Earlier this month, Pat McAfee returned to WWE. The commentator turned heel on SmackDown when he was revealed as the mystery voice in Randy Orton's ear heading into The Viper's WrestleMania 42 match with Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes.
The ESPN host tore into the current WWE product and buried the product in a way that left fans and those backstage scratching their heads. We've since heard that TKO's Ari Emanuel pushed for McAfee's involvement, and that WWE is aware of the negative response to, well, all of it.
Despite that, the former football punter delivered more of the same during last Friday's SmackDown. After revealing that fans could get 25% off WrestleMania Night 1 tickets that weekend, the ESPN personality proceeded to bury WrestleMania Night 2.
WWE Superstars have criticised the angle both on RAW and SmackDown, and in "shoot" interviews. Is this an indication that there's a creative clash between WWE and TKO, or are we all just being worked? If it's the latter, then the company might have outsmarted everyone; fans are cheering for Cody Rhodes again, and pretty much everyone wants to see McAfee get his comeuppance.
In a new Sports Illustrated interview, Rhodes shared more comments on McAfee being inserted into his WrestleMania program with Orton, and the American Nightmare wasn't holding back.
"This is the most ill-received thing in the history of wrestling. The Gobblerly Gooker was one, Shockmaster was up there, but that was kind of funny. This is the entire fandom—your fandom, my fandom, independent wrestling fans, casual fans, cinema fans—every single fan who ever said wrestling has received this with... okay. So worst-received thing in the history of wrestling.But I want to say something on the bright side, because I have to be an optimist in general."
"On the bright side of this: Pat McAfee is a huge star. Pat McAfee is part of—he's one of the faces, if not the face—of ESPN in his College GameDay stuff. He's a legendary and great athlete and loves wrestling. He is just trying to help our party out. So I respect him and I respect that.On the other side of it, I am attuned to the online audience, but it's not just the online audience. And I think one time I made a mistake saying every wrestler looks right at their phone, but we all see it."
"I look at that as when I was doing Stardust or getting a bone on my way up: how can I make this something? And why I'm not worried is because Randy Orton is the guy I'm wrestling. Randy is arguably the best in the year before—even Randy turned on me—there were crowds reacting to Randy in such an insanely positive way because they were feeling love. It was a respect thing. They saw John go, 'Randy is not going yet,' but you could tell he's the hottest he's ever been."
Rhodes hasn't had much luck when it comes to having his WrestleMania main events hijacked by celebrities eager for the spotlight. After The Rock tried to take his match with Roman Reigns from him, the Final Boss was all over WrestleMania 40 and, at last year's Showcase of the Immortals, rapper Travis Scott was thrown into his clash with John Cena for no good reason.
You can hear more from the Undisputed WWE Champion in the player below.