Pat McAfee comments on his extended absence from WWE

Pat McAfee was briefly on my mind during last week’s episode of Raw when Shinsuke Nakamura made his entrance to whisper something in Seth Rollins’ ear. I thought, how cool would it be if McAfee was here on commentary to completely lose his mind over Shin’s entrance now that Nak has finally returned to a world title program in WWE?

We’re coming up on one full year since McAfee left his SmackDown commentary gig with WWE to take on bigger projects. Outside of a quick cameo at Royal Rumble 2023 and an impromptu match against The Miz at WrestleMania 39, McAfee has been completely absent from WWE during this time.

Pat has now commented on his absence from WWE again, this time during a Q&A session on Instagram. McAfee is just too busy right now to fit WWE into his schedule, but he sounds determined to return at some point:

“This is gonna sound like pandering or a cheap pop. It’s not, though. [I miss WWE] every day, bro. Literally.

When I was in the NFL, I was envious of the people that could go do indie wrestling, ‘cause I wasn’t allowed obviously, under my NFL contract. And also, I couldn’t jeopardize what was paying for me and my family, my friends, to have a much better life than what we grew up in. So then I get an opportunity to wrestle and do the WWE life. And it was an honor and a dream, and I had the time of my fucking life in there. Loved it, every single moment.

But now my business has gotten to a point...I’m incredibly busy. And we’ve got fifteen employees over here that are having babies and building houses. So, it’s a tough thing to deal with mentally, because emotionally I want to be there, but I just can’t timing wise. But we will figure it out.”

When do you think we’ll see Pat McAfee back in WWE, Cagesiders?