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CHOSEN
When it comes to professional wrestling, hype goes hand in hand with performance when it comes to building a star. For Drew Galloway, you don't get more in terms of promotional hype behind you beyond being billed as Vince McMahon's hand-picked "Chosen One." That is the sort of push and attention that professional wrestlers dream about and quietly scheme to get themselves....and Galloway - at the time christened Drew McIntyre - had it at just the age of 24.
Even more amazingly, Galloway had been signed by WWE in 2006 at the age of just 21, leaving his parents behind in Scotland for the renowned wild life of Louisville, Kentucky, trading the primordial soup of today's explosive British wrestling scene for promotions like Insane Championship Wrestling and Irish Whip Wrestling that were drawing relatively small groups fans and making even smaller waves, for the unique education that is WWE developmental. After a quick call-up to the main roster to team with renowned journeyman Dave Taylor, the decision was made to send Galloway back down to the minors. He was young and management saw something in him. His time was coming.
That time had come in 2009 when Galloway, now just a few months past that 24th birthday, found himself being personally introduced on WWE television as a future WWE champion by no less an authority than Vince McMahon himself, an act that may as well have been the pro wrestling equivalent of Galloway dropping to one knee in order to be knighted by King Arthur. The sky was the limit because not only had his time come, but he had the approval, on screen no less, of the most important man in the professional wrestling industry.
Quickly, the Intercontinental championship and a good portion of TV time on the Smackdown brand was Galloway's as he tormented then-General Manager Teddy Long and feuded with Kofi Kingston in segments that saw the Scottish star get legitimate angry reactions from the audience and showcase strong performances in the ring. As a villain, he was getting noticed and it was just a matter of time before Galloway made good in Vince McMahon's prophecy. However, with that proclamation and that push came a lot of pressure - the same type of pressure mountain climbers have when they are scaling Everest, knowing they have to make it to the summit before their supplies, indeed their very oxygen, runs out.
To put it bluntly, Galloway's oxygen ran out and he never made it to the summit.
Years later, it doesn't matter whether that was caused by personal mistakes made behind the scenes, a lack of a champion in the writer's room to keep him on course, or creative decisions that, in hindsight, hurt Galloway more than they were expected to help him. The path to success was buried under an avalanche and before long, Galloway was being traded back and forth across WWE brands and before anyone knew which way was up, he was now part of 3MB, an underneath group that was designed to be more comedy than anything else. He had been unchosen.
A long way from those dreams of being on top, Galloway still did what he's learned from his first days in professional wrestling - make the most of your opportunity and try and have fun with it. While 3MB may have been something of a throwaway act when it came to how it was conceived and utilized by WWE, it's undeniable that the trio - Galloway and current WWE stars Jinder Mahal and Heath Slater - were able to get far more out of it and pull far larger reactions out of the audience than anyone would have expected. Throughout that run, Galloway remained at the top of the list for the most underutilized WWE performer. In another era, he likely would have been fit into a slot similar to Curt Hennig or Ted DiBiase, a top working heel helping to at the very least, preparing strong babyfaces, but in the 21st century, he instead was floating aimlessly, playing air guitar while waiting for that chance to climb back upwards....a climb that never began anew.
EXILE & IMMERSION
On June 12, 2014, Galloway became the answer to what in hindsight will be a most interesting trivia question: Who gets the biggest break of their wrestling career on the day they are fired by WWE?
Just a few days after his 29th birthday, Galloway is released by WWE. He had spent not only the last eight years of his life in the United States, but 95% of his entire adult life had been spent working and traveling around the world for WWE, waiting for the chance. It's the chance every person who takes their first bump dreams of getting - to finally fulfill the destiny that they have wanted since they got their first taste of professional wrestling...the dream of being the star of the show, the person that captivates everyone who surrounds them. All eye on center ring....the same destiny that Vince McMahon had tantalized the WWE audience with when Galloway debuted. It was a destiny that, on that day, was not to be.
