WWE has found their new Pat McAfee in some of the worst booking in history.
It’s no surprise that WWE is always on the lookout for the next big celebrity, the next thing on the menu that will give them the viral hits and the mainstream attention that they so desperately crave. For years they thought Pat McAfee was that guy when he transitioned back and forth from commentary to wrestling. But then, his hard launch as a superstar/manager during the Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton feud fell flatter than a pancake from the rooftop. Since then Pat McAfee has called it quits on his budding WWE career and has explicitly said that he will never return to the company.
This left WWE with a huge conundrum. Who will be the next Pat McAfee? Who will be the next mainstream star who will get the fans from outside talking? Someone with a huge following, but is also familiar with the product?
They found him in Lil Yachty. The rapper, composer, and songwriter and paired him with Trick Williams. The star has been with the former United States Champion for quite a few months now and in that time he has gone from being just an associate to being his full-time manager.
WWE’s PR left no stone unturned in proving that Lil Yachty was the life-long fan who dreamt of having just one match was clearly valued wrestling very deeply. It then slowly shifted to him wanting to have a match before it was revealed that Yachty was training. And now, everything has come full circle.
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Lil Yachty Is WWE’s New Pat McAfee
Notice how Yachty has gone from slowly only have promos to getting physical in almost every single? He delivered a people’s elbow, took bumps against Baron Corbin, and is now about to have a five minute match? WWE is being careful to not portray him as a full-time wrestler just yet, but only giving him five minutes.
The portrayal is subtle, the intent – very much visible. To the company, he is the guy they can’t fumble. They are not repeating the same things they did with Pat McAfee. TKO banked on the former NFL punter’s popularity with the fans as a commentator and hard launched him into a feud with Gunther (which was enjoyable tbh).
But with Lil Yachty, they launched him softly, slowly integrating him into the system and then giving him the starter pack for every manager to wrestler transition ever.
WWE is desperate to make this work. The promotion’s mainstream ambitions now lie very much on Lil Yachty. He is a popular music star, has 11.4 million followers on Instagram, with a lot of it being the younger generation, the ones WWE wants to attract.
The simple yet carefully calculated match, along with the recent increase in physical bumps, constant presence on all shows alongside Williams, and the overall presentation as a manager makes it clear that Lil Yachty is the new Pat McAfee.
His character is nothing different from that of Pat McAfee except that the latter had way more charisma and Yachty can’t even get half the reactions McAfee did.
Yachty is an exceptionally bland character whose presence on screen is neglible and boring. That being said he is a rapper with quite a bit of following. Anything he does with WWE goes out to his 11.4 million Instagram followers, generating the buzz that TKO loves.
In reality, Yachty is nothing like Pat McAfee, he neither has the presence or the charisma, and most of this feud with Baron Corbin is way worse than what McAfee has with Adam Cole or Gunther.
