How Michael Cole Almost Sent Pat McAfee Out Of WWE

Michael Cole and Pat McAfee might be best buddies on WWE Raw but their relationship nearly blew up after an altercation in front of Vince McMahon.

Michael Cole and Pat McAfee are the voices of Raw on Netflix with McAfee making a splash since he joined WWE’s commentary team in April 2021. Prior to that McAfee had been involved with NXT and PLE pre-shows and it was during WrestleMania 37 that McAfee’s career in WWE almost came screeching to a halt.

Pat McAfee and Michael Cole had a bust-up at the event over McAfee wearing tuxedo shorts rather than a full suit. There have been suggestions that Vince McMahon was unhappy over McAfee’s choice of attire but it seems it was Michael Cole that let the situation get the better of him.

Michael Cole & Pat McAfee Brought Closer By Backstage Argument

Speaking on the Impaulsive podcast, Michael Cole opened up about their infamous argument which led to Pat McAfee threatening to walk out of WrestleMania after he was yelled at in front of several people including Vince McMahon:

Me and him got really really close, then our relationship imploded for a night. So, I’m no longer in charge of the announcers, I used to not only be an announcer but I was in charge of all the announcers.

We brought Pat in to do the WrestleMania Kick-Off show, and everybody at WrestleMania is tuxes and ties, and Pat shows up in shorts. They were tuxedo shorts, but he shows up in shorts.

We’re about to go on the air live, it’s all this pressure, I see Pat walk into Gorilla with these shorts on, and I’m like, in front of everyone, which is my bad; ‘What the f**k are you doing?! Dude, you’re in f**king shorts, it’s WrestleMania!’

Stephanie McMahon is there. Vince is there, and I’m dressing down Pat. In the heat of the moment, I didn’t think anything about it, and he stormed off. I’m like ‘Where the f**k are you going?’ (He says) ‘I’m not doing the show.’ He goes back and he’s packing his bag to leave, he goes ‘You just embarrassed me in front of everyone in this company.’

I never thought of it that way, but he was right. Pat is gonna pack his bag and leave, and we ended up working it out. We showed Vince the shorts, and of course Vince ‘It’s great, why are you yelling at him?’ He just likes to stir the s**t. Ever since then, I think that brought us closer together, and we’ve been best friends since.

While all is well between the Raw announcers now, Michael Cole broke his silence on the “strange” issues between Corey Graves and WWE. Graves hit out at the company publicly after his apparent demotion back to NXT leading him to be absent from a week of television.