WWE star and former and a former American Football star Pat McAfee recently discussed his experience on interviewing Vince McMahon and explained what it liked to interview the man who made WWE the biggest promotion in the world of professional wrestling. Speaking with Jimmy Traina for the SI Media Podcast, McAfee said;
“No. When I was doing SmackDown, I started learning the business a little more. Obviously, as a fan my entire life, I understood and thought I knew what was going on, but once you start meeting people and kind of learn about people and the process of it all, I’m genuinely a curious person too, so I would just go ask Vince questions. ‘Why do you guys do it this way? Why do you do this?’ I feel like he’s naturally a teacher.
Deep Dive: WWE Star Breaks Down The Intricacies Of Interviewing Vince McMahon
“I feel if people approach him and ask him questions, he wants to tell people why he did what he did. The way he goes about telling people, we’ve all seen, certainly an interesting thing and he’s certainly made mistakes as a human, I think he would recognize that and we all recognize that,
“I just started asking questions about decisions I would have to make. I think he appreciated it, I think he respected the questions I was asking, and anytime you talk to anybody, I learned this with Peyton, I was very lucky to be teammates with Peyton Manning. These are humans, at the end of the day. You have to talk to them like they’re humans. Soon as you start treating them like they’re not humans, they’re going to not act like humans.
Pat McAfee Shares His Experience Interviewing Vince McMahon
“If you get showed up in front of somebody, they’re going to immediately shut down and not really talk to you. If you talk to people like they’re humans, they appreciate that. Him blessing us, he flew in for that. Didn’t know if it was going to happen. It was reported, it was talked about, day of though, before we went live, did not get a confirmation. I just assume he’s coming.
“Then we get a text, ’30 minutes out, 15 minutes out.’ Plane, SUV, all by himself, no security, walks right in, sits down, does an hour and 15, hour and a half, comes out, takes a picture, says thank you to everyone, back on the plane, back home, probably had another 12 hour day after that.
“I was pumped more than nervous. I knew that he doesn’t talk to a lot of people. I, being a wrestling fan for a long time, have obviously followed his trajectory business-wise on top of everything else. I felt pumped for the opportunity, for sure.”
Pat McAfee had a surprising match against Vince McMahon at WrestleMania 38 following McAfee’s big win over Austin Theory on the same night. The match was a critical failure and some reason it is not listed on WWE’s official site. But the segment was pretty fun since it featured Stone Cold Steve Austin.
H/t to Fightful