Pat McAfee returned to WWE programming last week when he attacked Cody Rhodes and cut a promo saying that the business Cody Rhodes has been leading is terrible, and Randy Orton is going to save it. McAfee also said that the Attitude Era fans have been forgotten about, and mentioned the low ticket sales for WrestleMania.
The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that Pat McAfee being added to the storyline was an Ari Emanuel call, not a Triple H call. According to the report the content of McAfee’s promo was also not a creative team call.
Multiple people have said that the things McAfee mentioned in his promo while knocking the company for WrestleMania ticket sales and record low ratings was not written for him by the creative team. The belief is that McAfee came up with those lines himself, and was given permission to use them by someone.
The writer listed for the segment was Christian Sowell. However, the promo that was delivered by McAfee was not the promo Sowell told Triple H that McAfee was going to say.
There were no repercussions following the promo, nor did WWE erase any of the content. CM Punk’s promo on Raw played into the storyline by tying Ari Emanuel, Pat McAfee and The Rock into his feud with Roman Reigns with the idea being that they could draw interest and money after the promo.
Many people in WWE were not happy about the direction of Pat McAfee’s promo, and more than one person said that it was very counterproductive with one person calling it the most counterproductive thing in a long time.