Watch: Pat McAfee Cut a Promo After NXT Went Off the Air

Pat McAfee made his surprise return to NXT this week, helping Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch replace The Undisputed Era in the NXT Tag Team Championship Match before aiding the two in winning the tag titles from Breezango. The former Pro Bowl punter hadn’t been seen since his loss to Adam Cole back at NXT TakeOver: XXX, and he had a lot to say after the cameras stopped rolling. McAfee started off by ripping the appearance of the Capitol Wrestling Center, mostly because it had live fans surrounding the ring.

“Tonight you all got a chance to have a front-row seat to watch two men who have battled for years get to the top of the NXT tag team mountain,” McAfee said. “This is the start of something very special. And a lot of people are probably wondering, ‘How did we get here?’ and we’ll get to that at some point. Just know that us three are the new kings of this brand. Us three are unstoppable. Us three are nowhere near done with what we’re going to do to all of NXT.”

McAfee impressed in his debut with Cole several months back, and indicated in interviews at the time that he was planning on much more than just one match.

“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,” McAfee told ESPN in August. “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,” he continued. “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.”

Next week’s NXT will have a special Halloween Havoc theme and feature a pair of championship matches in Damian Priest vs. Johnny Gargano and Io Shirai vs. Candice LeRae.