On Saturday, Pat McAfee made his surprise return to WWE to serve as a guest commentator for the the Royal Rumble.
As it turns out, McAfee’s return to the world of pro wrestling wasn’t a one-off.
As WWE Raw kicked off on Monday night, the show began with McAfee’s familiar theme song playing throughout Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida. The former NFL punter proceeded to make his way to the commentary desk, where he joined play-by-play man Michael Cole.
As McAfee played to the crowd and put on a headset, Cole proceeded to announce that he and McAfee now comprise Raw‘s full-time broadcast team. McAfee previously served as a color commentator on WWE SmackDown from 2022-2023, before taking a hiatus from the show to focus on his duties for ESPN’s College GameDay.
BREAKING: @PatMcAfeeShow & @MichaelCole are the brand new commentary team on #WWERaw every Monday! pic.twitter.com/y8cOEpDigv
— WWE (@WWE) January 30, 2024
Frankly, McAfee’s return to WWE on a full-time basis comes as a surprise.
While the former All-Pro punter has made sporadic appearances for the company in each of the last two years, WWE has seemingly moved forward without McAfee in its broadcasting plans. After all, the West Virginia product is already plenty busy, between hosting the daily The Pat McAfee Show on ESPN in addition to his role on GameDay. Now McAfee will be traveling across the country each Monday, as he joins the broadcast team for television’s longest-running weekly episodic program.
McAfee’s return to WWE comes less than a week after the company announced a new rights deal with Netflix, which will become the home of Raw beginning in January 2025. In the meantime, Raw will continue to air on the USA Network through September, as it remains unclear where WWE’s flagship show will be hosted in the time between its current rights deal and its next one.
It will also be interesting to see whether McAfee will remain on the Raw broadcast team come college football season. Despite his polarizing presence, the 36-year-old has already publicly committed to remaining on GameDay for the 2024 season.
[WWE]
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.