Drew McIntyre says he is coming back to WWE, just not yet. Speaking with CNN-News18 about his acting career, the former WWE Champion said the timing for his return still isn’t right.
I will be back to WWE. WWE is my home, and I appreciate Nick Khan and Triple H letting me go out and explore this world, and hopefully it’s beneficial to both worlds,” McIntyre said. “But when the time is right, Hollywood Drew will be back. But the time’s not right quite yet.
He also pushed back on the idea that he’s chasing a film career. “Drew McIntyre didn’t come to Hollywood. Hollywood came to Drew McIntyre,” he said, adding that he’s taking the opportunities as they come.
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McIntyre hasn’t appeared on WWE television since losing to Jacob Fatu in an Unsanctioned Match on Night 1 of WrestleMania 42 in April. He has said he filmed three movies during his time away, and he appears in WWE’s ReelShort microdrama Agent of Shadows. His comments cool things down after he teased a Survivor Series appearance in an Instagram story last month, and after an October report that WWE was discussing ideas for his comeback.
Backstage Update
Injury speculation has followed McIntyre since April, but Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp says nothing points that way. Answering a fan question on Fightful Select Answers, Sapp said he hasn’t heard of any injury to McIntyre and that the former champion is busy filming. Sapp added that he met McIntyre in September, when McIntyre said he wanted to work WWE’s tour of South America.
McIntyre has also said he kept training. He told Bully Ray on Busted Open Radio that he continued working in the ring while spending three months in Barcelona filming The Last Druid.
Concern Over WWE Stars’ Outside Work
The comments arrived the same week Jonathan Coachman claimed Hollywood commitments are creating a problem behind the scenes. On the November 3 edition of The Two Count, Coachman said one of his WWE sources brought the issue to him.
“And I was told that a lot of these bigger stars, getting them to buy into long-term storytelling, JD, is becoming an issue backstage because they’re always looking to go do other stuff,” Coachman said.
Coachman named McIntyre, Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns in that conversation and pointed to recent comments from Rhodes about the freedom his new WWE contract gives him, while making clear he was paraphrasing Rhodes. His bigger worry is ticket sales. WWE sells shows months in advance, and he argued that fans may stop buying early if they can’t count on top names being there.
Coachman’s account rests on a single unnamed source and has not been backed up by other reporting. WWE has not commented.
