Pat McAfee Recalls Vince McMahon Interview

Pat McAfee has shed some light on what it was like to be granted a rare interview with Vince McMahon.

McMahon appeared on The Pat McAfee Show in the run-up to WrestleMania 38, talking for around 90 minutes as well as booking the SmackDown colour commentator in a match at The Showcase of the Immortals.

Asked if he was nervous about interviewing WWE's Executive Chairman, Pat told the SI Media Podcast:

"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. 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 recognise that". 

Continuing, McAfee discussed his approach interviewing subjects and how it related to McMahon, saying:

"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. 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".

McMahon ended up defeating McAfee (after McAfee had defeated Austin Theory) on night two of WrestleMania 38.

H/T Fightful