Pat McAfee Is in Over His Head

Professional wrestling! It’s not just a novelty act anymore. Yes, it still shares some of the hallmarks of its carnival days, but the walls are down, the lines are less blurred, and dudes don’t have to walk around with a cast on their arm for several months if they “break” their arms in a show. However, being able to question what is real and fake in wrestling can make it great, so companies like WWE often try to chase that dragon, and sometimes it works.

A more recent example involves a wrestler named Seth Rollins, who seemed to hurt himself during a show. He went to do a backflip off the ropes, as ya do, messed up, tried again, messed up again, and hurt his knee. The match ended early, and Rollins was announced as injured, giving interviews and being seen in public in a knee brace. However, Rollins wasn’t really injured, and “shocked” the wrestling world with a return that came much sooner than expected.

Fans aren’t stupid, so plenty of people assumed he wasn’t really hurt, but plenty genuinely weren’t sure, which makes it fun. Because even the people who thought they had it figured out still felt a little surprised, the whole bit went over really well. But, if you try to pull something like that these days and don’t stick the landing, people can smell it from a mile away and will reject it like Tobias Fünke rejecting a hair graft. And that’s where Pat McAfee comes in.

McAfee has been part of WWE, on and off, for years now. While he has wrestled (poorly) several times, he’s mostly been an on-air personality and has honestly been fine at that. But he certainly wasn’t anyone’s favorite, and there are plenty of people who are better than him. At one point, it seemed like he took the hint and moved back to his ESPN show, where he could disparage female students and pretend to be annoyed by Aaron Rodgers. But Randy Orton needed an ally for his big match against Cody Rhodes, so…

If those three men getting mentioned in the same sentence makes no sense to you, don’t worry, it made no sense to wrestling fans, either! Rhodes and Orton (who have plenty of history) were heading toward a big Wrestlemania battle, with Orton teasing that he would receive help from a mystery participant. When that person was finally revealed to be McAfee, it landed with an enormous thud. Not only were fans not happy, but Rhodes later spoke to fans during a show and mocked the decision, expertly blurring the lines between fact and fiction by making it seem as if people in the back were pissed about McAfee’s inclusion.

And it gets worse! People on staff clearly aren’t happy, because plenty of websites have reported that McAfee was inserted into the storyline not by the bosses at WWE, but by Ari Emanuel, a super agent and chairman of TKO, who owns WWE. Allegedly, Emanuel, who has McAfee as a client, wants to turn him into the next Sylvester Stallone, which I assume means pumping him so full of steroids that his penis stops working properly. Emanuel wants the former NFL kicker everywhere, and that includes a high-profile match at Wrestlemania.

Cody Rhodes isn’t the only person who has used the show to complain about the decision. CM Punk called out Emanuel specifically, further blurring the lines, even though he’s not involved in the match. But Punk and Rhodes are good at what they do. When McAfee attempted to play up the controversy behind his inclusion by complaining about wrestling fans on his own show, it made him look even more out of his depth. The Rock was able to turn a negative reception to his wrestling return into a positive, and even he screwed that up eventually, and Pat McAfee is not The Rock.

This is just another fascinating development in the world of wrestling. Things have changed, so people don’t have to pretend it’s real anymore, which improves a lot of things, but pro wrestling is also at its best when you just can’t tell what’s real or not. But inserting an unpopular guy into a situation where he doesn’t belong and trying to draft off of that intentionally manufactured heat is not passing the smell test with wrestling fans, because as much as things change, they still stay the same. And this whole thing feels like David Arquette winning the world heavyweight title in WCW, something that preceded the company’s demise.

WWE certainly ain’t going out of business anytime soon, but its recent surge in popularity likely won’t survive this nonsense (especially when coupled with lots of other shenanigans on behalf of Emanuel’s company).