On April 16th, 2021, WWE announced that Pat McAfee had been moved to SmackDown from NXT, serving as color commentator alongside Michael Cole as a babyface.
Pat McAfee had been away from WWE television due to his NFL obligations. Michael Cole and Wade Barrett have been working as part of the commentary team on Friday Night Smackdown till then.
Green Bay Packers legend Brett Favre has filed a lawsuit against Pat McAfee and Shannon Sharpe for their supposed defamatory comments regarding the Mississippi welfare fraud case involving Ted DiBiase and his family. The lawsuit accuses McAfee of referring to Favre as a “thief” who misused funds meant for the disadvantaged in Mississippi. Although Favre returned the $1.1 million in question, he declined to pay the requested $228,000 in interest, claiming he was unaware of the source of the funds he received. The lawsuit also alleges that Favre received $5 million from the welfare fund to build a volleyball arena at the University of Southern Mississippi.
McAfee responded to the lawsuit on his radio show, The Pat McAfee Show. He joked about being sued by Favre, and made it clear that he was not backing down, even if it meant going to court. He also revealed that he was sent letters by New York lawyers, requesting that he remove any references to Favre from his archives, but he refused to comply.
According to the lawsuit, McAfee was given until 8:30 PM Eastern on Wednesday to apologize to Favre and remove all related content. However, McAfee claimed that he was playing pickleball and missed the deadline, leading to legal action.
McAfee stated that the quotes used in the lawsuit were accurate, but added that the word “allegedly” was used frequently on his show. He said that it was his job to report the news and that the situation with Favre was allegedly happening in Mississippi at the time. McAfee concluded by saying that he was excited to see Favre in court.
“I’m getting sued by Brett Farve. Yup, we made it, boys. I’m getting sued alongside Shannon Sharpe and an auditor by Missipi by Brett f**king Favre. Brett Favre is suing me in a defamation lawsuit, saying I defamed his name to try to earn a profit. With this, I believe, comes discovery and depositions and all these other things.
So I would like to let the New York lawyers who wrote me two letters before this thing got announced,” McAfee stated before noting what they said in the letter, which was them wanting him to remove any and all mention of Favre from the archives of his radio show, Twitter and YouTube library. He called it a warning shot.
“So I looked at that and said, ‘That’s hilarious.’ Of course, we’re not doing that. Put that down, move on with my life.”
I would like to let everyone know the quotes that were in that lawsuit were certainly accurate, but there’s one word that I believe that was said often on this program, which was allegedly. Our job is to report the news. At the time, it was allegedly going on down in Mississippi with Brett Farve, the man suing me for money.”
We had to cover that situation, and we certainly said allegedly and a lot of people were wondering how my lawyers were going to handle this, you know it, I ain’t got em, so let’s ride this f**ker. I’m excited. I’ll see you in court, pal.”
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxcTeAKWJca6XyJ37_ZoKIQ
