Wade Barrett says the SmackDown commentary team had no idea Pat McAfee was coming out to align with Randy Orton on the April 3 episode, with blank pages on their rundown sheet where the segment should have been.
Speaking in a new interview with Sporf, the former WWE Superstar confirmed that his broadcast partner Joe Tessitore's on-air reaction was genuine, not performance. He said both announcers were caught as cold as the live audience when McAfee walked out in St. Louis.
Barrett and Tessitore Had Blank Pages on the Rundown
Barrett explained that commentators are not always clued in to every segment, and the McAfee reveal was one of the moments kept completely off their sheet heading into the show.
Well, I was very surprised when Pat McAfee came out with the Randy Orton stuff on SmackDown. Sometimes there are blank pages on the sheet that I get as a commentator. That was blank. I had no idea Pat McAfee was coming out, I didn't know what he was gonna say, so it was a shock to me, and it was a shock to Joe Tess on commentary, too. We were caught just as cold as the entire audience, and I was scratching my head.
The former Intercontinental Champion said parts of McAfee's promo confused him in the moment, pointing to references that did not fit the current product.
I didn't really understand why Pat was saying certain things. He was taking shots at people who didn't deserve to have a shot taken at them. He was also coming up with some references to 40-minute Ironman matches, and I don't know what show he was watching there. So, yeah, I was caught cold by it.
Barrett added that he enjoyed Cody Rhodes' immediate response later in the night and singled out CM Punk's Raw promo the following Monday as one of the funniest retorts he has seen in a long time.
"I Don't Know Where the Reality Ends and the Story Begins"
Barrett went on to praise the angle itself, suggesting that the blurred line between storyline and real-life friction has created exactly the kind of buzz WWE wants before WrestleMania.
I think the brilliance of this whole situation, it's gone from an initial head scratcher to now the lines have been completely blurred, and I don't know what is storyline, what is real life. Are they angry? I think when you get to that point, it just creates buzz, and I think the three of those guys you just mentioned have created some serious buzz going into WrestleMania.
He acknowledged the fan division around the segment, including complaints about Punk going off-script, but framed the resulting noise as a net positive for the show.
I've been watching this game a long time, I've been behind the curtain for over 20 years at this point. I don't know where the reality ends and the story begins at this point, so they've got me too. So I think it's exactly what you need this time of year, heading into WrestleMania. You want buzz, you want people talking, you want eyeballs on it. Whether this is by design or by accident, whatever it is, it's worked.
McAfee's Reveal Sets Up WrestleMania 42 Night 1
McAfee was unveiled as Randy Orton's mystery caller on the April 3 edition of SmackDown, attacking Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes and declaring that Orton would save the business. He is set to be in Orton's corner when The Viper challenges Rhodes for the title on Night 1 of WrestleMania 42 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on April 18.
The angle has drawn heavy fan backlash, with Rhodes calling it the most ill-received thing in wrestling history and labeling McAfee a "full-blooded rat" on ESPN's Get Up.
