Ever since his feud with Adam Cole was kicked into high gear over the summer, Pat McAfee has been one of the undisputed highlights of NXT television. His first match with Cole surpassed expectations at NXT TakeOver: XXX and his off-the-cuff promos have turned into one of the brand’s most hated characters seemingly overnight. One former wrestler who is particularly impressed with the former NFL punter is CM Punk, who took to Twitter this week and called out the rest of the NXT brand for getting outshined by the newcomer so quickly.
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“A lot of it has to do with circumstance, but everyone else on the show(s) should feel embarrassment, and subsequently USE said feeling to better themselves, at the fact that @PatMcAfeeShow is a better promo than everyone on the show(s),” Punk wrote, before adding that he was “the best thing on this show not named [Rhea Ripley].”
A lot of it has to do with circumstance, but everyone else on the show(s) should feel embarrassment, and subsequently USE said feeling to better themselves, at the fact that @PatMcAfeeShow is a better promo than everyone on the show(s).
— player/coach (@CMPunk) December 4, 2020
McAfee, Pete Dunne, Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch (aka the Kings of NXT) will face The Undisputed Era in a WarGames Match this Sunday at NXT TakeOver: WarGames. McAfee cut one final promo on the match during this week’s NXT.
During a media conference call earlier this week, Triple H explained how the persona McAfee shows on television is pretty much who he is in real life.
“He’s so passionate about it, and after he performs, he comes back and you can see the buzz of him,” he explained (h/t Wrestling Inc.) He’s got the bug and he loves it, and it’s great to see as far as his performance goes. If you ever met Pat, listen to him talk for five minutes. From a heat seeking point, he’s there. He is the proverbial heat-seeking missile, just him. So he can go out there and just transfer that and put it on TV in a way that very few people ever can. It’s not a schtick. It’s not an act. It’s not anything. He’s just being Pat, and he’s got the gift of gab. He loves to perform.
“He loves to irritate. He loves to mess with people, and man, it just comes through in a glowing way that when you think about, he’s been doing this for a very, very short period of time. And he’s getting a lot of direction, but to be in a position where he’s better at it than a lot of people that have done it their whole lives, that’s a testament to him. But I’m very proud of him, very excited to be working with him and looking forward to a lot of big stuff.”
