Pat McAfee Blasts His Own WWE SmackDown Commentary Debut

Former NFL punter and NXT personality Pat McAfee made the jump to Friday Night SmackDown‘s commentary desk this past week. And while his debut was well-received by fans watching along, McAfee himself wasn’t too impressed. He talked about the episode on Monday’s edition of The Pat McAfee Show, saying, (h/t Fightful) “I had no clue what was going to happen all night. No clue. I do believe that is the plan going forward, to just keep me out of the blue. If so, I had an absolute blast. I do not think I was anywhere near what I can get to as a commentator for professional wrestling. I used a lot of words over and over. I was scared to have too much bass in my voice because I didn’t want people to think I was trying to dominate the call, but sometimes I sounded too soft. The standing, my natural instinct is to stand when something happens, I guess a lot of people didn’t enjoy that. I appreciate that because that was potentially something that could get me into some s—.

“A lot of people say, ‘you need to stay.’ The clip of us coming back to the two-hot of me standing and [Michael Cole] sitting and my being caught in a situation where I’m like, ‘I don’t know if I should stand or sit right now. That was an ad-libbed moment that pops up and is incredible. I had a blast. I think I stunk, but I have a chance to get better,” he continued.

McAfee also confirmed that the announcement of his arrival was delayed until Friday as the news of WWE’s recent wave of releases dominated the news a day prior.

Prior to his SmackDown arrival, McAfee had been a consistent part of NXT television for months as both a manager and a wrestler. He was last seen competing at NXT TakeOver: WarGames late last year in a match alongside Pete Dunne, Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch against The Undisputed Era.

What did you think of McAfee’s first run as a commentator? Do you think there’s room for improvement? Let us know in the comments below.