Triple H feels Pat McAfee ‘is the face of WWE to a lot of people’
The first episode of WWE Unreal’s second season was heavily focused on the relationship between Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch but also had a lot on the Pat McAfee match with Gunther at last year’s Backlash.
Leading into the match, Paul “Triple H” Levesque was asked about McAfee who he called “the face of WWE to a lot of people.”
Part of the story of how the match was made was to do something new following WrestleMania 41 which creative member Bruce Prichard admitted was a “pain in the ass” to figure out.
The episode showed the lead-up when Gunther attacked McAfee and choked him out with footage showing Levesque telling the referee via their earpiece for McAfee to “keep selling” the attack as he was walking backstage as the cameras were still on him.
It came to the match itself and Levesque reminding McAfee to breathe and take it slow out there and that Gunther (who he called Walter) would work around him if he needed a break. Levesque asked Gunther if he knew how he was going to end things to which he replied that he wasn’t sure but would figure it out.
McAfee lost in the match with Unreal showing just how much communication there is between the production team and the referee with them instructing the ref to inform McAfee when to fight to his feet and what else he should be doing.
McAfee admitted to the cameras that, “I am green as sh*t in that business., That’s why you’ll never hear me say, ‘Yeah, I’m good out there.” You’ll hear me say I’m f*cking proud,” adding he isn’t sure how many matches he has left and takes each one at at time.”
The second season of Unreal is now available in full on Netflix.
Since 2011, Josh has been a contributing editor to Wrestling Observer/F4WOnline.com and also hosts the Punch-Out podcast. He has also written for Fight Magazine, Bloody Elbow, Bleacher Report, and other websites. He's a 2000 graduate of the University of Maine, worked in pro sports, and once was an indie ring announcer.