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When it comes to the WWE Universe in 2025, few people are as polarizing as Pat McAfee.
Some love his silly everyman persona, comparing him to an elder fratboy with a heart of gold. They love his crossover appeal, his idiosyncracies, and his willingness to talk WWE outside of the space, from his show on ESPN to his appearances on College GameDay.
And to others? Well, McAfee is loud, bombastic, and, most crucially of all, doesn't actually know very much about professional wrestling, from move names to storylines.
Talking about the multi-hyphenate in an appearance on the Rich Eisen Show, Rollins noted he is firmly in the former category, as he loves the energy and passion he brings to the RAW commentary table each week on Netflix.
“Pat [McAfee], he's a wild man, dude. He's just nuts. He's just a crazy person. I just popped onto this show earlier today. How do people feel about Pat McAfee? Because he's like an outsider, sort of, right? Do we love him? Do we hate him? He's such a trailblazer, right, and even in WWE, here's the thing, Pat, he loves wrestling,” Rollins noted via Fightful.
“He didn't come in and be like, ‘I'm Pat McAfee, put me on Monday Night RAW. I want to be a big star.' He started in NXT, which is our developmental brand as a commentator there because he wanted to work his way up. He wanted to cut his teeth, do the broadcasting thing, ended up having matches. He was very good, he's a natural. One thing about Pat I think people don't understand, regular people, he's a hustler, dude. He works his tail off. There's something about him, man. He's a special cat.”
You know, while Rollins isn't exactly correct in the order of operations, he is on the money in the feelings behind it; McAfee did, in fact, come up in NXT, working a program with Adam Cole that spread out over multiple months, depending on when the former All-Pro punter was available for a few TV tapings down in Orlando. He worked matches, appeared in WarGames, did some commentary here and there, and even contributed to pre-show panels, where he slowly picked up more and more of the wrestling business.
While some quibbled with his elevation to RAW, to his spot as the sole color commentator next to Michael Cole, and most recently for inadvertently kicking Corey Graves down to NXT as that show's third man, in the end, McAfee really has brought more to wrestling than he's taken away from it. Why? Because he's not exactly making a living off his spot on the show, instead choosing to commit to runs on RAW multiple times because he really seems to love it.