Galloway and his dreams may as well have been a galaxy apart at that moment in time. It's moments like this that harden men, that make them bitter, that make them walk away from their life's pursuit, that mentally and emotionally agonize them. So close and so far. Every pro wrestler who works for WWE will one day see that run end. Many of them are never the same. Some of them play off of the nostalgia of that era of their lives. Some of them enter the "real world" and play wrestler on the weekend. Some leave. Some never know when to leave. There's no real way to explain the mental grind of being let go by your dream job. One day you are married to the person you dreamed of your entire life and the next, you are no longer part of their world. That scar doesn't heal for a long time, no matter how many times one repeats, "It's just business."
To his credit, Galloway still loved professional wrestling, so he did the exact opposite of what many do when told they are being cut and they have 90 days pay to do absolutely nothing - he went about getting booked. After years of being a WWE sports-entertainer on television, Galloway took all that WWE television time and goodwill and parlayed it into becoming the modern day equivalent of an old school traveling World champion. Instead of being mad at professional wrestling for what didn't work out, he immersed himself even deeper to work even harder, falling in love with the ability to create, unrestricted, special matches and big moments. There were no wasted segments, no spotlights missed, no possibilities passed by. He took the Matt Hardy and Young Bucks' tact of utilizing social media to build and invest in himself as his own brand and partnered with FITE TV to produce videos showcasing his journeys around the world.
Knowing he had one chance to make it work, Galloway hit the ground running what could only be considered a pro wrestling marathon. He captured the Insane Championship Wrestling and EVOLVE championships and took them everywhere he could to not only raise the prestige of the belts but also the promotions itself, envisioning himself as close to the NWA traveling champion-era Ric Flair as was possible in today's day and age. Galloway booked himself an insane work and travel schedule, one that was so jam-packed that it took him from the United States to Ireland to Germany to England to Australia and all points in between.
If there was a live event and a way to get there, Galloway was there, taking on a schedule that was even more haphazard and frenzied than anything he endured while working for WWE. Sleep deprivation, odd hotels, insane flights, long matches and (at times) longer rides in crappy cars replaced off days, sitting in catering, time-filling undercard matches and that nagging feeling of "what went wrong here?" when thinking about his career.
Before, there was no answer to how to get back on track. Now, there were endless choices to make. True, he was gone from WWE, but in many ways, that had brought himself closer to the summit than ever before. By investing in himself and tearing a path across the globe, Drew Galloway now meant more than Drew McIntyre had in years...and then TNA came calling.
TNA called and offered exclusivity, guaranteed money and a chance to slow down. Galloway rebuffed the offer, instead taking, according to him "far, far, far less money" in order to work on a per-date contract that allowed him to do anything and everything that he wanted outside of TNA's auspices, including his independent and international bookings. So, while Galloway was promoting that he was "Standing up for wrestling" on TNA Impact, he was actually doing just that, because he had ignored the easy money and took Door #2 in order to keep doing what he had always been so passionate about, creating moments and doing something special. Galloway added TNA to his list of many promotions and his schedule became even zanier - so crazed in fact that due to his travel schedule, he almost missed a TNA Impact taping in Orlando. To his surprise, when he arrived late, he found out he was winning the TNA title that night. Even with his independence, TNA was still willing to back Galloway with their most important championship and his work for the company, in the ring and on the mic, always delivered, even when the booking wasn't the strongest.
So, right about now, you might be wondering how the day Galloway was fired actually ended up being his biggest break?
No, It had nothing to with TNA title wins or even insane schedules or even finding his love of professional wrestling just where he left it, but because over the nine years he was away, the entire landscape of the European wrestling scene had changed and now Galloway had the chance to return and be a part of an incredible, explosive moment in time.....one that is currently paving the way for an even bigger 2017 for Galloway.
'FINDING THE REAL'
When Galloway left Mark Dallas' Insane Championship Wrestling in 2006, the promotion was drawing, at best, a few hundred. In 2016, the promotion brought in over 6,000 fans for their Fear & Loathing IX event, a show that was streaming live on iPPV. Over the last several years, Galloway has been an important part of helping the promotion continue to gain credibility. By the same token, ICW deserves a lot of credit in giving Galloway the chance to be, as he terms it "real" in his promos, allowing him to speak his mind and bring something real out of the fans. Much like Steve Austin venting his soul after being fired by WCW on Extreme Championship Wrestling television in 1995, Galloway working the British scene, especially ICW, has given him the chance to pull something deep and emotional and guttural from within, utilizing his promo skills like never before.
