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Pat McAfee Addresses His WWE Status – “That Dream Isn’t Done”

By John Canton • Published 17th March 2023
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Pat McAfee may be away from WWE on a regular basis these days, but the former NFL punter has aspirations of landing in the WWE Hall Of Fame.

For the past five years, Pat McAfee has been a part of the WWE Universe. It started in NXT in 2018 when he had a rivalry with former NXT Champion Adam Cole, which eventually led to a WarGames match.

In April 2021, WWE decided to give McAfee an even bigger role in WWE as the color commentator on Smackdown sitting beside Michael Cole. That’s a role that he was in for about a year and a half. The role on Smackdown led to McAfee having more matches including a WrestleMania 38 win over Austin Theory, which led to a loss against Vince McMahon that was not considered a great match. McAfee also picked up a win over Baron Corbin as well.

When Pat McAfee is not in WWE, he hosts a very popular sports talk show on YouTube called the Pat McAfee Show with a lot of big-name sports guests appearing regularly like the NFL’s Aaron Rodgers.

McAfee is doing very well for himself since he has a four-year $120 million deal with FanDuel to promote their gambling products. The New York Post reported that McAfee could walk away from that deal for something even better or just to change things up in his life since he is going to be a new dad fairly soon.

At this year’s WWE Royal Rumble event, McAfee returned to WWE as a surprise announcer during the show. WWE even didn’t tell his good friend Michael Cole and Corey Graves, so when Pat joined them on commentary they weren’t ready for it at all.

The reason McAfee’s WWE run ended in September 2022 is because he became a regular part of the popular ESPN College Game Day football show on Saturdays from September to December. That led to Wade Barrett taking McAfee’s spot on Smackdown with Barrett recently saying he is in that spot permanently as far as he knows.

Pat McAfee tweeted about all the attention he was getting, likely because Barrett’s comments made their way to Twitter. That led to McAfee tweeting that he thinks about WWE all the time and he has plans to end up in the WWE Hall of Fame someday in the future.

“A lot of wrestling chatter about me right now. I think about wrestling every day…that dream isn’t done. My business is currently rather active and exigent…+ baby on the way…timing is everything I still have MASSIVE plans for my journey to the WWE HOF someday. Believe that.”