Who stole Drew McIntyre's sword on the July 5, 2021 episode of WWE Raw?

During the July 5, 2021 episode of Monday Night Raw, Jinder Mahal and his associates stole Drew McIntyre's sword, named Angela. This occurred right after McIntyre delivered a bizarre promo about the Loch Ness Monster and the history of his weapon.

What was the name of Drew McIntyre's sword in WWE?

Drew McIntyre's sword was named Angela. During the pandemic-era storylines in WWE, McIntyre carried the weapon to the ring and used it as a major prop, which culminated in a segment where Jinder Mahal stole the sword on Monday Night Raw.

How did WWE build Kofi Kingston's match against Bobby Lashley?

WWE built Kofi Kingston as a challenger for Bobby Lashley's WWE Championship at Money in the Bank by having Kingston pin Lashley's 47-year-old manager, MVP, in the main event of Raw. This booking strategy was criticized for making the manager look weak while failing to establish Kingston as a credible threat to the dominant champion.

What happened in the Kofi Kingston vs Bobby Lashley Money in the Bank match?

At the Money in the Bank pay-per-view, WWE Champion Bobby Lashley squashed Kofi Kingston in a brutal match that lasted only seven minutes. This outcome confirmed fan concerns that Kingston's previous victory over Lashley's manager, MVP, did not make him a realistic threat to the title.

Who did Drew McIntyre defeat to win the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 36?

Drew McIntyre defeated Brock Lesnar to win the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 36. This major victory capped off a dominant run where McIntyre also won the Royal Rumble, establishing himself as a top babyface who carried the company during the empty-arena ThunderDome era.

Looking back at the night WWE almost ruined Drew McIntyre for good

The ThunderDome's Dying Gasp was a Masterclass in Bad Habits

Pull up a barstool, grab a cold one, and let's talk about the absolute circus WWE served up five years ago on the July 5, 2021 episode of Monday Night Raw. The Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast post-show from that week is a perfect time capsule of Vince McMahon’s worst creative impulses. We were just two weeks away from returning to live crowds, and instead of building momentum, WWE was busy putting their top babyfaces in a blender.

The big talking points on that post-show were simple, focusing on whether Kofi Kingston pinning MVP meant anything and if Drew McIntyre’s scripted promos were killing his babyface momentum. The callers on that show were losing their minds. Looking back from the year 2026, those fans were entirely right.

Kofi Kingston and the Illusion of Credibility

Let's start with Kofi Kingston's climb to challenge Bobby Lashley for the WWE Championship at Money in the Bank. Lashley was in the middle of a dominant run as the Almighty, looking like an absolute monster. So how did WWE decide to build anticipation? They booked Kofi to pin MVP, Lashley’s 47-year-old manager, in the main event of Raw.

It was a classic piece of WWE booking logic that fails on every level. Pinning a manager does not make Kofi look like a threat to the champion; it just makes the main associate look weak. We all knew Kofi had zero chance of winning, which was proven when Lashley squashed him in a brutal seven-minute beating at the pay-per-view.

This is the classic 50/50 booking trap WWE fell into for decades. They want to give the challenger a win, but they refuse to beat any active wrestlers on the roster. So they feed them a manager or a tag partner in a match that insults the intelligence of anyone watching.

Compare this to how other promotions build challengers by winning hard-fought matches against actual active contenders. WWE thought beating a guy in a three-piece suit was enough to sell a major pay-per-view match. It was the wrestling equivalent of a soccer team celebrating a pre-season win against their own coaching staff.

Drew McIntyre and the Death by Sword Script

But as bad as the Kofi situation was, it was nothing compared to the absolute disaster of Drew McIntyre’s creative direction. Drew had carried the company on his back during the empty-arena era of the pandemic, winning the Royal Rumble and beating Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 36. He deserved all the credit in the world for keeping the ship afloat when the world was shut down.

So how did the writers reward him? They turned him into a corny, sword-wielding storyteller who read Scottish history textbooks to empty screens. On this specific July 5 episode, Drew told a bizarre story about the Loch Ness Monster and his sword, Angela, before Jinder Mahal and his cronies ran off with the weapon.

Yes, the former WWE Champion was reduced to crying about a stolen sword like a kid who lost his bicycle. Drew went from the Scottish Psychopath to a high school drama geek in the span of a few months. This is the Vince McMahon babyface curse in its purest form where cool babyfaces get softened up for a wider audience.

They did it to Roman Reigns in 2015 with the infamous "suffering succotash" line, and they did it to Seth Rollins in 2019. Drew holding a massive broadsword was cool for about two weeks. Once the sword became a prop that Jinder Mahal could run away with, the magic was completely gone.

The fans in the ThunderDome couldn't boo, because they were just faces on LED screens controlled by a technician. Wade Keller’s callers that night knew exactly what was coming, warning that live crowds in Texas would eat him alive. And they were right.

When WWE finally got back on the road, the reactions for Drew were noticeably cooler than they had been a year prior. He was still a hard worker, but the fans were tired of the cartoonish booking. It took years for Drew to rebuild his character and get back to being the gritty, cynical heel we see today.

The Great Crowd Panic of 2021

The rest of that July 5 show was just as bad. Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley had a crutch fight that looked like a comedy sketch gone wrong. It was supposed to be a serious feud for the Raw Women's Championship, but it ended up looking like two kids playing Star Wars in the backyard.

The only bright spot on the entire broadcast was Riddle. Riddle beat AJ Styles in a fun match that showed his potential, but his goofy charm worked only because it felt authentic, unlike Drew's forced script. R-K-Bro was the only thing on Raw that felt fresh.

But one good Riddle match couldn't save a show that was drowning in corporate micromanagement. The ThunderDome allowed WWE to present a completely controlled product. They could pipe in cheers, mute booing, and pretend that every segment was a massive hit. It was a sterile environment that protected the writers from the consequences of their bad booking.

That is why this July 5 episode is so fascinating to look back on. It was the final week WWE could hide behind the LED screens. The writers knew that real crowds were coming back at Money in the Bank and the following Raw in Dallas. You would think they would want to put their best foot forward and write a show that made fans excited to buy tickets.

Instead, they gave us a main event where a top challenger pinned a manager, a former champion crying over a sword, and a crutch fight. It was a show written by people who were terrified of what real fans might say. They wanted to lock in these cartoonish stories before the crowd could hijack them.

We saw this panic play out in real time. WWE was so worried about fans rejecting their chosen babyfaces that they doubled down on the scripting. They didn't want Drew to talk like a real human being who might say something off-script. They wanted a safe, corporate product that could be easily packaged for sponsors.

The problem is that professional wrestling is not a safe, corporate product. It is a live, chaotic soap opera that relies on the energy of the crowd. When you try to strip that chaos away, you end up with the sterile, boring television that defined Raw in the summer of 2021.

It reminds us of how close WWE came to completely ruining Drew McIntyre. If they had kept him on that sword-story path for another six months, he might never have recovered. It took a complete creative shift and a heel turn to save his career and turn him back into a main event attraction.

So let's raise a glass to the death of the ThunderDome and the lessons WWE hopefully learned from it. Wrestling is always at its best when the creative team listens to the crowd instead of trying to outsmart them. The next time you see a wrestler cutting a promo about Scottish giants or holding a prop, just remember the summer of 2021 and pray we never go back.