New details have come out on how Pat McAfee’s return to WWE came together, with Dave Meltzer reporting on Wrestling Observer Radio that McAfee was Ari Emanuel’s first choice for celebrity involvement in the WrestleMania 42 main event build, but initially turned the role down before a deal was eventually reached.
Meltzer laid out the sequence of events that led to McAfee’s surprise appearance on the April 3rd SmackDown, where he attacked Cody Rhodes and aligned himself with Randy Orton while declaring that he and Orton would save the business.
“Pat McAfee was the first choice, and it was from Ari Emanuel, that’s where it came from,” Meltzer reported. “They wanted celebrity involvement……Originally, Pat McAfee was the choice, and he turned it down, and then they were scrambling to get somebody else in the spot. And then obviously, they were able to make a deal with him, so he did it, and he was there.”
The report confirms previous accounts that the decision to insert a celebrity into the Rhodes and Orton program originated at the TKO corporate level rather than from Triple H or WWE’s creative team. The detail that McAfee initially declined adds context to a situation that already generated internal discussion within WWE, with multiple reports indicating that the move surprised members of creative and that some were not in favor of the direction.
McAfee has publicly stated that if Orton fails to win the Undisputed WWE Championship at WrestleMania 42 he will never return to wrestling television, a stipulation that has led many to predict Orton will leave Las Vegas as a 15-time world champion.
Rhodes defends the Undisputed WWE Championship against Orton in the Night 1 main event of WrestleMania 42 on April 18 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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