Pat McAfee On Working In NXT vs. WWE Main Roster, Getting Opportunity With NXT, His Future In Wrestling

In a recent interview on Busted Open Radio, Pat McAfee discussed working in NXT vs. being on the main WWE roster, getting an opportunity with NXT, his future in wrestling, and much more. You can read his comments below.

Pat McAfee on working in NXT vs. having to potentially do more scripted promos on the WWE main roster: “Yeah, probably not. I’m in such a good situation where I can say that. I have a business, I have 10 employees, my guys and I go to work every single day trying to do our show and we have a merch business that does really well. Literally, everything I’ve said in promos is true. I’m in a very lucky situation for everything I’ve been in and I understand that a lot of professional wrestlers aren’t. I’m in a situation where I don’t want to say I can pick and choose, but it really is – if something gets pitched to me that I’m not 100 percent cool with, I am very much in a situation where I’m like ‘Nah, it’s OK, I appreciate that, and we’ll see if something else happens down the road.’ And I’m not a good reader. I’ve literally never read a book in my entire life – that’s not something to brag about obviously and I don’t think kids should do that – it’s just not something I can do, it’s not my thing. I’m more a visual, I can hear things learner. When you hear about the script reading thing, I don’t think I’m that good of an actor that I could pull that off. So, I don’t think it would be good for them, and I don’t think it would be good for me……even though that is a bigger platform for the moment, that doesn’t feel like it would be good for me or for them to be a part of.”

Pat McAfee on his mic work and getting an opportunity to work in NXT: “Obviously, there’s a lot of people I’ve looked up to in the past at being assholes. I think everybody that there’s one right there – Bully [Ray] – so that is a huge compliment coming from him. I’ve always wanted to do this. This is something I’ve always wanted to do – I don’t want to say I understand the business because I learn more and more every single time, but I kind of understood the entertainment value of it and what’s good and what isn’t good and what you need and what you don’t need. I think as I was watching from afar and doing my careers, I was always kind of envious of the guys that got to wrestle in the armories and in the bingo halls because it was something I always wanted to do. For two and a half years I had to sit on that goddamn kickoff show panel just asking for an opportunity to do this whole thing, and now that I’ve gotten the opportunity to go, I’m gonna go as hard as I can and do everything I think I should be doing and try to make it as enjoyable and as entertaining as possible. It’s been really cool that the people at NXT have let me do what I wanna do – it’s a lot of trust, it’s a lot of responsibility, and I enjoy the hell out of Wednesday nights. It’s my favorite thing to do on Earth.”

Pat McAfee on his future in wrestling: “I think for me, after years and years asking to be in the business – for years I asked to do anything and I was reaching out to a lot of people and they were like ‘Sorry we don’t have time’ or ‘Sorry we can’t do it’ or whatever. For years, I was asking ‘I think I was supposed to be in this business and is there anything I can do for you?’ I was always told no. Finally, when I got the opportunity to do it, in my head it was ‘I’m probably not gonna get another chance to do this, so I’m gonna go ahead and prove to myself, I’m gonna prove to everybody I’ve told in my entire life that I’m supposed to be in this business’ and if I wanted to, this could’ve been my full-time business. That was my initial thought for TakeOver 30.”

“Then, when there came an opportunity like ‘Hey, do you want to continue to do things,’ I was like ‘Fuck yes, let’s keep it going.’ Because of how long it got welcomed into the community and allowed to do anything, it was like a bucket list and let’s prove to everybody what I’m doing – now that the opportunity is there to keep going, those planes are not cheap for me to fly down. It’s costing me a lot of money to do this and it’s because of how much I enjoy it and how much respect I have for it and how much love I have for it. And ultimately, how goddamn good I am it. So, it started out as a bucket list thing, and now it’s like let’s go ahead and keep doing this thing because of how much enjoyment I have doing it.”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit Busted Open Radio with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.