On July 23, Adam Cole appeared on The Pat McAfee show as a guest to talk about his journey to pro wrestling and the other usual podcast stuff. However, towards the end of the show, things got a bit heated after Pat McAfee commented on Adam Cole’s size being a handicap for him in the industry which infuriated Cole prompting him to shove the mic stand, push one of the crew members on the show and drop and F-Bomb before storming out. At the time, people were divided as to whether this was a work or if Cole was genuinely pissed off at the former punter. A few days after the whole ordeal, Triple H showed up and apologized on Adam Cole’s behalf and even Cole himself posted a self-written apology on his Twitter account.
On the August 6 episode of NXT McAfee was invited to the show where he and Adam Cole had an altercation resulting in Cole being knocked out cold after a punt by McAfee. By this time everyone was sure that this whole thing was an angle with the match between two becoming official for NXT Takeover: XXX.
Since then many people have speculated that this might very well be the former NXT Champion’s last match on the show with his inevitable main roster call up looming over his head. Because of that, many people are disappointed considering that Adam Cole would be going out in a match against a celebrity and it’s going to suck. Let’s be fair here, WWE does not have a good track record when it comes to having celebrity matches and it’s quite self-explanatory why that happens; Celebrities are not professional wrestlers and to put it simply they only serve the purpose of boosting the ratings and that is why Pat McAfee has been brought to the Black and Yellow brand. NXT is in a ratings war with AEW and have been on the losing end for quite a few weeks hence some changes had to be made and lo and behold here we’re getting Pat McAfee vs Adam Cole at what could be Adam Cole’s last Takeover. A lot of fans believe that this match is going to be a nightmare, but I have reason to believe otherwise.
With the other celebrities, the issue has been that they were coming into the squared circle without any prior wrestling experience and of course they were going to suck but McAfee is a different case. This may come as a surprise to some but Pat has wrestled before. On March 22, 2009, Pat McAfee wrestled against The WarPig at an IWA show. It was a proper match and not a confrontation in which Pat took some big bumps and ended with him hitting WarPig with a superkick (yes, a superkick) to win the match. On top of that McAfee has been training since March. If you head on to his Instagram profile and scroll down to March you can find his posts where he attempts a standing moonsault, a frog splash, a high-angle senton bomb and a beautiful moonsault from the top rope in a wrestling ring.
Furthermore, McAfee has mentioned on various occasions on his podcast that he had trained as a professional wrestler in the mid and late 2000s. Pat is taking this seriously and given that he is in good shape only adds to my argument of why the match at takeover won’t be bad. In the other corner, you have one of the best wrestlers in the world right now. I could write a whole article just about how amazing Adam Cole is but I don’t think I need to tell you that. If you looked at the roster and had to select one person for a celebrity to have a match with, it would be Adam Cole. He can wrestle with a doll and carry it for a good twenty-minute match. Given the possibility that it might be his last match at NXT, he would be putting everything into it and we’d be in for a show.
Putting their in-ring abilities aside, both of the competitors have been doing amazing mic work as McAfee seemed genuinely despicable when he was on commentary and a proper villain when he punted Cole. What can I say, the guy is a natural heel. In the following week on NXT, the Undisputed Era interrupted a match between Drake Maverick and Killian Dain and Adam Cole grabbed the mic and cut a very heated promo on Pat McAfee.
Moreover, Cole playing the face in the feud is a very interesting touch to it considering that this is the first time in a long period that Cole will be playing the role of a face in a match so all eyes on him. Plus his constant appearances on upupdowndown have made him a very likeable and easily cheer-able figure in the audience’s eyes.
The feud between the two has boiled over to social media with both taking shots at each other on twitter and they have been doing so for a long time. WWE is playing off something that happened two years ago when Pat interfered in a match between Cole and Aleister Black resulting in Cole taking the loss and it was also briefly mentioned by Pat McAfee on his podcast blurring the lines between reality and fiction at the time and that is one of the things that makes it so special. The whole scenario began with something that wasn’t a work and slowly bled into fiction giving us this Pat McAfee vs Adam Cole match.
Coming back to the matter at hands, McAfee might not be the best of athletes but I’m sure that he would be able to put on a good match and Cole, on the other hand, is just a remarkable performer. To put it very simply, could there have been a better match for Cole at Takeover: XXX? Yes. Will his match against Pat McAfee suck? No. Personally, I would have wanted an Undisputed Era fatal four-way but I don’t mind McAfee as his opponent because I know that it wouldn’t suck. What do you think of this pairing? Let us know in the comments below.