Pat McAfee walked into WrestleMania 42 with a promise that left him with no way back. Before the match in April, he declared that he would leave WWE for good if Randy Orton couldn’t defeat Cody Rhodes and capture the WWE Championship. Unfortunately, Orton came up short against Rhodes.
And with the condition of McAfee’s promise now fulfilled, he is officially following through.
“If Randy had won, maybe, but I made a promise that I would never, ever,” Pat McAfee said on his IG story, replying to a fan who asked him about his WWE future. “I would never be seen on WWE television ever again.”
“And Cody Rhodes won. He is the one. Wow, what a donkey he turned out to be. Maybe I was wrong with what I was saying. But no, wrestling fans can sleep soundly understanding that I will never be back over there.”
Pat McAfee’s connection with WWE has been sporadic, having made appearances since 2018. He was revealed to be paired with Orton for WrestleMania 42, and was to face off against Rhodes and rapper Jelly Roll. Before the fight, McAfee tweeted that he would “NEVER be seen OR HEARD on wrestling television AGAIN” if Orton lost.
It was a rough night for the former footballer, who came home with injuries, and Orton eventually turned on him with an RKO. But Rhodes prevailed and won the championship. And as promised, McAfee has been away from wrestling media since then.
On his show, McAfee was seen wearing a neck brace and said that he had been awaiting the results of scans. He also suffered some cuts and bruises.
“Hand right here, cut,” he said back then. “I think that’s because the table exploded. I got some shrapnel, and somehow I got a splinter in my crotch. I think it’s because of what happened to the table.”
Even though Pat McAfee’s career at WWE ended on a bad note, he did have a solid run with the sport. WWE officially announced in April 2021 that he would become an analyst on Friday Night SmackDown, where he worked alongside Michael Cole. However, McAfee stepped away from commentating in 2025 because of his duties on ESPN’s College GameDay.
But his one lesson of the showdown was that he’d made the wrong choice in allies.
“I would like to let everybody know that although the mission was supposed to be Randy Orton saving the business, I think what happened instead was Cody Rhodes proving he’s the one,” McAfee said on his show, sporting the neck brace in April. “Cody Rhodes was obviously very admirable. Randy Orton is still everything that I said he was, but the good news is the business doesn’t need to be saved after all.”
Pat McAfee has been an ardent admirer of wrestling, having used the sport as an escape while growing up. He credits a lot of his style to the way WWE wrestlers build and present their stories, and also regarded ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin as his inspiration.
Pat McAfee would get into trouble because of WWE
The Attitude Era and the Monday Night Wars had McAfee hooked. He was captivated by the chaos, the larger-than-life characters, and the spectacle, and sometimes, that even landed him in a little trouble.
“I mean, I remember getting an in-school suspension for doing the D-Generation X ‘suck it’ chops,” he revealed in 2020. “I remember trying to Stone Cold-stun kids. I remember trying to cut a promo like The Rock in English class.”
At one point, he went as far as buying a full-size wrestling ring off the internet and setting the 18-foot-by-18-foot ring up inside his barn. He even spent some time training under Rip Rogers, the veteran who helped teach the fundamentals of wrestling to stars such as Randy Orton, Brock Lesnar, John Cena and Batista.
Football may have become McAfee’s first professional path, but deep down, he always felt wrestling was where he belonged. And when the opportunity with WWE finally came, his larger-than-life personality made him a natural fit for the world of sports entertainment.
So, for McAfee, stepping into WWE wasn’t simply another job; it was the fulfillment of a dream he had carried for years. But now, after everything that led him there, that chapter appears to have come to an end.