Cody Rhodes Says Pat McAfee Keeps Trying to Get an AEW Job, McAfee Responds

Cody Rhodes hosted a media conference call on Wednesday afternoon to hype up tonight’s AEW Dynamite as well as Sunday’s Revolution pay-per-view. At one point, Rhodes was asked about Shaquille O’Neal’s comments from earlier in the week that tonight’s mixed-tag match would outdo every other wrestling match that has involved a celebrity in the past. It was also mentioned that Pat McAfee, who stunned NXT fans last year with his promos and matches at NXT TakeOver XXX and WarGames, immediately piped up and said the match wouldn’t be better than his.

Rhodes found the comment ironic, saying “I didn’t see this comment, especially from Pat. Which is super bizarre because I’m pretty sure that Pat is trying to get a job at AEW like every other day.”

McAfee, who was hosting The Pat McAfee show at the time of the call, caught wind of Rhodes’ comment and immediately responded.

“Cody Rhodes says I’ve been trying to get employed by the AEW? This is not true, I’ve actually contemplated retirement here more than I have contemplated going to AEW. I’ve been in a little bit of a spat with Rusev, old friend of ours, now Miro. [He] kind of came after us and we flipped the script a little on him a little.”

He then added that he’ll be watching Rhodes’ tag match against O’Neal tonight.

McAfee stopped appearing on NXT in-person following his team’s loss at WarGames, though he did recently pop up via a video package to brag about being right regarding Adam Cole’s turn. There were some rumors about why McAfee was being pulled off television late last year, but Triple H brushed those away during a separate recent conference call.