Pat McAfee appears on WWE NXT, knocks out Adam Cole

In a storyline built up over social media the past few weeks, former NFL punter and media personality Pat McAfee returned to NXT Wednesday and got into a conflict with Adam Cole that ended with the former NXT Champion knocked out on the ground.

McAfee guested on commentary for the last two matches of the show and became more heelish as time went on. During the Undisputed Era vs. Imperium tag team title main event, Cole became annoyed with what McAfee was saying and came over to confront him and said he needed to chill out. As he walked away, Cole heard McAfee call him “an angry elf” and squirted a bottle of water at him. 

The two were then repeatedly pulled apart by officials (including Triple H and Shawn Michaels) after Cole told McAfee to “do something about it”, distracting Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish and causing them to lose the match. McAfee was escorted away, but later returned and told Cole that for the rest of his life, he would be an “itty bitty, short little bitch.”

Cole then lunged after McAfee on the announcers’ table and as the men were being separated, McAfee got enough space to punt the prone Cole in the head, knocking him out.

McAfee has been involved with WWE and NXT dating back to 2018 when he cost Cole a match against then-champion Aleister Black at a house show. He has done pre-game shows for the company and was even on the November 1st, 2019 edition of SmackDown, filling in as the regular crew infamously weren’t able to make it back in time from Saudi Arabia.

With nearly 2 million Twitter followers and some mainstream sports notoriety, it’s assumed he and Cole will have a match at NXT TakeOver XXX.

McAfee and Cole began working the angle on the July 23rd edition of McAfee’s show where Cole swore at McAfee after being called short and walked off the set in an attempt to make people believe it was a real confrontation. Cole later released an apology statement and the two very publicly made up earlier Wednesday.