Drew McIntyre could have been called “Drew McDonald” in WWE but luckily a quick brainstorming session at crunch time led to the moniker fans are familiar with today.
McIntyre spoke on WWE Break It Down about how his McIntyre surname came to be. Drew was in Gorilla position backstage awaiting his SmackDown debut when Stephanie McMahon came up to him and asked if Galloway was his real last name. When Drew said that it was, Stephanie told him they’d have to find another one so he and Michael Hayes went to the Internet to dig for a three-syllable Scottish last name.
“I’m on, legitimately, in about two matches, maybe ten minutes, max. So, myself and Michael Hayes ran straight to talent relations and he quickly told them, ‘Bring up Wikipedia—a bunch of Scottish names.’ We went from ‘A’ all the way through, I listened to these with a very limited timeframe to get a new name and as soon as I heard—it was ‘McDonald’ first, he liked it. I went ‘nope, I know a Drew McDonald. Can’t be him.’ I need three syllables, fans have to chant it when I’m good one day, and he said ‘Mc-In-tyre.’ I went ‘McIntyre? Mc-In-tyre.’ That’s the one.”
Drew says they ran back to Gorilla and told the announcer about the name change, which was so last minute that they already had “Drew Galloway” prepped for his Titantron video. In the video, Drew notes that if you look closely, his Titantron still says Galloway during the broadcast.
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Galloway? McDonald? … McIntyre??? ?@DMcIntyreWWE made his WWE debut 13 years ago today on #SmackDown!
Hear all about it on WWE Break It Down, available on the Free Version of WWE Network. ? https://t.co/mokFlb9jsS pic.twitter.com/lxOELqv6CR
— WWE Network (@WWENetwork) October 12, 2020