A great example (embedded below) is Galloway's announcement on 11/19 at Insane Championship Wrestling's event the night before their Fear & Loathing IX iPPV that he would need to pull out of the event as, after months of waiting to heal from a freakishly disgusting and scary break in multiple vertebrae, Galloway had received word that he would indeed require surgery and be out of action for even more time. Take the time to watch (and I mean watch), the promo below:
The promo is one of those amazing moments that Galloway was able to be part of over the last few years as you seem him control the crowd - obviously a smart, rowdy crowd that is initially not buying his claims. As Galloway pulls from within and becomes more emotional - more "real", as he often says during our conversation, he brings some in the audience almost to tears as they realize this isn't part of a storyline or some swerve.....and just when they believe, swerve them he does. It's a scene that happens all too often in professional wrestling, but to find it at this great of an emotional level, well, you may as well be seeking out the Loch Ness Monster. This is the type of moment that makes someone fall in love with professional wrestling all over again.
"I felt terrible after that promo," Galloway admits. "The way I like to do things is to be very real - not in the ring, my opponents can tell you, but outside the ring, I have to find something that I can bite into on every promo, no matter how small they may be. I have to find something real for myself and something I can get into and obviously, with the injury, it was very, very real. With that particular promo, I used certain things. My dad was there and I knew I could upset him and turn upside down within me. Certain promos I just....I was shaking for an hour after that promo. When I discuss certain promos, I bring myself back to how I felt at the time....and that injury, that was the scariest moment of my entire life. Sixteen years wrestling and I had never been that worried and I was able to tap into all of that for the promo."'
The time post-WWE was also important in finding additional maturity and growing as a performer, Galloway acknowledges.
"I don't think it's a shock to talk about that at one point, I was going to wrestle Undertaker", he notes, "but back then it was said that I didn't look like I wrestled. Hunter would say he wished I looked the way I wrestled. I wrestled like a man but I looked like a boy. It just wasn't right. Sometimes you need the time to mature and grow, so that you can truly fill what is envisioned for yourself and be how you see yourself. Sometimes, you just need time to grow."
That growth forward came as a result of stepping back in time, so to speak, only to find that all things change....many times, for the better.
EUROPEAN REFLECTIONS
Galloway also found himself in the mix as professional wrestling in Europe - led by the likes of PROGRESS Wrestling, Rev Pro, IPW-UK, Over the Top Wrestling, Westside Xtreme Wrestling and What Culture Pro Wrestling, among many, many others - has become the 21st century equivalent of what the Northeastern United States was in the 1990s and early 2000s - a region that has grown into being home of the most stacked assembly of talents and promotions that wrestling fans could ever hope and dream for.
"When I started, there was nothing. I used to have to travel 12 hours by bus to the only wrestling school in the UK down in Portsmouth, England when I was 15 years old," said Galloway, reflecting on the earliest days of the current European wrestling explosion. "I brought back what I learned there and I would show a bunch of guys in Scotland - like the Wolfgangs and the Lionhearts and the Jack Jesters. With Insane Championship Wrestling, we started all working together, we put on shows and that's when we were like 16. That's not even the Scottish scene. In the UK scene, there were like three companies in all of the UK. Finally, a little TV show started in Ireland called Irish Whip Wrestling and that's where I met Sheamus. We became the big feud of Europe and back then, we'd be videoing the matches on Sheamus' video camera and helping each other learn and it was just us trying to figure it out back then. Then, I got signed at 21, disappeared for eight years, kind of kept my finger on the pulse. I could see it was growing but it wasn't until I returned after I was gone from WWE. The lights went out, the lights came on and I looked around and it's so un-freaking-believable man."
