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By Tyler Erzberger
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We are a week away from the biggest weekend of the year for WWE: WrestleMania 42.
It's back in Las Vegas at the home of the Raiders, Allegiant Stadium, and they are doing everything possible to pump up ticket sales as the days begin counting down to show day.
On "Friday Night SmackDown," WWE doubled down on its heavy celebrity approach to the upcoming marquee nights of the year, as one of its premier main events has become a proxy war between celebrities.
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Cody Rhodes will defend his WWE championship against Randy Orton at WrestleMania to close out night one on Saturday, but the feud has shifted from a former student facing his teacher to Pat McAfee beating up music star Jelly Roll.
Pat McAfee returned to the WWE after months away from his commentator gig due to football, but he's no longer an announcer, linking up with Orton as his quasi-manager, who has denounced Rhodes and the current WWE product.
And on the other end, we have Jelly Roll, playing the nice, thoughtful middleman between Rhodes and Orton, who has now been repeatedly beaten up for weeks on end while Rhodes looks sad in the middle of the ring.
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While the clips are going viral on social media, the reaction from fans has been almost unanimously sour, with many wondering how a feud 15 years in the making between two of the biggest stars in pro wrestling has devolved into booing McAfee and awkwardly feeling sympathetic for Jelly Roll.
After last year, when the main event of the show between Rhodes and John Cena was marred by Travis Scott, whose relationship with WWE splintered weeks after WrestleMania 41, it was believed that the company had learned its lesson, avoiding the injection of celebrities into every crevice of the show.
Nope.
WWE is going full speed ahead with the cross-promotion for one of their biggest matches at 'Mania, as it will be the first aired on ESPN under their new partnership.
TKO, the group that owns WWE and UFC, believes that McAfee's presence on linear ESPN can help promote the show in the final days before the event to drum up interest.
While that might be true, and the WWE does get a few extra ESPN downloads and tickets bought from McAfee's promotion on television in the final week before the big Rhodes vs. Orton match, how many fans will they lose in the process?
If it makes them more money in the end, they might not care at all.
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