In recent weeks, Michael Cole has been joined on RAW by NXT commentator Corey Graves. Cole has briefly mentioned that McAfee isn't around, but stopped short of revealing why.
Wade Barrett initially filled in for the former NFL player, with Graves taking over for the past two weeks.
Now, McAfee himself has weighed in on The Pat McAfee Show, confirming that he simply needed a break to recharge his batteries after what proved to be a particularly gruelling few months with the company.
"Continuing to just like kinda catch up on life as a whole," McAfee shared. "Post-Money in the Bank, pre-Night of Champions…was getting pretty exhausted there. So, shout out to everybody at WWE for looking out for me, too. Very, very thankful."
He didn't provide a timeline for his return, but McAfee's latest run included a hard-hitting match with World Heavyweight Champion Gunther in what proved to be a losing effort.
McAfee and Cole are legitimately great friends, but as the latter explained earlier this year, things got off to a rocky start when they had to work together at WrestleMania the first time in 2019:
"I’m no longer in charge of the announcers. I used to not only be an announcer, but I was [also] in charge of all the announcers. So I was a VP in the company doing all that. And so we brought Pat in to do the WrestleMania kick-off show. And you know, everybody at WrestleMania is in tuxedos and ties and the whole nine yards, and Pat shows up in shorts. Now, they were tuxedo shorts, but he shows up in shorts."
"So now we’re about to go on the air live. It’s all this pressure. I see Pat walk into the gorilla with these shorts on, and I’m like, in front of everybody—which was my bad—'What the f*ck are you doing, dude? You’re in f*cking shorts. It’s WrestleMania. Stephanie McMahon’s there. Vince is there...all these people.' I’m dressing down Pat."
"In the moment, I didn’t think about it. Then I… then he stormed off. And I’m like, 'Where the f*ck are you going?' I’m not doing the show.' He goes back. He’s packing his bag in the locker room to leave. He goes, 'You just embarrassed me in front of everybody in this company.' And I never thought of it that way, but he was right."
You can hear more from McAfee in the player below. We'll keep you updated if we learn more about his WWE future.