Pat McAfee Explains the Pressure He Felt Going Into NXT TakeOver, His Passion for Wrestling

– During the latest episode of After the Bell, Corey Graves interviewed former NFL player Pat McAfee, who discussed his in-ring wrestling debut at NXT TakeOver XXX against Adam Cole. Below are some highlights from Pat McAfee discussing his path that brought him to his wrestling debut.

Pat McAfee on the pressure he felt going in: “Well, I appreciate that. That means a lot because I know you’ve seen a lot of wrestling. I mean there for a while, you were calling like 40 hours a week of live television, live wrestling, so to hear you say that means a lot obviously. And since you, just like everybody else, have been wrestling since like high school, which I didn’t know was possible, even though you and I grew up like six minutes away from each other. I didn’t even know that was possible. So, to hear you say that and what you said to me in the days leading up to the match and everything like that, there was a little bit of worry. I am a person that operates very much on the fact that I am so stupid, I just assume that I can do anything, OK? It has been a gift in this life just to be like, ‘I am so dumb.’ I’m like, ‘I could do it. I could figure it out.’ Obviously, leading up to it, AJ Hawk, who was Super Bowl champion, who was one of my cohosts for McAfee and Hawk, when he started saying to me — he has like four kids, he’s a little bit more of an adult in the entire thing. And you started creeping in. And for me, the biggest move was just trying to keep all that doubt out. And obviously, you guys put up some compelling arguments on why I should be very stressed for what was going to happen on Saturday night. I did think about that, but I went in there and I had no idea what was going to happen. Obviously, I knew that I was going in there with a guy who is, although he was a scumbag, he’s incredibly talented in the ring.”

“So for me, I’ve been a fan of TakeOvers for so long. I’ve been a fan of wrestling for so long. I understood the amount of pressure that it was on me to put on a good show, and I think I was just pumped to get in there and see what happened. But boy, what you had mentioned to me leading up to it about getting winded, there were some moments in there where I thought I was potentially never going to be able to breathe again. [Corey Graves on how you can feel so winded and heavy in the ring] I had a few of those conversations conversations with myself. And I would be lying if I didn’t say in a couple of those moments, ‘Corey and AJ were right *Laughs*. They said this was going to happen.’ But all in all, I woke up Sunday very sore. My neck was sore, my back was sore, my foot was sore. But it was nice to be able to get on the other side of that thing and still be able to breathe. On numerous occasions, I had that thought.”

Pat McAfee On his passion for wrestling and believing he had to wrestle at some point: “I’ve talked about this a couple times. Anybody who grew up getting to watch the Monday Night Wars, in the Attitude Era, as like an early teen through that whole era there, was just a gift. I mean it took over everything in pop culture. The Monday Night Wars took over everything. So, with those big personalities over there, obviously with The Rock, Stone Cold, Triple H, everybody that was a part of that thing, it was just massive and monumental entertainment every single week. But growing up for me, growing up where we grew up, and I think you can understand this a lot, whenever I was asked, ‘What do you want to be when you get older?’ I never knew what I wanted to be, but I knew I wanted to be rich. So it was, ‘I want to be rich.’ So, my mind as a kid as a kid would bounce around to different professions.

“I had uncles who were firefighters, and I was so incredibly proud of them. But I was never like, ‘OK, I want to be a firefighter. I never want to be a teacher. I don’t know if I have that in me. I don’t want to do this. I want to be rich. I want to find a job that’s going to make me and my family comfortable for the long hauls.’ So as a child, I knew that very, very young. So when I watched wrestling, it was the first time that I connected with the humans. I was like, ‘OK, they’re incredibly outgoing. They’re athletic. They’re living the personalities. They’re living these larger than life characters. Sometimes they’re hated. Sometimes they’re loved,’ and I just related to wrestling more than anything else. … But I never related to something as much as I related to wrestling. So, ever since that moment, it was a seed that was put into my head. It was like that’s something I was put on this earth to do. I think that’s what I was supposed to do. After college, I got into that match with War Pig, you saw how that ended up. Then, I go and have a successful NFL career, but that entire time, I would literally go to indie shows, any time WWE came to Indianapolis, I was at the show. So, it was always something that was in there. And then getting a chance from Michael Cole to be a part of the Kickoff shows and learn a little bit about the business, it almost solidified the fact that this is the world I think I’m supposed to be in. And then, whenever the Adam Cole situation popped up, it just seemed like the perfect opportunity to get in there and see if it was worth it or not. It was a big show up or show out moment for me. You either show up, or you shut up.”

If using he above quotes, please credit After the Bell, with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.