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Drew McIntyre will make his in-ring return at WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event when he squares off against Randy Orton more than a month after he lost to Damian Priest in a steel cage match.
McIntyre showed his face last week when he interrupted a segment between Orton and Cody Rhodes.
Unafraid to tell it like it is, McIntyre wondered “what happened” to Orton as the so-called “Legend Killer” seemingly lost the psychological war against Rhodes well before he lost the match against him that would have given him a shot at the Undisputed WWE championship against John Cena at SummerSlam.
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Drew McIntyre during Wrestlemania 39 Night 2 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., April 2, 2023. (Joe Camporeale/USA Today Sports)
Orton got the last word that night, but it set up a match between the two superstars at Saturday Night’s Main event.
“I guess we’ll find out,” McIntyre told Fox News Digital when asked whether Orton may have lost his killer instinct. “He finally dropped me with the RKO after I ran my mouth for eight straight minutes. But I’m honest. I’m always honest. I’m not the bad guy. You know, ‘heel,’ like everyone likes to say. I just tell the truth and that makes you the bad guy today’s day in age.
“I said Cody’s been buttering him up for months, talking about how great friends they are, how much he respects him, getting Randy’s guard down leading into the (Night of Champions) match and the split second Randy tweaked his back, his surgically repaired back, the back he was never gonna return from at one point.
“What did Cody do? ‘My good friend, oh my goodness, are you OK? I want to do this the right way.’ No! He went right after his back. He targeted his back, possibly shortened his career even more. Then, when Randy had the opportunity to get him back, he hesitated, but he went for it anyway, then he missed and he lost the match. That’s on Randy.”
McIntyre said “prodding” Orton was part of the plan to get a match with him. He compared himself with John Cena and said he wasn’t going to sell his soul and take “cheap” route to get a title shot.
Randy Orton makes his entrance during WWE Elimination Chamber at Rogers Centre March 1, 2025, in Toronto. (Georgiana Dallas/WWE via Getty Images)
When it came to who he wants to face for the title, he pointed directly at Rhodes and made clear he didn’t want to go up against this version of Cena.
“Cena and Cody at SummerSlam. … I’ve said this already. I don’t want this John Cena. This John Cena is a little b—-,” he said. “We never had a match one-on-one ever. It would be a huge match. I don’t want this Cena.
“I want to send him packing the way he used to be — hustle, loyalty and respect, doing things the right way. These cheap finishes, everyone leaves the arena like, ‘That freaking sucked, that was a waste of money.’ I want the actual John Cena. But since he’s not that guy, I want Cody to win that title.”
McIntyre compared his career to Rhodes’ and believes their potential matchup would be one everyone wanted to see.
“And as I told Cody, parallel careers for 20 years. We both got handed a crappy hand back in the day character wise. We both had to leave the company to find ourselves, come back, get ourselves to where we are now. I used to be where he was in his mindset where he is now. I’ve evolved past that. I see what’s important now,” he told Fox News Digital.
Cody Rhodes is interviewed by Byron Saxton after his win during Night Of Champions at Kingdom Arena June 28, 2025, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Georgiana Dallas/WWE via Getty Images)
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“Parallel careers, different destinations. The story is gonna be incredible, the match is gonna be incredible. But I want to be the one to tear the title out of Cody’s hands and see the look in his face and know, ‘Oh crap this isn’t the same Drew, and I was scared of the old Drew. This is an evolved Drew I can’t compete with because he’s better than me.’”
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