Pat McAfee On How His WWE Smackdown Appearance Came About, Talks The Rock’s Crowd Pop

Pat McAfee made a return to WWE TV on last week’s Smackdown alongside The Rock, and he talked on Monday about how it came about. McAfee spoke on The Pat McAfee Show about the appearance, and you can check out some highlights below (per Fightful):

On how his Smackdown return came about: “’Hey, you want to go on SmackDown, open the show, and then be in the ring with The Rock whenever he does his thing?’ Uh, yeah. But there 5:34 local time. Traffic from Boulder to Denver was not great. Show starts six [o’clock] local time. So a lot a people talk about ‘How long did everything come together?’ It’s like real quick. Everything came together real quick. What an honor to be back there, honestly. Absolute honor to be back there. Great to see everybody. I thank them mightily for the opportunity to do that.”

On the pop that The Rock received: “Then this pop right here, [when The Rock came out], look at that shit. That’s Attitude Era. That’s way back in the day. The Rock hadn’t been back in four years. So this Denver crowd was loud to begin with. When I went out there, I heard them. I was like, ‘This is a louder crowd than it normally is.’ Then all the sudden, not only is it an active and loud crowd, then you got the ‘If You [Smell], what a night, dude. I’m so thankful that I was even asked to be a part of that. It was so cool to see everybody. Then watching The Rock just in there. Watching his face, I said, ‘It’s a two-hour show.’ He looks at me, ‘The Rock knows it’s a two-hour show.’ [The Cena and Rock interaction] was amazing. They are like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna have you guys walk out here.’ This was literally on our way out. They’re like, ‘Can we get a shot of you guys walking out?’ Then obviously, we’ll have Cena in there as well. I was like, ‘You don’t need to have me in here. Listen, I understand the game here. There is no reason for me to be here. I appreciate it.’ They’re like, ‘No, need you there.’ Okay, yeah, absolutely. Then I’m standing there, just like everybody else, watching these two. I’m like, ‘Are these two about to set up for a WrestleMania run right now?’ I didn’t know if it was about to be a work or not. Then obviously, ‘I see you smiling,’ the whole thing. It was electrifying.”