Csonka’s Top 5 Drew Galloway WWE Return Matches

Back in 2006, at the age of 21, WWE signed a young Drew McIntyre. When his main roster debut came in 2009, I felt he was in trouble right off the bat simply for the fact that they tagged him with “The Chosen One” gimmick. These style of gimmicks tend to not work, either because of backlash or simply because the performer doesn’t live up to the billing. At that time, McIntyre wasn’t ready and the writing for him wasn’t very good. He had times where he looked good, but it never clicked. He largely got lost in the shuffle, got placed into 3MB and was released in 2014. Re-branding himself as Drew Galloway, he wasn’t discouraged and hit the ground running back in ICW and with WWNLive. In his first post WWE match he defeated Chris Hero to become the Evolve champion, and over the course of his run became one of the main faces for the company. Galloway was on a mission, not only to make the title he won important, but also to prove that he had what it takes to be a star in the wrestling business. Galloway’s hard work also landed him in TNA, where he also found success at the top of the card, winning their world title. His work has been great, and now looks like someone that WWE really missed the boat on. At age 31, Galloway feels like he’s really hit his stride and is a great addition to any card he’s on, Galloway decided not to re-sign with TNA Impact Wrestling, is now a free agent and WWE is rightfully interested….

For the purposes of his column, I want to do a similar feel to my Kurt Angle column. I am looking for a way to re-introduce Galloway, looking for matches that I want to see and that WWE may realistically book. It’s easy to just name five top WWE guys and call it a list; I’m hoping that this comes cross as more than that. I have no idea where Galloway will land or if he’ll stay independent; the UK promotions want him, the WWE wants him and even if he doesn’t choose WWE, he may end up on the WWE Network if the UK promotions sign on and air events on the WWE Network. But WWE is also running “UK Championship” live events in May, which will be reportedly be taped for the Network (possibly for the rumored launch of the UK Network series). Please make sure to share some matches you’d like to see if Galloway does make a return to WWE…

5. w/Pete Dunne vs. Trent Seven & Tyler Bate: I think that a natural way to bring Galloway back into the WWE old is to use his popularity in the UK in order to help kick off the UK series and put over the new generation of The Lads. Galloway came in at a different time, a time before the Network and specialized tournaments; he, Barrett and Sheamus were “The Lads 1.0,” and now he has a chance to put over that next generation by giving them the rub. Now how I would bring him in is by teaming him with Pete Dunne, Dunne has been a complete dick since his debut in the tournament, looking to prove himself at a star while angering William Regal. Regal realizes he’s looking at himself back in the day when he sees Dunne, knows there is talent there, and that he can’t let him go. I would have Dunne go through Trent Seven as he looks for a UK Title shot against Tyler Bate. Continue the trend of Dunne being a complete asshole, attacking people and not giving a single solitary fuck. The Moustache Mountain boys would of course stick together, necessitating Dunne to have to retreat. You then run videos with Dunne promising revenge, and that he will bring in a “European Legend” to team with him and take out Moustache Mountain so that he can go for the UK Title. Unfortunately in my timeline, Dunne has no idea what he’s gotten himself into. He looks evil, he attacks guys, but Galloway is a different animal, an animal that used Dunne’s invitation as his way back into the WWE. This gets Galloway back on WWE TV and back in a WWE ring; the immediate turn shows he’s ruthless and an even bigger asshole than Dunne, locking him into a heel role.

4. vs. Pete Dunne: There may be no honor among thieves, but there sure as hell is revenge. I do my best to try to stay away from face vs. face and heel vs. heel matches; historically they confuse audiences and don’t come off very well unless you have some extremely strong performers. Galloway and Dunne are strong enough and different performers that I think they can make the heel vs. heel dynamic very well. It would be a battle of who could be the biggest dick, the sneakiest asshole and simply who can out last and out do their opponent. Dunne’s “bruiserweight” style will work with Galloway’s hard hitting and brawling style very well, and is also small enough that Galloway can bully him around a bit and use his size. Dunne’s William Regal 2k17 vibe is one I absolutely love. Working this as an all out brawl style where the theme is fully on the heels trying to out heel each other would work with these two guys, and are two of the few that I feel could make it work and keep the crowd. I would have Galloway win here in a hard fought and very competitive match, where he finally gets out-heeled by the veteran. As long as it is worked right, Dunne loses nothing in loss if he is booked to believably take Galloway to the limit.

