Another week, another reason to complain about Pat McAfee’s strange alliance with Randy Orton. While this week certainly (and thankfully) wasn’t as egregious as the last few weeks, it wasn’t great. We opened the show with McAfee and Orton arriving, and they didn’t cross paths with Rhodes, as he arrived later. Honestly, that might have been the best part of both Orton and Rhodes’ segments tonight, as the “American Nightmare’s” lovefest with CM Punk to end the show also fell flat.

Rhodes’ promo aside, the night began with general manager Nick Aldis handing McAfee some kind of agreement, which was never explained. Orton didn’t have to sign anything, just McAfee, who apparently read over the document and signed while Orton was in the ring cutting his promo. Now, Aldis isn’t a heel GM, so I can’t imagine there’s anything in there that’s going to screw Rhodes over on Saturday, but at this point, with everything that’s gone on since this ‘Mania feud took a Yinzer turn, who knows.

As his former mystery ally was wrapping up whatever he needed to sign, Orton made his way out to the ring and cut was a pretty okay promo, I just thought it was a little too late at this point. He heeled it up when he said he didn’t need McAfee, he wanted him by his side, which is pretty stupid, but it got heat. He went on about thinking he’d be fighting Drew McIntyre as champion, not Rhodes, and how he needed to bring out the best version of himself to fight Rhodes, which the champion technically gave him permission to do right before Orton turned heel.

Orton blamed Rhodes for everything bad that has happened to him in recent years, because he’d been protecting Rhodes and helping him get to the top rather than worry about himself. Which was excellent, it just should have been the entire reason for his heel turn, not because McAfee got in his head. Orton actually said that McAfee had done more for him than Rhodes throughout his career, which is just a weird, blatant lie that stood out like crazy in what was seemingly going to be a solid promo.

While what Orton said was mostly good, it was just a lot of good way too late at this point to save anything. Thankfully, he got to try and fix things a bit without McAfee in the ring with him, which was helpful. But, overall, between saying that McAfee was more helpful than Rhodes throughout Orton’s journey, to whatever the heck McAfee signed on the dotted line for, it just left me feeling nervous for what’s to come with this story, even after WrestleMania.

Written by Daisy Ruth