Throughout his career Drew McIntyre has feuded with some of the biggest names in the business, but many people consider his feud with CM Punk to be his greatest rivalry.
CM Punk unfortunately suffered an injury during the 2024 men’s Royal Rumble match, and he confirmed on the following episode of Raw that he would be missing WrestleMania that year. Drew McIntyre interrupted Punk’s promo and hit him with a line that has since become infamous when he said, “I prayed for this, and it happened.”
While talking about the line on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, McIntyre noted that he originally had a line that was much more offensive. Ultimately Triple H refined his idea and came up with the line that has since inspired a plethora of memes.
“I knew talking to Triple H during the day that this is going to be so good. I had an idea and it was too much. It would have offended a lot of people, which I’m very good at. He helped me reel it back, and then Hunter himself came out with the line, which I ended up using because I had such an extreme version, and he dialed it back and the way he said it and the cadence of how it’s to be said. He said it like that, and I got so excited. He’s obviously a savant when it comes to this business. Sometimes though he comes out with [things]; I went, how do you think of that?
But it was like, that is genius, and oh my god, that is going to be so good. I know as a fan, I would lose my mind. Didn’t think I’d be seeing it to this day for everything, no matter what. It’s sports, it’s outside of wrestling, it’s constantly me pointing, ‘I prayed for this, and it happened.’ But I knew in that moment when Hunter delivered the line back to me by toning me down a little bit. I went, wow, that is genius. Because I’m going to use that exact tone.
The promo itself, I was being sympathetic, I believe, because Punk had got injured, and I understand what it’s like to have things taken away from me, and I’ve been injured before, and I’ve lost in my life in the ring and out of the ring, and I can get real personal. But I hate that son of a b*tch, and I’m going to say it in the exact same tone all the way through till people go, wait, what? His face goes, what? And I drop his a**. So yeah, that’s cool. I mean, those promos, that feud, they voted it the best feud of the 2020s.”