Drew McIntyre joined World Wrestling Entertainment last autumn after finishing a criminology degree at Glasgow Caledonian University, swapping wrestling part time in front of a handful of people in sports centres and town halls for appearing live on TV and in front of 20,000 in arenas across America.

But for wrestling fans brought up with pretend Scots such as Roddy Piper, the Ayr native says convincing fans Stateside he’s the genuine article is a tough task.

“Nobody believes I’m Scottish,” he told DailyRecord.co.uk. “They’re all like, ‘Where are you from really?’ They don’t believe the Scottish accent - they expect me to talk like Braveheart!’

But while the fans in America might not believe him, wrestling fans on this side of the Atlantic have had a chance to see McIntyre - real name Drew Galloway - in action for years.

Although he only graduated last year, the 22-year-old is already a professional wrestling veteran. Aged just 14, he’d regularly travel 12 hours to Portsmouth to train at the FWA Academy - which also produced current WWE stars Paul Burchill and Katie Lea - in pursuit of his childhood dream.

“My brother’s a year younger than me and we used to watch it when we were younger,” he said.

“He was my first training partner, if you like - we used to always batter each other.  The funny thing was we were really belting each other but we had structure to it, we’d let each other get our moves in for our imaginary crowd of teddy bears.

“At school I was your normal footballing guy, but behind closed doors I was trying to find out the secrets of wrestling.  I was a bit of a wrestling geek, really.

“I always said I was going to work for the WWE or play for Glasgow Rangers.  As I got older I was still playing football but I realised, when I was about 14, that I wanted to give wrestling a try.”

The 6’6” Scot quickly made an impact on the British wrestling scene, holding Scottish and Irish titles while still in in his teens, at the same time as studying for his degree - and his success quickly caught the eye of WWE scouts.

And he’s quick to pay tribute to his parents for enabling him to get to the big time so quickly.

“I had a deal with my parents - they said ‘as long as you stay in school and get an education we’ll do everything we can to support you on the wrestling front.  They knew that was my dream but they always thought ‘hey, we’re determined you get an education.

“They were a huge support, because obviously being at university and my part time job was wrestling, and I could only do that when I had free days.  Occasionally I disappeared from university for a couple of weeks, if there was a wee wrestling tour, but I would always sort that out in advance. 

“But there wasn’t a great deal of money to be made in the independents so they were always there to support me, every aspect of it.  If I was down, they were there to perk me up and tell me ‘you’ve been doing this for too long to quit now, get your arse in gear!’”

Drew made his debut on the WWE’s Friday Night Smackdown TV show last October, just weeks after moving to the US.  But while he wasn’t fazed by making his debut, he made sure that his parents would get a surprise.

“I didn’t tell them about Smackdown,” he laughs.  “I just told one of my friends, who went round just to say hi, and was like ‘oh, the wrestling’s on’.

“I always have to do these things in creative ways, I can’t just tell them to watch Smackdown cause I’m on it, so I was like, how can I do this in the cleverest way possible.  They were like ‘oh my god’.”

Since then, McIntyre’s moved from Smackdown to the company’s flagship Monday Night Raw show, seen by millions of viewers across the world, and also continues to train and work on learning the American style of wrestling at their training school in Florida.

But after six months in the States, he admits there’s lots he still misses about this side of the Atlantic.

“I especially miss my family.  I’ve not been out much here, but it’s a very different nightlife - I miss the Scottish madness, going out and getting bevvied up and hitting the clubs. 

“Obviously these days the drinking’s a no go - just on the rare occasion, not like university days.

“And I miss the Record.  If I could get British papers sent out to me it would be glorious!”

Later this month he’ll make the short trip from his new home in Tampa to the 70,000 seater Citrus Bowl stadium in Orlando for WrestleMania, the WWE’s biggest show of the year - and although he doesn’t expect to be on the card quite so early into his WWE career, he admits just being there is a dream come true.

“That’s the ultimate dream - obviously participating on it would be nice, but even being there ... whatever I’m asked to do, I’m just happy to be at something like WrestleMania.

“WrestleMania’s like the World Cup, it’s on the same level as the world cup to me.  I love football, and that’s the same level I put that on.

“But I’d rather main event WrestleMania than score the winning goal for Rangers in the cup final, every day of the week.  They were both big passions of mine when I was younger, but the passion for wrestling developed into a love.”