just didn’t match up for him to win. CM Punk emerging from Gorilla Position to be the man to cost Drew the gold may have been predictable, but the story that WWE has spent months building dictated his involvement.

It’s subjective entertainment. Feel free to criticize the booking all you like, but at the same time, respect the vision and understand why the call was made to screw over the Scottish Warrior yet again.

Speaking strictly from a booking perspective, the only way that it would have made sense to have McIntyre walk out of Clash at the Castle with the WHC, was if CM Punk was not going to be medically cleared for a match at SummerSlam on August 3.

As we found out during the post show press conference Saturday, Punk (as of this writing) could be just hours away from getting the green light to return to action.

“I can tell you that my arm feels amazing. I got permission to skip Raw in Corpus Christi to go home to Chicago and see my doctors with the idea that I’m going to be cleared,” Punk said before declaring his intentions to brand hop this coming week. “I’m a Raw guy, I’m going to skip Raw. I’m going to get cleared and then show up to SmackDown and let everybody know the good news. Hopefully, keep em’ crossed.”

McIntyre’s fate at Clash at the Castle was sealed the moment it was announced that the future King and Queen of the Ring winners would receive guaranteed World Title matches at SummerSlam.

If we want to nitpick every booking decision, Randy Orton could have won the crown and avoided this castle conundrum, but he didn’t. GUNTHER is your reigning King of the Ring — and in my opinion — he was the correct choice to win that tournament.

So with the Ring General having a guaranteed title match in Cleveland, and an already months long story between McIntyre and Punk leading to a violent confrontation, Damian Priest needed to retain the title.

Is it disappointing to see McIntyre get screwed again, especially in his home country? Absolutely it is. Were the fans inside the OVO Hydro pissed off? Of course they were. So much so that some fans reportedly took their anger out into the streets of Glasgow and started throwing haymakers at one another.

The harsh reality of wrestling is that bookers just can’t give the fans what they want all the time. And while it would have been an all-time feel good moment for Drew — especially given the events in his personal life leading up to Clash at the Castle — being the marquee performer in the main event of a WWE premium live event in his home country is still pretty damn special.

Having that kind of emotional investment from the fans in Scotland is something I guarantee means a great deal to the Scottish Warrior as well. At the end of the day, the story is what matters most. They’re sentiments that McIntyre has expressed to me in the past, while within the past few weeks, he’s given flowers to the Triple H led creative team for prioritizing storytelling above everything else.

“Everything has meaning,” McIntyre told CBS Sports in a recent interview. “Right now, it’s just, ‘What’s your point? Where’s this character coming from? Oh, this is interesting.’ As long as it’s interesting television, compelling television, it touches you emotionally. That’s all that matters and should really matter.”

As if it wasn’t made abundantly clear at last year’s Elimination Chamber where Sami Zayn came up short against Roman Reigns in front of his hometown fans, the days of living pop-to-pop and figuring the rest out later are long gone.

Not that Vince McMahon was notorious for gratifying his fanbase, especially in a wrestler’s hometown or country, but he certainly had more of a ‘whim of madman’ style of booking. Sometimes throwing weeks — or even months — worth of storytelling out the window with a last minute change of heart.

Perhaps McMahon’s patience, or lack thereof, would have run dry and he would have ended Damian Priest’s first World Title reign before it really got going. Much like he did with Edge back in 2006, when he booked John Cena to win back the WWE Championship a mere 20 days after the first ever Money in the Bank cash-in.

Priest’s reign as World Heavyweight Champion has already far surpassed that mark, but at 70 days, it still feels like his run is in its infancy, especially considering he’s had only two televised title defenses. His victory over Drew McIntyre, albeit a tainted one, allows him to carry the belt into the Biggest Party of the Summer and maybe beyond.

GUNTHER is a clear and significant threat to take the gold in Cleveland, unless whoever wins the MITB briefcase next month in Toronto has anything to say about the proceedings that night.

Anyone who’s watched Raw close enough since WrestleMania knows something is brewing underneath the surface between Damian Priest and Finn Balor. I would not be shocked at all if Triple H was preparing for a ‘PrinXe in the Bank’ run that culminates in Balor costing his Judgment Day brother the World Heavyweight Championship.

Could I be fantasy booking? Maybe a little. I prefer to think of it as educated guessing and this is the direction that my eyes and mind tell me the World Title program is headed.

The potential domino effect of a McIntyre victory on Saturday could have been substantial:

– What does CM Punk do in Cleveland if he’s not wrestling Drew?

– Would GUNTHER have been on track to lose his first televised World Title match or would the belt have been about to change hands for the fourth time since April 7?

– Does Balor and Priest’s story arc continue without the WHC driving a wedge between them or do they just fall back to the tag title picture?

Drew McIntyre is just fine. He wasn’t buried in front of his countrymen and he shouldn’t be second guessing his decision to re-sign with WWE. He’s still going to be involved in a white hot feud with one of the biggest stars in the business at SummerSlam. His own stock within the company has continued to rise over the past several months and he was financially rewarded for the fantastic body of work he’s put together.

One day, McIntyre will win a World Championship in the United Kingdom… maybe as soon as the next Clash at the Castle event. When it happens, we will all rejoice. Sadly, the stars just weren’t aligned for that to happen on Saturday.

Whether you love it or hate it — it’s story above all else.

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