Pat McAfee’s recent WWE promo has sparked significant backstage discussion, with new details suggesting the segment was not produced by the company’s creative team and instead originated from higher up within WWE’s corporate structure.

According to Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the belief internally is that the entire angle was not driven by the creative team or Paul Levesque.

“The belief internally is that this angle and storyline were not from the creative team nor Paul Levesque. This is where it gets weird. McAfee we know was an Emanuel call, not a Levesque call. The content of the McAfee promo was also not a creative team call. There were many people who knew about McAfee being contacted, not as many who knew he was actually doing it, although the key people certainly knew his name in the mix for a few weeks. It was kept from talent and McAfee was snuck into the building at the last minute to avoid people seeing him and word getting out. Multiple people have said that what McAfee said in knocking the company for Mania ticket sales and record low ratings was not written for him by the writing team.”

Meltzer also addressed McAfee’s controversial line referencing WWE SmackDown having its “lowest-rated” episode, noting confusion internally about what metric was being referenced.

“Some believe his line about the last Smackdown being the lowest rated show ever, which it wasn’t, referred to Cagematch ratings of the 3/27 show, which in fact were the lowest ever although then topped by the 4/3 show, but in my entire life, while people in fact to bring up Cagematch ratings for matches to me very often, I had never had anyone ever bring up Cagematch ratings for television shows except Tony Khan on press calls ever until McAfee said that on television if in fact it was what he was referring to the last two weeks.”

Further details revealed that while a writer was officially assigned to the segment, the actual promo delivered differed from what had been communicated internally.

“As far as where those lines came from, that’s the million dollar question. The belief is that McAfee came up with those lines himself and was given permission to do so from someone. The writer of record for the segment was Christian Sowell and there was a writer, so creative itself was aware of McAfee and aware that it was not a Levesque call but something done over his head. However, the promo McAfee did was not the promo that Sowell told Levesque what McAfee was going to say. And Nick Khan was right there for all of it.”

Despite the unusual circumstances, the promo aired as delivered, with CM Punk later incorporating elements of the storyline into his own promo on WWE RAW.

McAfee is set to continue his involvement in the angle on this week’s SmackDown in San Jose, where Cody Rhodes is advertised to respond. Current plans, also reported by Meltzer, call for McAfee to team with Randy Orton against Rhodes and Jelly Roll at WWE Backlash on May 9 in Tampa.

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