Cody Rhodes is currently set to defend the Undisputed WWE Championship against Randy Orton at WrestleMania 42, and WWE threw fans a curveball a few weeks ago when they added Pat McAfee to the storyline. Since then Pat McAfee has been running down the current product on WWE programming, while trying to promote ticket sales, and his inclusion in the storyline has been met with a mixed reaction from the fans.
During a recent interview with Jimmy Traina of SI, Cody Rhodes talked about the reaction to McAfee being added to his feud with Randy Orton, and he explained why he’s trying to remain optimistic.
“This is the most ill-received thing in the history of wrestling. The Gobbledygooker 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—everyone. Every single fan who has ever watched wrestling has received this with, ‘Huh? What?’ Okay, so maybe it’s the worst-received thing in the history of wrestling, but I want to say something on the bright side, because I try to be an optimist.
On the bright side, Pat McAfee is a huge star. He’s one of the faces—if not the face—of ESPN. His College GameDay stuff is legendary, he’s a great athlete, and he loves wrestling. He’s just trying to help our party out, so I respect him and I respect that. On the other side of it, I’m attuned to the audience, not just the online audience, but all of it. I think one time I made a mistake saying every wrestler looks right at their phone. I didn’t mean immediately, but we all see it.
I look at that and ask myself, kind of like when I was doing Stardust or when I was getting thrown a bone here and there on my way up, I look at it and ask, how can we make this something? And why I’m not worried about it at all is because Randy Orton is the guy I’m wrestling.”