3. vs. Tyler Bate: So now that Galloway has defeated Dunne, we go full circle back to the first match I discussed. You can have Galloway cut a promo, declaring that Bate is a false champion because WWE never invited him to the UK Tournament, and stacked it with frauds. And since he beat the man that made the finals, he demands a title shot. With Galloway re-established to the audience as an asshole heel that will screw anyone over and o anything to win, he would be a great opponent for the smaller, babyface Bate. Bate is younger, smaller, has less experience and will be the perfect guy to sell for Galloway’s bully style offense. In a match like this, where Bate survives the onslaught of the bigger Galloway only to overcome the bigger and more experienced performer, would do a lot to legitimize Bate and the UK Championship which is something that need to be done. Galloway would lose nothing here, he’s a star and if he puts in a good performance, the story isn’t that “Galloway lost,” but it would instead be about Bat over coming and scoring the biggest win of his WWE career. I would also have Galloway put the big beat down on Bate post match, destroying him and possibly injuring him to set him up for a future match and possible title loss to Dunne. The post match attack and ruining of Bate by Galloway is only being done to feed into our next match…

2. vs. Finn Balor: With Galloway being the disgruntled veteran, going after the younger lads and trying to prove his supremacy, the perfect juxtaposition to him would be Finn Balor. Babyface Finn Balor making the save for young Tyler Bate would play well, and of course lead to a major and fresh match up on the main roster. By this point (and he would have also had a chance to work some live events) Galloway would have knocked off the rust in terms of working back in the WWE system. I think that Balor makes for a great first main roster feud, he’s over as a face and if you incorporate the footage of the angles into some effective video packages to set the stage, you have the makings of a heated battle that can serve as upper card feud with ease, possibly a title eliminator of sorts. Balor is great, moves fast and can fly. On top of that, he’s smaller and that worked into the Galloway gameplan I have been discussing. While Galloway is far from a giant, guys like he and hero work so well when they work in the dominant bully role in sprint style matches. Galloway has great agility and speed for a guy his size, and can keep up working a faster style. Following the loss to Bate, once they transition into this, Galloway gets the big win and moves onto the top prize…

1. vs. AJ Styles: If Galloway makes his way back to the WWE, the pot of gold is AJ Styles. They were ships that passed in the night, and this would be a hugely fresh match, something WWE can always use. As I have repeatedly said for years, AJ Styles is one of the most gifted and most talented guys in all of wrestling. Over the last few years, post TNA where more people have been able to see him, he has show that he’s one of the best and that he deserves the praise he was getting in TNA, when many didn’t take the time to watch the product and see him. As Drew McIntyre I honestly never saw a ton in the guy, he was young, worked hard and had some ability but he never really impressed me; he was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time In all honesty, Drew Galloway was a guy that needed to be released by WWE, he needed to reinvent himself and he needed to get his confidence back. It’s hard to be signed by the biggest company in the world, be named the “chosen one” and then be shoved to the side, told you weren’t good enough and then fired from your dream job. In 2014 I never would have said that Galloway vs. Styles was a match I wanted to see nor would it top any sort of list I was writing. But in 2017, Drew Galloway has transformed himself into a completely different performer, a smarter performer and a guy that can be a viable main event talent anywhere he goes. In terms of his progress, Galloway is so good and can work with everyone, but does particularly well with smaller guys and flyers; he would be a great base for Styles. His offense is so strong that him dominating Styles physically would be completely believable. On the flip side, Styles is such a natural babyface and fights from the bottom better than anyone. They missed each other in TNA, and due to Galloway’s improvement and Styles being so great, this is now a match I really want to see and would be a rare fresh match up in the WWE upper card.

– Galloway has a ton of choices in regards to his future; WWE is interested, Impact could always throw more money at him (I hate to see him go and feel he’s honestly a bigger loss than the Hardys), but now that he’s gone from there, NJPW is a real chance going forward. But the other thing to consider is that Galloway makes a killing as an independent; he has a name, charges competitive prices, and has a good home base in the US with EVOLVE. On top of that, the UK promotions all want him to work for them, Galloway traveling the various UK promotions (as well as the rumored Anthem/ITV project) and working all of the big shows along with all of his US work would keep him extremely busy. As long as Galloway appears for promotions that I can easily see, I just want him to be happy in terms of his decision. I have greatly enjoyed his post WWE run, he’s worked hard, reinvented himself and is a big get for anyone that locks him down.

– End scene.

– Thanks for reading.

“Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye Felicia!”