Cody Rhodes was running hot earlier this month when his feud with Randy Orton at WrestleMania 42 suddenly widened to include Pat McAfee, and Kit Wilson became the man in the middle. Wilson had just finished a tag match with The Miz against Damian Priest and R-Truth when Rhodes hit the ring and flattened him with a Cross Rhodes.
Rhodes then cut a scathing promo on McAfee after McAfee had kicked him in the groin, ripped the pro wrestling business and said Orton was going to save it. The angle pushed Rhodes and Orton closer to their Undisputed WWE Championship match on Night 1 of WrestleMania 42, with McAfee expected to be at ringside in Orton’s corner.
Wilson told News Digital he had no idea Rhodes was coming or that he would be the one caught in the crossfire. He said he was only trying to look out for his mentor, The Miz, and do right by him, and that Rhodes was speaking from the heart when he fired back at McAfee. Wilson called the promo informational and important in the current zeitgeist, but said Rhodes was clearly taking his anger out on him.
That is the part of the moment that gives it weight. Wilson said he did not appreciate the attack and thought it was toxic, even as he said he could see the side of Rhodes that had a lot to say. By the time of the interview, he said he had forgiven Rhodes in his own way.
The setting matters because WrestleMania 42 is building around Rhodes and Orton, not Wilson, and McAfee was added to the feud only days before the match was set to take place. Rhodes’ beatdown of Wilson was not a random detour so much as a blunt reply to McAfee’s latest shot, one more escalation in a storyline that keeps pulling more people into the center of it. What comes next is straightforward: Rhodes and Orton meet for the title on Night 1, and McAfee is expected to be close enough to watch it unfold.