For every Marty Scurrl and Will Ospreay and Jack Gallagher and Noam Dar that has found attention and contracts Stateside, there are dozens of others who are just as talented or are well on their way to getting to that level in the years to come...to the point that ITV wants to relaunch World of Sport three decades after the network made the decision to cancel it and even WWE is preparing to launch a tournament to crown the first WWE UK champion with a pair of WWE Network live events that are undoubtedly a precursor to a weekly series airing from Great Britain across the world under the WWE banner.
"We're just incredibly passionate people," Galloway says about the European wrestling audience, noting that most sport fans in that part of the world are "mental" and losing their mind during soccer pitches, as opposed to American fans who will remain subdued while watching the start of a play. "ICW has become part of the culture in Glasgow, for example. Some of the people there weren't even specifically wrestling fans but heard about this local company and heard there was a buzz, so they went to the show and enjoyed the product and were proud it was from their town. The same with PROGRESS down in London and the companies that are growing right now, like OTT in Ireland. It's just that something has happened in their area."
Galloway also says that the geographic region has lent itself to the growth of the scene. "Not a lot happens in the UK," he explains. "We're a very, very small place. You could fit all of us into Texas four times. There isn't much going on, so if something happens, we latch onto it and we're passionate about it. It's been happening up and down the UK. The fact that the UK has the hottest wrestling scene right now, the most passionate wrestling fans right now...it's just crazy. It was already growing, but the fact that I was able to help it get worldwide eyes on it...to see ICW go from 50 fans to 100 fans to a few hundred fans when I went back the first time to 2,000 for my first big show to 4,000 last year to 6,200 this year with Finn Balor coming down and hitting me with a pipe....like, who could have predicted all this happening? It's absolutely crazy. I can't wrap my head around it."
"When I went back, obviously the crowds have doubled in size and now tripled since I've been there, but the biggest thing I've noticed is that the talent level went from us trying to help each other to Holy crap! Who's this Will Ospreay guy? All the guys in ICW, just how much better they got and all these guys who just magically appeared out of nowhere over the past eight years and now they are all the highest level wrestlers in the world. It's just, I think that's the biggest thing probably, just the in-ring talent is so good...and the characters - that's a big thing actually if we're talking about differences. In the U.S., people are really focused in the in-ring, which they should be as I believe that you have to have a strong in-ring product, but it sort of ends there with some guys. In the UK, you have these wild characters, especially in the companies I've mentioned, but they also focus on the in-ring product. The UK fans like something fun that they can latch onto and there's some wild characters going on there, I guess. Grado is a good example for the ICW for instance."
WWE's growing involvement in the European scene is, to Galloway, a positive.
"Hunter [Paul "Triple H" Levesque] does genuinely see that we have to create talent for the future and he sees the success of these companies. He sees it as a case of, 'You help us, we'll help you.' It's not a case of 'we're taking over.' They come in and have a working relationship with say EVOLVE or the European companies like PROGRESS or Rev Pro or OTT and they are getting the exposure from WWE and WWE's getting talent they can potentially use in the future so it does go both ways and it's cool to see that WWE's not just doing what's best for them now, but they are doing what's best for the wrestling business. The fact that we have the World of Sports coming and it looks like that's going to get picked up and The What Culture [Pro Wrestling] is going on with such a strong online presence. There's just so many places for the guys to work and the talent level is amazing."
"ALWAYS IN MOTION, THE FUTURE IS"
That line was once famously stated by Yoda and it is certainly true in the world of professional wrestling.
One thing, however, appears to be certain. Drew Galloway is about to find himself in the luckiest portion of his entire career. With his TNA contract set to expire in February 2017 (TNA sources indicate that talks have been ongoing for several months to lock Galloway in exclusively across the board there), there has never been a more opportune time for Galloway to cash in on everything he's invested in himself in an attempt to make the big score.
At 31, he is the youngest veteran with WWE experience about to hit the free market. Add in the dimension that Galloway is well known and loved in the European market during a time period where not only is WWE in a signing frenzy seeking former talents but also seeking to make in-roads in the British market to the point they have signed Nigel McGuinness to help be to the voice of the UK tournament.
