Pat McAfee Reflects On His Summerslam Match, Acknowledges His Mistakes

In the latest episode of The Pat McAfee Show (via Fightful), Pat McAfee spoke about his match at WWE Summerslam and admitted that it didn’t go exactly like he wanted it to. He spoke about the things that went wrong and how he’d never performed a Code Red before. Here are highlights:

On his match at Summerslam: “I did do the Swanton Bambini. I will say, I did not expect the ring posts to look the way they looked when I was climbing up there. There were some moments in that match where I was like, ‘should have prepared differently.’ For instance, walking into the stadium, I took a nice deep breath of the humid air. It was thick. Sauna thick. It was supposed to rain. Projections of the weather for two weeks, a week out, even the morning of, ‘rain is coming.’ Whenever it’s hot and rain is coming, that means it’s humid as fuck. I didn’t think about that as I was training in my basement and air conditioning. That hit me day of. ‘This is not an arena or enclosed. It’s going to be hot as fuck.’ I’m walking around, sweating, and haven’t done anything. I started to hydrate, hammer water and Gatorade.”

On what went wrong: “A lot of offense off the ropes. Ropes are wet, a little slick, the shoes I was wearing, had not worn them on ropes. A lot of things, as they are happening, I’m thinking, ‘Fucking idiot. You are so dumb.’ I go for the base jump to catch Bum Ass Corbin off top. I felt really good about that as I was flying through the air. Left foot on first, whoosh, I felt like I had nothing under me. Luckily, grab onto him like I’m a koala bear. Hang onto him, bruise up the shins on the ropes. As it is happening, they say you have so much adrenaline you don’t feel anything, that’s a lie. As my shins were bouncing on the ropes, ‘Oh, I’ve never been hurt so bad.’ Suplex happens, I thought it was over there.”

On nearly falling: “As I’m climbing up there, I’m like, ‘Oh no, foot slipping a little bit on the second rope.’ I get up on the third rope and I’m like, ‘Ohhhh no, I should have done a little bit more work in these shoes on top.’ I was too Italian, I went too hard with the, ‘Hey, how you doing? Keep it moving,’ and it threw me off. I felt the gravy of the humidity running me down. Once I caught one brief second, BOOM, out of nowhere on Corbin. Hit that thing perfect, exactly how I wanted to hit it. Felt good about it. Some people were tweeting me, giving me way too much credit. ‘Did you see him make it appear as if he was off balance so he could keep us on the edge of seat? That is what it’s all about.’ That was not the case. If you could’ve heard what was going on in-between my ears when I was up there. Immediate regret is the sound of what was talking in my brain. Happy the body was able to figure it out. Left foot rebalances on the rope a little further down. That could have been catastrophic. If there was any on that one [the right foot], you’re talking full split, I’m down. I’m very thankful for the ropes, making it happen up there.”

On the finish of the match: “Not a destroyer. Code Red. Had I ever done it before to anybody? Nope, but it felt like the right time and right place. Wasn’t the cleanest match I’ve ever had. I certainly wasn’t prepared for the humidity. I’m pumped to get out of there with a dub.”