The Pat McAfee situation at WrestleMania 42 is a fever dream
Look, I love professional wrestling. I truly do. But watching the lead-up to WrestleMania 42 feels like watching a high-stakes poker game where someone decided to throw a handful of confetti and a live raccoon on the table just because it would look funny in 4K resolution. Right now, the entire WWE ecosystem is vibrating with this bizarre, intrusive energy surrounding Pat McAfee, and frankly, I need to talk about why it feels like we are losing the plot.
We are five days out from Night 1, and the main event—a match with actual weight between Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton—is being constantly diluted by McAfee’s presence. Cody has made his feelings crystal clear during his recent media tour. When you have the Undisputed WWE Champion calling someone a full-blown rat, you know the line between kayfabe and reality has been turned into a blender. Rhodes didn’t stop there, branding the sight of McAfee holding the title belt as the most offensive image in wrestling history.
Is he wrong? Honestly, it’s a spicy take, but it sells the heat. The problem isn't that Cody is being mean; the problem is that we are wasting breath on a part-timer who treats the business like a side-hustle while professional killers like CM Punk are out there calling him a tourist who has never sold a ticket in his life. Punk is right, by the way. You cannot talk shop about attendance figures and business metrics when you are the guest at the party, not the one paying the electric bill.
The booking decision we cannot ignore
Let’s get real about the actual card. Bully Ray has been vocal about his concerns, questioning if the creative team has lost faith in the Rhodes-Orton main event. Why else would you need this much interference and distraction? If you have to clutter a main event storyline with a loud-mouthed broadcaster just to get people to click on a YouTube clip, you aren't booking a WrestleMania main event; you are booking a viral TikTok experiment.
Triple H is out here saying there is no backup for these guys, which is a great sentiment if he actually believes it. But feeding your marquee talent into an angle that feels like it belongs on a daytime talk show rather than a squared circle? That is how you get a lukewarm crowd reaction when it matters most. Even Je'Von Evans tried to preach the gospel of having fun, but there is a difference between having fun and delegitimizing the belt that spent decades being the gold standard of the industry.
Cody and the future of the American Nightmare
Then we have the Cody Rhodes character evolution, which is arguably the only thing keeping me from throwing my television out the window. For months, the guy was the ultimate babyface, the guy who could do no wrong. Now, he’s openly entertaining a heel turn? That is a massive shift. The man even admitted on the record that he is no longer against the idea of switching sides. If they pull the trigger on a heel turn to get him away from this McAfee nuisance, it would be the smartest move of the decade, but I'm not holding my breath.
Cody even teased that he’d only change his entrance music if he turned heel, which is probably the most professional wrestling sentence ever uttered. 'Kingdom' is a banger, and if he trades it in, you know the world is burning. At least we have the promise of a pure, unadulterated wrestling match with Seth Rollins vs. GUNTHER to look forward to. Cody called it a wrestler’s wrestling match, which is the nicest way of saying that it won’t involve anyone holding a microphone or acting like a petulant child at the commentary desk.
Missing the mark
Backstage morale is clearly a mixed bag. You have guys like Jacob Fatu calling out the entitled locker room complainers, and you have zero restrictions on talent speaking out against the McAfee angle ahead of the big show. That lack of censorship is either a sign of a very confident management team or a complete lack of control. It feels like the latter.
If we look at the timeline of the betrayal, the March 13 contract signing on SmackDown was actually a masterclass in tension. It was grounded, it was mean, and it felt like two guys who actually wanted to destroy each other. Since then, the signal-to-noise ratio has gone off the rails. WrestleMania is supposed to be the moment where the stories culminate, not the moment where we ask, 'Why is this guy even here?'
We are looking at #1,000s of words of analysis being dedicated to a non-wrestler, while Randy Orton is out there playing the viper role to perfection. It is a waste of a Grade-A main event feud. I want to see the 1,000s of hours of training these guys have put in lead to a clean finish, not a cluttered mess that relies on cameos. If the main event gets hijacked by outside parties on Sunday, don’t blame the fans for being salty. We wanted a classic, but right now, we are being fed a sideshow.
Ultimately, WWE is betting that the discourse and the noise will translate into eyeballs. Maybe they are right. Maybe, in a year or two, we will look back at this as a brilliant, chaotic chapter in the saga. But right now? It feels like we are watching someone try to put cheap decals on a Ferrari. Enjoy the show, keep your popcorn handy, and let’s pray that at the end of the night, the person holding the belt is the one who actually earned it in the ring.
