Drew McIntyre has looked back on his feud of the year with CM Punk and the culmination of their rivalry in a critically acclaimed Hell in a Cell match.
Although CM Punk saw his return plans derailed at the Royal Rumble, the Second City Saint remained on WWE TV while injured with one goal in mind, to ensure that Drew McIntyre did not become the World Champion.
A major factor in bringing McIntyre’s World Heavyweight Championship reign to an end at WrestleMania, Punk later interfered in McIntyre’s matches at both Money in the Bank and Clash at the Castle in Glasgow to keep the fans interested ahead of his return match.
When Punk recovered from injury at SummerSlam, his dream return was once again broken as McIntyre defeated the former World Champion with Seth Rollins acting as special guest referee. Although Punk got his win back at Bash in Berlin in a strap match, fans were expecting something big to close out their blood feud.
At WWE Bad Blood 2024, almost 27 years to the day of the inaugural event, Punk and McIntyre settled things in the match that also made its debut at the first-ever Bad Blood, Hell in a Cell.
While at one time the Cell was touted as the most demonic structure in all of wrestling, many felt that the stipulation had been watered down in recent years with forced matches on the PPV of the same name. However, with McIntyre and Punk looking to bring their blood feud to a fitting end and with a story heading into the match, the 31-minute war received critical and fan acclaim with many believing it to be the match of the year.
“We had The Chance To Have A Great & Violent Match”: Drew McIntyre
Speaking with Kenny McIntosh for Issue 54 of Inside The Ropes Magazine, McIntyre first addressed his mindset heading into the Hell in a Cell match:
“To pay all this work off with a match that justifies how the story is built. It literally is built to a blood match. I can’t remember the last time that a story was built that way. I don’t believe there are many stories ever of those real, intricate details and real feelings. You have to look at The Bloodline stuff to get that detailed storytelling and real emotion that had built from the first match to the second match and to the Cell match. Like, “Wow, this is a real blood feud”.
We had all that aura around the Cell again instead of having to have two Cell matches randomly just because the name of the pay-per-view is Hell in the Cell. We really have a chance not just to have a great match, but to have a violent match. That’s what I was thinking.”
When asked about the match itself, McIntyre noted that Punk was also looking to make the match worthy of the Cell stipulation and not one that looked pre-planned:
“I’m sure it’s what Punk was thinking. We’re both very good at our job, no matter what we feel about each other, and we knew to just go in there and really go for it. Don’t have to like each other, but happy with that, and the fans would think it was one of the craziest feuds and matches of all time, and restore the prestige and aura around the Hell in the Cell match so it doesn’t feel like just another match again.
I felt that within three minutes it probably felt like we’d done that. This is not the same. If you watch it with a trained eye, you can see we’re not in there just doing the first and the second thing we’ve planned backstage. No, we’re two professionals. We’ve got certain feelings with each other. We’ll say sorry or not sorry later. We both get it. Let’s go in and beat the absolute crap out of each other. And that’s exactly what we did.”
Also in the interview, Drew McIntyre looked back on his title win at WrestleMania 40.
In a further update, original plans for Drew McIntyre may have been changed.
The full interview with Drew McIntyre is available in Issue 54 of Inside The Ropes Magazine, which is available now and can be purchased here.
If you use any quotes from this article please credit the source and leave a h/t to ITR Wrestling.