On this week’s Friday Night SmackDown, the Intercontinental Championship takes center stage as current title holder AJ Styles takes on Drew Gulak.
Styles has become a staple in the WWE since his debut in 2016. Making his name around the world, winning championship after championship has put Styles as one of the best wrestlers in the industry today.
Drew Gulak had a different path.
“I started wrestling in 2005. Even then on the independent scene AJ Styles was one of the top superstars in the world. He was always considered a top guy. Me, I was never really looked at at that level until I started holding a championship of my own,” Gulak told Newsweek over the phone on Thursday. “I had to work from the bottom to get to where I am now. AJ has been on the top for a very long time, he’s never really had to work his way up.”
The 33-year-old started his professional wrestling career in promotions like Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW), Evolve, Chikara, Pro Wrestling Guerilla (PWG) and many more.
In 2016, while AJ Styles was making his WWE debut at the Royal Rumble, Gulak’s hard work on the indies got him noticed and earned him a spot in the Cruiserweight Classic tournament. Gulak looked to outlast 31 other competitors to become Cruiserweight Champion. While he would lose in the second round, Gulak would join the newly formed 205 Live brand and eventually become Cruiserweight Champion before making the jump to SmackDown.
“It’s a testament to the different paths that we took, in my opinion,” Gulak said. “Someone like AJ who has been making comments, downplaying my accomplishments on SmackDown, questioning Daniel Bryan for having me coach him. I am so fired up and ready to whoop his ass. I always have something to prove.”
In our chat with the former Cruiserweight champion, we talked about how his journey shaped his WWE career, what the Intercontinental Championship means to him and working with Daniel Bryan.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Looking back at your journey. Do you find it surreal to be fighting for the Intercontinental Championship?
It’s crazy man. I keep thinking about it. The Intercontinental Championship has always been a highly regarded and prestigious title, especially amongst wrestling fans. People who love the sport of wrestling and the competition of everything. I’ve always been a fan of that. I think back to Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon fighting for the Intercontinental Championship and watching that growing up. Now, I have my first shot on SmackDown. This is huge for me, personally.
What does the title mean to you? The IC title is often referred to as the “workhorse title,” do you want to keep that legacy going?
I think the Intercontinental Championship represents hard work over everything. People sometimes say it’s a midcard championship, but it’s been defended on all parts of the wrestling card throughout its history.
I just look at it as much more than a launchpad. It’s kind of like a foundation, that’s how I see it. It’s not just a springboard that will propel me into the heavyweight title scene. This is a very prestigious championship that many talented wrestlers regardless of weight class, background, their experience level have competed for. You know what the Intercontinental Championship is if you’re a WWE fan. It hits you just for its legacy alone. This is an extremely prestigious championship and I’m honored to be able to battle for it on SmackDown.
Your journey to Friday’s match went through 205 Live, can you talk more about that experience?
I came right in with the Cruiserweight Classic, which was an homage to great tournament wrestling and I came straight in from the independent scene. And then went to 205 Live and Monday Night RAW before going to 205 Live full time until I won the Cruiserweight Championship and held the title until it was time for me to move to SmackDown.
Everybody’s career has a different progression. And mine has most certainly been climbing the ladder. We talk about AJ, he took a step and he’s already at the top of the ladder. He’s been fighting people off of that for years and years and years and me, I’ve just been surviving and climbing and I haven’t fallen down. I’ve just been steadily climbing. This is a perfect story between an old lion and a young lion. Coming up, trying to take that spot. I’m not afraid to go at it with anybody. The journey has been everything. It’s just been how it’s been for my entire life. People counted me out, I’d survive and I outlast them and succeed.
Your character has gone through different iterations whether it’s your fondness for power points or your no-nonsense attitude. How did tweaking your character in 205 Live help you get ready for SmackDown and this match?
I know I have a lot of different weapons at my disposal. If I need to pivot I can pivot. At the same time whatever I’ve done previously has carried over in some way to the next thing. I’ll give you a perfect example.
For a while I was campaigning for a better 205 Live against high-flyers and it took me to completely shed that skin and say “screw everyone else I only care about myself” to win the Cruiserweight Championship. That took me to SmackDown and SmackDown is a whole different world. My first appearance on SmackDown I had to confront Braun Strowman so in that situation I went back to my wheelhouse so that he and Tyson Fury can have their fight and he can win. Of course he didn’t listen to me and he lost, but at the same time my opportunities were getting smaller and smaller because of the situation I was in until I confronted Daniel Bryan and said I saw some holes in his game. He decided to take me up on that advice and we took it to Elimination Chamber. I beat the crap out of him, even though he won, but that prompted him to ask for my advice. And we’ve become a pair ever since then.
