Just a few days after his acclaimed WWE debut match against Adam Cole at NXT Takeover XXX, Pat McAfee sat down with ESPN to talk about the experience.
Here are the highlights.
On pre-fight nerves, McAfee said: “I was very intrigued to see how I would feel when I woke up, because I didn’t know. Toward the end of my career, the last five years of my career in the NFL, when I woke up on game days, I wasn’t nervous anymore. I was excited and ready to go out there and do my job. When I wake up on days where I do stand up in front of these theaters and stuff like that, I get excited as opposed to nervous. And I didn’t really know how I was going to feel. I woke up just ready to go. I wasn’t nervous at all. I felt very prepared. I felt very confident. I felt very comfortable, and I think excited would be the proper way to describe it, just ready to do it. And I think for me, it was 20 years in the making … it was something I’ve always dreamed of being a part of. And that morning when you wake up and say, “OK. Here’s a chance for me to do something I’ve always dreamed of doing.” You can face that in two different ways. You can be nervous about it and be like, “Well, I hope it goes how I always dreamed of it.” Or you can be excited and be like, “Well, I can’t wait to do this because I’ve always wanted to.” I think that was how I attacked the day. I was like, “I just can’t wait to do this. I’m going to enjoy the entire thing and let’s see what the hell happens.” And yeah, I enjoyed the hell out of Saturday a lot, all the way up until losing, obviously. But I just enjoyed the day as much as I possibly could.”
On McAfees’ mid-match top rope dive onto everyone, McAfee recalled: “Well, it looked like the perfect opportunity to do something I’ve seen people do since the beginning of my wrestling fanhood. Big crowd of humans outside of the ring, seemed to be set up in a perfect fashion for somebody to jump on their heads. Jeff Hardy came to my studio a year ago to be a part of the show, he and Matt. And we actually did a Swanton Bomb contest onto a trampoline that we had built in the office, off of a ladder. And he gave me a high score, rave reviews. He taught me that. And that just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. When I got up onto the rope, I think [there was] an alternate angle — I almost fell off when I got up there, which was a surprise. I did not expect the ropes to be as tight as they were. There might’ve been a little moment of, “Oh, no.” But then as I’m flying through the air, I had no thoughts at all. Just was excited to see what happened and excited to see how bad it hurt me and how bad it hurt everybody else. It was just a pretty cool feeling to be completely candid, to be flying through the air in a group of humans like that.”
Will McAfee return to the squared-circle?: “That seems to be a conversation that has been circling me for the last couple of days, and even maybe the last week or so in the buildup to this. And this is going to sound very cliche, but it’s 100% real and it’s how I literally operate with everything. I just focus on literally what’s next in my life. Because I run a business. I’ve got a daily show. I got a merch business. We have a touring company. I mean, there’s a lot of advertising, marketing. There’s a lot of things I do. And I just focus on what’s next for me. So for when it came to the match on Saturday, I was only focused on that match. I was only focused on, “OK, how do I go in here, put on a hell of a show, hell of a fight and get a win? And then, we’ll worry about everything after that on Sunday.” We’ll cross that bridge whenever we get to it. And I’ve heard the conversation start all around me and there was a lot. … Even my mom was asking, “Well, are you going to do this again?” I’m like, “Well, let’s worry about that on Sunday.”
“And then I got to Sunday, obviously, and I woke up. Neck was sore, back was sore, foot was sore. I got flipped on my head. To be completely honest, I’m not 100% sure what’s going to happen. I’m not under contract to do anything else with Mr. H. I assume he and I will talk about this at some point because I heard his comments in the press conference afterward, which were very nice. But for me, all I was worried about was that match at NXT TakeOver: XXX and then I’ll let everything else kind of sort itself out. And I think that’s where I’m at right now. I feel good. If I never get in the ring again, I’ll be very thankful for the opportunity and I’ll be proud of it. If something pops up and it’s right and my wife doesn’t mind, because I did miss some of the honeymoon for this whole thing and she’s been incredibly cool. There’s a lot that goes into it. To be honest, I just started thinking about it within the last 24 hours, and have no idea what the future holds.”
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