Cody Rhodes doesn’t want to acknowledge Pat McAfee.
Pat McAfee’s involvement in the Cody Rhodes-Randy Orton WrestleMania 42 program has drawn massive criticism amongst fans, with many citing issues with the broadcaster’s lack of history with either man. Moreover, McAfee’s latest appearance on WWE SmackDown was framed as more of an advertisement for WrestleMania tickets, rather than the upcoming world title match between Orton and Rhodes.
Rhodes himself weighed in on McAfee’s insertion while appearing on Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast. “The American Nightmare” made it clear that just like the famous Mariah Carey meme, he is choosing not to know Pat McAfee right now.
“I’m just going to do the Mariah Carey answer moving forward on Pat McAfee. I don’t know him,” Rhodes said. “… Randy Orton, who I’m wrestling at WrestleMania, we have like almost two decades of history between each other. He was my mentor. I had [John] Cena, who I drove around. I had Randy, very different opinions, but also really helped shape me. We were on screen together as part of his group, Legacy. He had my dad’s last match, my first match in the company is Randy. There was a lot of rich story material, and then we inserted Pat McAfee. We are literally in that part right there.”
“You know [the meme of] the troop is all outside and there’s that clown, right? I’m not saying he’s the clown in that regards. It’s just an interesting fit,” Rhodes continued. “And we’re going to see where it goes. You can’t have that much success and be ground up like he is without being a serious person and having been to the Thunderdome. What I would say is right now, what I’ve seen is everyone around Pat McAfee, his orbit, probably someone needs to say no every now and then. We were talking about Bob Holly earlier. You need that one guy in the room to be like, ‘I don’t know, man. Jumping into the WrestleMania main event?'”
Watching McAfee was like ‘watching a guy at a bar do a Stone Cold impression’
Aside from the randomness of McAfee’s placement in his WrestleMania program, Rhodes personally took issue with WWE and ESPN broadcaster’s initial beatdown and promo on SmackDown as well. According to Rhodes, McAfee’s presentation made him look like a mere imitation of a WWE Hall of Famer.
“While I was getting my ass kicked in the ring the other night, looking up and he’s wearing shades. He put the shades on to go out there. It’s a different era of wrestling. It was like watching a guy at a bar do a Stone Cold impression,” Rhodes said. “I’m just gonna stick with the I don’t know him [mentality], but getting my ass kicked, I heard him talk about the Attitude Era and I’m thinking oh man, I don’t think he knows. [It was] almost 30 years ago. Love it and it was the most prolific era in the business until the last four years. So if you’re part of the last four years, you kind of feel like why are we talking about this? We’re playing in this game. Why are we talking about this?”
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