But that’s allowed me to take a step back on the presentation side and focus on my personality and focusing on myself and working with someone else collaboratively to make myself better. There’s a perfect example of even though I have different weapons in my wheelhouse I’m able to use them to get to where I need to go next.
Speaking of Daniel Bryan, how is it working with him?
He’s awesome. He’s a really great person. Super passionate about wrestling. If there’s anyone who is as passionate as me about wrestling it’s him. We can talk about it non-stop and our passion never wavers. Someone like AJ Styles I feel like his passion is kind of wavering, which is the dichotomy of the two people. It’s been great working with Bryan.
Daniel Bryan has been a huge supporter of those who don’t get many opportunities especially with wrestlers from 205 Live. What does that mean to you?
It means a lot to the locker room in general. Daniel, even though he’s been at the top ever since I started wrestling, much like AJ Styles, he understands that people with opportunities really come down to timing more than everything. [Bryan] had to sit there and watch as opportunities passed a lot of people by. He talks about a wrestler named Jack Collier who he grew up on the scene with and his opportunity passed him by even though he feels he would have been just as successful if he’d been given the same opportunities as Bryan.
When Bryan had his neck and head injury and took time off he called the Cruiserweight Classic and he saw a ton of talent from all over the world who may or may not be given the same opportunities he had. I think ever since then he thought, “man if I didn’t miss that time off from wrestling.” He could have been wrestling these guys and they would have been making him better, he would have made them better, the entire locker room better and WWE and the fans would have had more fun to enjoy. I think that’s a really legitimate motive for him. Whether that’s reaching out to people like myself or people like Shorty G, Mustafa Ali and recently he said Big E all these people that in his mind can go on to do so much more. It comes from a genuine place where we all love this and we want everything to be more exciting for our fanbase.
Today’s wrestling sees a lot of high-flying, flashy moves, but your style is more mat-based. Is it hard to stand out today?
I think there are phases. Flavors of the week. And you see a lot of that where wrestlers work the same kind of style through RAW, SmackDown, 205 Live, NXT, NXT UK. You’ll see people who kind of blend together. I’ve always tried to wrestle to stand out as much as I could. I’ve seen myself studying wrestlers from the 1950s, 70’s get down to the core of what being a good wrestler means. Focusing on trying to beat somebody with a pinfall or submission hold rather than worry about hitting a dive, for example, or make sure that I can use a pane of glass to break over someone’s head or use a trash can. I’ve not shunned those things to where I’m not familiar with it, but I’ve been able to hone in so much of the bare bones basics of what makes a wrestler a good wrestler and I think that’s carried me to this Intercontinental Championship opportunity.
How do you like the new design of the Intercontinental Championship?
The Intercontinental Championship is how it’s always looked, it’s a classic everyone recognizes it, but when they redesigned it I was surprised. But when I saw it I friggin’ loved the new design. It looks like if you took the Intercontinental Championship and said this is how it was going to look like in the year 2020. A version of that. It looks like that to me. I really do love it.
Is there a match or person that embodies the Intercontinental Championship to you?
Razor Ramon vs Shawn Michaels, the ladder match at WrestleMania X. That’s the one that stands out to me the most just because of how different for the time it was. I must have been five or six when I saw that match and it stuck out to me. That’s the epitome of an Intercontinental Championship match.
And I have to think about Ken Shamrock who was someone I loved growing up. He was the first MMA guy who transitioned to WWE and brought that style and win by tap out as opposed to someone submitting. People weren’t tapping out on the mat until he started popularizing that, really. When he became champion, I remember what the picture looks like. With his gloves on and his hands in the air and his face screaming with the title around his waist. That image is burned into my brain. Those are my quintessential Intercontinental Championship moments.
What kind of Intercontinental Champion would you be?
Bryan said in his interview before his championship match with AJ Styles that he wanted to defend it every week on SmackDown. It will be the “wrestler’s” championship again and he will have these classic matches against everyone he missed out on having a match with. I feel very strongly the same way he does as far as I want to be a fighting champion and I wouldn’t mind defending that thing every week, every night if I had to just so I can create opportunities for other people. I think that’s one thing where me and him would be different.
Bryan comes from being a multi-time champion. For me, this would be my first title on SmackDown. I would be this guy who worked from the bottom and I want other people in the locker room to be, “man, if Drew can do it so can I.” That’s where I want to challenge them and they show me that they can hang. That’s how I feel as champion, it’ll be slightly different.
Watch Drew Gulak take on AJ Styles for the Intercontinental Championship on Friday Night SmackDown starting at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.
