Earlier in April, Pat McAfee returned to WWE SmackDown. He was revealed as Orton’s mystery man, and this segment earned WWE a lot of criticism from fans.
Randy Orton vs Cody Rhodes is one of the biggest storylines in wrestling history, with over two decades of history between them. And a lot of fans didn’t feel happy that McAfee was added to it for seemingly no reason.
Dave Meltzer said that this was TKO CEO Ari Emanuel’s call. We have more information regarding McAfee’s return now.
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Pat McAfee Originally Rejected Being Involved In Randy Orton Vs Cody Rhodes’ Storyline
On a recent edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer provided additional information regarding Pat McAfee’s return. Meltzer says that McAfee was always the first choice to be involved in this storyline, but he initially rejected the proposal. WWE was trying to find another name, but then McAfee and the company worked out a deal that saw the former NFL punter make his comeback to WWE programming.
“Pat McAfee was the first choice and it was from Ari Emanuel. That’s where it came from. They wanted celebrity involvement. Originally from what I was told, Pat McAfee was the choice and he turned it down. Then they were scrambling to get somebody else in the spot, and then obviously, they were able to make a deal with him. So he did it and he was there.”
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WWE fans haven’t reacted positively to Pat McAfee’s return so far. His initial promo on SmackDown was a worked shoot which saw him criticize the current state of the wrestling business, saying he wants Orton to save the product.
The idea is that McAfee wants to bring back the Attitude Era, along with Orton, who, by the way, debuted during the Ruthless Aggression Era. McAfee grew up watching wrestling, and he feels the business has gone to “absolute sh*t.” He feels the Attitude Era fans have been forgotten, and he blames Cody Rhodes for it because he’s a “puppet champion.”
So McAfee is here to fix all of this, somehow. Well, for now, the core idea is he wants Orton to win his 15th World Championship and represent WWE, and that’ll somehow make the business boom again.
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Ishaan Sharma has been following wrestling ever since he was 8. That was over a decade ago. He loves to write about this pretend sport and has worked with online publications such as Sportskeeda and TheSportster, where he shared his insights about the wrestling business.