WWE shocked wrestling fans everywhere last week when they had Pat McAfee as the big reveal in the feud between Randy Orton and Cody Rhodes.
Orton had been on the phone to a mystery person since turning heel on Rhodes that encouraged him to listen to the voices in his head.
McAfee turned up in the opening segment of SmackDown to help beat down Rhodes and reveal it was he that has been counselling Orton, claiming he is going to help The Viper restore WWE to the glory days.
Later on in the show, Rhodes tweeted he would like to go out to the ring and respond before doing just that. We’ve now learned that the original run down of the show did not feature a Rhodes rebuttal and the WWE champion was told to do this on the fly.
BodySlam+ added that Rhodes was instructed to go to the ring later that evening and “shoot from the hip”.
They added that the reports they were given noted that Rhodes and members of WWE’s creative team have “legitimate gripes” with TKO for “sticking their nose in storylines close to WrestleMania” multiple years in a row.
Ari Emanuel, the CEO and Executive Chairman of TKO, thinks inviting and incorporating mainstream celebrities into the current WrestleMania 42 build up will lead to last minute ticket purchases.
The ‘internet wrestling fans’ did not take the McAfee reveal well, but a lot of the frustration comes from the lacklustre overall booking.
Orton and Rhodes is a story decades in the making since they were in Legacy in and around 2009.
Orton has reverted back to the unhinged killer he was around that time period when Rhodes was helping him with his bidding. He knows more than anyone else what he is capable of, surely a story based of that history was an easy layup for WWE.
