Source: Sentinel Review
By Cory Smith – Sports reporter
Tuesday July 04, 2006
PHILADELPHIA – After weeks of hype, The Highlanders made sure their WWE live television debut was a successful one.
The tag team, which includes Woodstock’s Derek Couch (aka Robbie McAlister), defeated the duo of Rob Conway and Matt Striker on Monday Night RAW.
It’s been an improbable road to the WWE for Couch, who was prodded into following his lifelong dream by a co-worker five years ago when he worked at CAMI Automotive Inc.
“I always wanted to be a wrestler and I was more talk than anything,†Couch recalled in a previous interview with the Sentinel-Review. “He kept bugging me for months and months and finally I called a wrestling school and there was no looking back.
“If it wasn’t for him, I probably wouldn’t have wrestled.â€
For the past month, The Highlanders have been featured in a series of vignettes that were shown during the two-hour, nationally broadcast show.
They were portrayed as a pair of bumbling Scotsmen travelling across the United States before making their way to RAW, which they finally did Monday night in Philadelphia.
The duo made short work of their opponents and was described as “unorthodox†on several occasions by commentators Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross. They won via the Scot Drop after a couple of minutes in the national spotlight.
While it was the first time the tag team has appeared on live television, it wasn’t their first TV appearance.
They were featured on Sunday Night Heat two years ago.
“I didn’t get nervous working in front of 17,000 people,†he said after his SNH match at Pittsburgh’s Mellon Arena.
“It’s work. It’s like going to a factory. I didn’t get excited until I left. I don’t try to get excited about anything.â€
