In an interview that will be released tomorrow as part of the talkWRESTLING show on TalkSport in the United Kingdom, WWE champion Drew McIntyre recounted how he pushed to have Heath Slater appear on Raw this past Monday and the hurdles he had to overcome…from Slater himself.

McIntyre said that the whole segment was very special to him and he was pushing a lot to make it happen. But he found opposition from Slater as he was against showing up on Raw after he was fired this past April.

“Heath was a little bit against it and I spoke to my wife right before the phone call I made to Heath to try and convince him to come onto the show for the segment,” Drew said. “She reminded me how I felt at the time when I was released and sure enough, he felt the same. He appreciated the opportunity with WWE, it was where he had made his name, but mentally he has moved on.”

McIntyre said Slater is ready for the next move in his career and didn’t want to go backwards so to speak. It took a little bit of convincing from the champ’s part and ultimately, Slater trusted him with the plan.

“We finally got him on board and got him on the show, he absolutely killed it, like I knew he would,” Drew said.

“The first thing I did outside of WWE was ICW and I showed my real personality and it caused a buzz and went viral on the underground, but if you get the chance to show your real personality on RAW that’s going to set you on the right course,” McIntyre continued, adding that Slater has been working out really hard and he’s glad people got to see what he looks now and in the process, advanced his storyline with Ziggler so everybody won.