Drew McIntyre Says He Had To Talk Heath Slater Into Making Raw Appearance: “Mentally He Has Moved On”

WWE Champion Drew McIntyre spoke with TalkSport where the Scottish Psychopath discussed the return of Heath Slater on Monday’s episode of Raw, a move that McIntyre reveals was his idea. He also talks about how it took some convincing on his end to get Slater back, who has already mentally moved on from the company. Highlights are below.

Says he had to talk Slater into Raw appearance:

The moment at the end was very special and I was very much pushing for that idea to happen. I think I saw something on the internet saying I was behind it and I’m thinking how are they getting this information?! But yeah, I played a big part in making it happen and to be honest, Heath was a little bit against it and I spoke to my wife right before the phone call I made to Heath to try and convince him to come onto the show for the segment. She reminded me how I felt at the time when I was released and sure enough, he felt the same. He appreciated the opportunity with WWE, it was where he had made his name, but mentally he has moved on.

Says Slater killed it, but is ready to move on from WWE:

He’s ready for the next stage and he’s not sure about going backwards, so I made it clear to him like ‘trust me, this isn’t going to be like anything you’ve done. The first thing I did outside of WWE was ICW and I showed my real personality and it caused a buzz and went viral on the underground, but if you get the chance to show your real personality on RAW that’s going to set you on the right course. I know he’s been working out hard, so people will get to see what he looks like now and it also advances our story – everybody wins. We finally got him on board and got him on the show – he absolutely killed it, like I knew he would.

How Slater’s appearance helped further his angle with Dolph Ziggler:

It really helped mine and Dolph’s storyline. I know, obviously, I’m supposed to be a top good guy so it’s not ideal in a lot of eyes to put it out there that I’ve been a bad friend. But, the way I look at it with my character is, especially given the environment we’re in, we can tell a more complex story. In an arena, I’d have been booed to pieces for being such a terrible friend, but in this environment I think it’s important to show my character is flawed, because I am. Like [John] Cena is Superman and Roman can be bulletproof a lot of the time, but I think Drew McIntyre is Drew Galloway. I am a flawed person and Dolph tried to put me in a difficult situation, showing maybe I haven’t been as attentive to my friend as I should have been in front of the world. That shows I’m a human being, you saw it in my face. You saw Drew Galloway. Then it’s like ‘I feel really bad here. I’ll give you what you want,’ and at the end we reunited, we overcame Dolph and I think it’s important for my character to show those flaws. It allows us to be different and tell stories with more layers and depth in this environment, and that’s the environment we’re in right now – but Heath killed it more importantly!