Image: WWE

On Monday’s edition of The Pat McAfee Show, new SmackDown commentator Pat McAfee assessed his first performance as a member of the show’s commentary team:

I do not think I was anywhere near where I can get to as a commentator for professional wrestling. I used a lot of the words a couple times over and over. I was scared to have too much bass in my voice ’cause I didn’t want people to think I was trying to dominate the call or anything like that, but sometimes I sounded a little bit too soft. The standing — natural instinct was for me to stand when something happened. I guess a lot of people didn’t enjoy that. I appreciate that because that was potentially something that could get me into some sh*t. A lot of people say like ‘oh, you need to stay so we can.’ The clip of us coming back to the two shot of me standing [and] him sitting and me kind of being caught in a situation where I’m like, ‘Well I don’t know if I should stand or sit right now.’ That was one of those kind of ad-libbed moments that pop up that is incredible. I had a blast. I think I stunk, but I have a chance to get better. I enjoyed it. I’m very thankful to all the people at the WWE and to anybody that happened to tune in.

It was announced last Friday that McAfee was joining the SmackDown commentary team and would be calling the show with Michael Cole going forward. McAfee said on his radio show today that the announcement was originally supposed to be made last Thursday night, but it was delayed due to something that happened in WWE that made it feel like announcing the news then wasn’t the right move. Ten wrestlers were released by WWE last Thursday.

When asked how interacting with Vince McMahon went, McAfee noted that McMahon wasn’t at SmackDown last Friday.

McAfee, a sports media star and former NFL All-Pro punter, first appeared for WWE as an NXT TakeOver pre-show panelist in 2018. McAfee has wrestled for NXT twice, facing Adam Cole at TakeOver XXX last August and teaming with Pete Dunne, Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch in a WarGames match against Undisputed Era (Cole, Kyle O’Reilly, Roderick Strong & Bobby Fish) at TakeOver: WarGames last December.

McAfee’s debut as a member of the SmackDown broadcast team was the second time he’s done commentary for the show. With WWE personnel stuck in Saudi Arabia following Crown Jewel 2019, McAfee made an appearance on SmackDown and did commentary.