Tom Brady blasted by WWE champion Drew McIntyre after "cute" comments

WWE champion Drew McIntyre has responded to NFL legend Tom Brady after he slammed wrestling as "cute".

Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl winner made the comment in a conversation with Logan Paul, McIntyre's former tag team partner who has successfully transitioned into being a full-time WWE superstar.

The two will square off at the Fanatics Flag Football Classic on March 21 at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with Brady making his first appearance since retirement in 2023.

Brady said he was "actually a little worried" for Paul in the match-up but when 'The Maverick' referenced his profession, the former New England Patriots star put down the wrestling business when he said: “It’s cute. I love WWE, it’s very cute, but this is real football and real competition.”

That prompted an eruption of responses from various top WWE superstars who were offended by Brady's dim view of their art-form.

Randy Orton offered to give Brady an RKO but McIntyre chose to offer a measured response, calling for Brady join the long list of athletes who have come to a WWE show to see the "freak of nature athletes" do their thing in the flesh.

"I saw what some of the other talent had to say," McIntyre told SPORTbible.

"And I think a couple of them offered him up a little fight or just even offered him to get in the ring and just see what it feels like to even hit the ropes or take a bump. And as soon as you land on that mat, you go, 'Oh, God, this is not what I thought it would be'.

"For me personally, I don't care. I honestly don't care. When somebody says something like that, I literally take it as it's just coming from a place of ignorance.

"He obviously doesn't know anything about our industry or hasn't enough time to see what we do and what it actually takes to pull off what we do."

The Scot continued: "The live action, if you want to call it live action soap opera that we do with real time feedback from an audience, that we have to change on the fly. If the audience aren't feeling it, we have to listen and adapt on the fly.

"We're keeping each other healthy and telling the story we're trying to tell within the time we're allotted. There's so much to pulling off what we pull off and he doesn't understand.

"He's an excellent athlete, one of the best athletes of all time. I'd say for him, just come to a live show, watch us at a live show close up and spend a couple of hours there.

"And I guarantee by the end, just being the kind of athlete he is, he would say, 'Oh, my God, these guys are freak of nature athletes'. And again, why would I get offended when I hear something like that? "Because it literally comes from a place of ignorance."

In his second run as WWE champion, the first Brit to hold the title, McIntyre is gearing up for a title defence at WrestleMania and awaiting the winner of Saturday's Elimination Chamber - where six men will compete in a gruelling cage elimination match in the hope of earning a championship opportunity.

McIntyre's first, historic stint with the WWE title started in the COVID-19 pandemic when he defeated Brock Lesnar without any fans in attendance.

Throughout that period, he regularly went back and forth on social media with three-time world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, who had one match in WWE against Braun Strowman in Saudi Arabia.

Despite it being in the works, a McIntyre-Fury showdown never happened, replaced by an Oasis singalong after McIntyre was screwed out of regaining the title at Clash of the Castle in Cardiff, Wales in 2022.

The Gypsy King is returning to the ring in April against Arslanbek Makhmudov at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium but with the way in which he was able to "fire up" Fury, McIntyre believes things could get rolling again in the future.

"I think a couple of times we came pretty close," McIntyre admitted.

"We went back and forth with each other and nothing's ever dead.It was just simmering, simmering right there. We went back and forth during the pandemic, especially.

"And I think a couple of times I got him a couple of good shots and he fired up proper and I could see it in his face, like, 'OK, yeah, he's not messing around anymore, he's not doing what he thinks is a wrestling interview or a wrestling promo - I've got him and he's got that look in his eyes he gets before boxing matches'.

"I got that fire out of him. Everything just lay simmering for a while.

"I'd say it was pretty close to doing something more interesting than singing that stupid song that we redeemed in Glasgow when I was champion and I sang the Scottish national anthem with all the fans there. That was the redemption from that stupid Clash of the Castle song with Fury.

"But yeah, so you never know. So him and I have got that simmering there. All it takes is me calling him a big, stupid dosser like I am right now and it could ignite once again."

Netflix UK & Ireland subscribers can watch Raw, SmackDown, NXT and all WWE Premium Live events as part of their subscription, including Elimination Chamber live this Saturday 28th February at 11.45 PM GMT.

WWE returns to Europe this Summer including the first-ever PLE in Italy - ‘Clash in Italy’ - and stops across Spain, Portugal, France and the U.K.