Pat McAfee spoke about his performance against Adam Cole at NXT Takeover XXX on the latest episode of his podcast. Highlights are below.
Says he’s always wanted to wrestle:
I always had these seeds that I was supposed to wrestle,” he said. “Even as an adult, my lady and I, we try to watch literally every single wrestling show that’s on television. Just because it’s such a combination of things and I think a lot of people got a chance to see that whenever they dove into the NXT run that I had here over the last couple of weeks. That wrestling is just so much more than just wrasslin. It’s emotion. It’s drama. It’s comedy. It’s athletics. It’s everything that I feel like I’ve been attracted to for my entire life.
Calls the moment a bucket list item for him:
The fact that I got to get into the ring on Saturday was a moment that I thought about, like … hey, this is something I’m gonna remember on my death bed,” McAfee added. “When you wrestle for a TakeOver on NXT, it’s the best wrestling shows that happen. So I understood that there was gonna be massive amounts of pressure. Massive amount of hype. Massive amount of everything because TakeOver, especially a monumental one like TakeOver: XXX, is a big deal. I end up with the loss, but boy … what a bucket list item to go and say, yeah, I got a chance to do something I always thought I was supposed to do and I enjoyed the living hell out of it.
How he proved his haters wrong with his Takeover performance:
As soon as Mr. H made this a match at TakeOver, I saw a lot of people on the internet just start burying me. I was getting buried by people that I thought I was a part of their community. I follow all the dirt sheets. I follow all the big time people, because I am a wrestling fan. And I’m just watching all these people just bury me. I’m like, ‘man, you guys have no idea!’ Honestly. Now, the cliche about punters and kickers is they’re not very athletic, obviously. And all that stuff. But I think if you just watch not even half of a game of my career, I’m a little bit different than I think a lot of people. I hoped that a lot of people got to see that. Although I wanted this thing to end quick, I think we had a hell of a show out there.
Check out the full episode below. (H/T and transcribed by Pro Wrestling Sheet)