Backstage Update on Pat McAfee’s Promo Segment at 4/3 WWE SmackDown Show & Who Was Responsible For His Promo Contents

As noted before, the April 3rd episode of WWE SmackDown in St. Louis, Missouri featured Pat McAfee making a surprise return to WWE and turned heel on Cody Rhodes. McAfee’s surprise return and involvement in the Randy Orton and Rhodes’ storyline feud for the Undisputed WWE Championship was later revealed to have been an edict that came from TKO CEO Ari Emanuel and also for “corporate synergy” between WWE and ESPN.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that McAfee’s promo “burying” WWE’s current product and Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes and also bringing up the company’s current tickets sales struggles for WrestleMania 42 was something that is believed to not have come from WWE’s creative team nor WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque.

Meltzer reported that many people within WWE were not happy about the direction of McAfee’s promo and several spoken to stated that they thought it was very counterproductive for the company. One person spoken to reportedly stated that it was the most counterproductive thing done in the company in a long time.

In regards to the content of McAfee’s promo, several of those spoken to within WWE reportedly also stated that this was also not a creative team call nor was it written by them. Many people within WWE reportedly had known about McAfee being contacted but not as many knew what the actual plans were for him nor his promo.

Meltzer reported that some people currently believe that McAfee’s line about the last Smackdown being the lowest rated show ever was not him talking about actual television ratings but instead was referring to Cagematch ratings of the March 27th show, which in fact were the lowest ever at the time.

In regards to who came up with the lines for McAfee’s promo segment, Meltzer reported that the current belief is that McAfee came up with those lines himself and was given permission to do so from someone. Meltzer also reported that the writer listed for the segment was Christian Sowell, which means WWE’s creative was aware of McAfee and also aware that it was not a Levesque call but something done over his head. McAfee’s promo was not what Sowell had told Levesque what McAfee was going to say and WWE President Nick Khan was right there for all of it.

In regards to the decision to bring back McAfee, Meltzer reported that TKO CEO Ari Emanuel has tried to push McAfee as a “new Stallone type action movie star for Hollywood” and also wants to make sure ratings for WrestleMania 42 on ESPN are high. This reportedly was the main reason why he wanted to use a major ESPN personality in one of the main event angles for WrestleMania 42. Emanuel reportedly also represents McAfee as an agent.