Now, factor in that TNA wants to keep Galloway, that ITV is looking to lock in talents for World of Sport, that New Japan and Ring of Honor are out there and even other promotions are, for the first time, looking to offer contracts in order to keep talents from being raided by WWE.
It's a brave new world and Galloway may be one of the first to benefit from this evolving landscape. He's walking into a situation where he's going to be one of the hottest free agents in professional wrestling and it just happens to go down when multiple suitors are going to be looking for him. As it turns out, WWE did Galloway a favor. He was fired at just the right time to turn himself into a greater asset and is worth more now to WWE and others than he would have been if he was still dancing around with 3MB all this time. Not since the days of World Championship Wrestling melting down in 2001 has there been such an opportune moment for someone of Galloway's talent and value.
Once, the pressure to get to the summit saw time fleeting away. Now, time is on Galloways' side.
It's serendipity if there ever was such a thing in professional wrestling.
VINCE
Galloway still maintains the shine of a WWE education as well as the life experiences that followed but is still young enough to not be considered an after-thought or someone beyond their prime in the eyes of the audience. Indeed, Galloway has the pedigree of the European scene lifting his worth as well, making him an even more viable commodity as the battle for that scene begins to play out in the public eye. Plus, he has ability to point at the promos, the matches and the moments that's Galloway has helped create over the last several years - the moments where he's gotten to be real....moments that he envisions one day taking him back inside a ring with the man who once decreed him "The Chosen One", Vince McMahon.
"WWE just needs some more things in wrestling that are real, that blur the line," said Galloway. "That's what drives the ratings. That's what has driven up the ratings in the past. [Steve] Austin and something they can relate to, CM Punk's pipe bomb just speaking his mind. That's the one thing that they need - something and someone that can blur those lines. There's nothing that can blur the lines more than this situation, and I don't see it happening right now, because it's a lot to do, but imagine Monday Night Raw, myself and Vince McMahon with a microphone, a live mic and just letting me speak my mind, you know? I signed my life over at 21 years old to live my dream for him. I came over here. I went through the system. He promised me the world. It didn't quite go that way. He put me in the band. The band started getting over and he released me. Then, I went on to do everything I've done and helped the companies, etc.. He did say I was the 'Chosen One' and Vince is right. There's a reason he said those things and he obviously saw something in me, saw things beyond my years that I wasn't ready for at the time. I wasn't his chosen one. I was wrestling's chosen one. The kind of retorts that he could have and the kind of material that he could have and having to go back and forth....the idea of me and Vince going back and forth speaking the truth, blurring those lines would be ridiculous to me..."
Galloway trails off and one can almost hear the energy in his voice. He sounds almost as if he's shaking at the prospects of the idea, creativity overpowering his body. It's obviously something he's envisioned in his head countless times.
"I don't know how it sounds to everyone else," he says, his voice getting stronger, "but we have all the footage and all of the real, true story. If feels like something that could be talked about for years to come, much like the pipe bomb, because it's real." Galloway adds that there's no scripting even necessary. Reflecting back on developmental days, he'd want to remind Vince McMahon of days he led promo classes and he force changes on the fly to keep talent guessing and forcing them to improve. "I'd want to say, 'Hey Vince, let's go do it like it's promo class' and see where the adventure takes us. That's real life, not knowing where things are going. The memories are made in getting to the destination."
CRAZINESS
I point out that a few weeks ago, he was a contracted TNA talent being struck by a contracted WWE talent with a pipe on an ICW show and before that, he was one half of the EVOLVE Tag Team champions, teaming with a WWE NXT talent while being the TNA champion.
Galloway laughs and sighs. "2016 is crazy. It really is."
The craziness will continue in the new year, as it always does in pro wrestling. It is impossible to know exactly what destination Galloway will land upon in 2017, but based on his trajectory over the last few years, his belief in himself and the work ethic that he has insanely shown with no signs of burnout, it's going to be something memorable.
Timing is everything in life and pro wrestling and it appears that the timing for everything is lining up perfectly for Galloway.
All signs are that as the days tick away on Galloway's current TNA contract, his ascent back towards the summit is already underway.
Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com.
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