Backstage News On WWE Telling Cody Rhodes To Shoot For Real On 4/3 SmackDown Promo, Legend Upset By His Comments

“The American Nightmare” was fired up during his second appearance in the ring during the April 3 episode of WWE SmackDown at Enterprise Center in St. Louis, Missouri.

And for good reason.

Cody Rhodes was hit with a sneak attack by former WWE Raw on Netflix color-commentator Pat McAfee, who made a surprise return to open the show on Friday night.

McAfee was unveiled as the “mystery caller” that Randy Orton had been talking to in cryptic vignettes over the past few weeks.

The heel turn saw McAfee talk about Rhodes being a failure from a business perspective as the top guy in WWE, and made it clear that Orton is the right man for the spot.

So much so, in fact, that McAfee upped the ante for the Rhodes vs. Orton match for the Undisputed WWE Championship at WrestleMania 42, as McAfee vowed that WWE fans will never see or hear from him again if Orton loses on “The Grandest Stage of Them All” later this month.

By the end of the show on 4/3 in St. Louis, Rhodes returned to the ring and referred to McAfee being unveiled as Orton’s mystery caller being comparable to if WCW had Disco Inferno (Glenn Gilbertti), not Hulk Hogan, be revealed as the heavily promoted mystery third man joining Kevin Nash and Scott Hall to form the New World Order (nWo).

Multiple sources reported after the show that McAfee being aligned with Orton for a late promotional push for WrestleMania 42 was an edict handed down by TKO, as opposed to an idea that started from the usual WWE creative team.

In an update, two sources both reported on Saturday that Rhodes’ second promo segment late in the show was purposely excluded from the internal rundown for the show, and that Rhodes was specifically told to “shoot from the hip” with his real thoughts on the McAfee situation as a whole.

As far the dig at Disco Inferno, that actually was not just a random mid-to-low card name from the past used to fill out the nWo analogy line in his shoot-style promo.

In fact, Rhodes and Inferno had a memorable unpleasant back-and-forth on social media in the past.

In April of 2018, Inferno responded to a post on X that included a photo of a very bloody Rhodes backstage immediately after being cut by a super kick from Kenny Omega.

“Nobody knows how to ‘work’ anymore,” Inferno wrote. “They would rather kill each other to get
Dave Meltzer to put their match over. That is a problem that needs to be put front and center. Guys are going to keep getting hurt.”

Rhodes fired back to the post back in 2018 with a brutal response taking shots at Inferno for his remark.

“Stop. You know nothing. You have drawn 0 dollars,” Rhodes wrote back as the start of his reply to the aforementioned Inferno post from eight years ago (almost to the exact day). “No fan has ever left a show thinking about you. You were lucky to be a juiced up double-lifer ‘over with the boys’ type in an era where you hid in plain sight coasting on others’ success. Couldn’t hang then, can’t get booked now.”

Cody Rhodes vs. Randy Orton for the Undisputed WWE Championship and Pat McAfee’s future in pro wrestling on-the-line goes down at WrestleMania 42, which is scheduled for April 18 and April 19 from Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, NV.

If I catch @CodyRhodes on Old canton Rd when I go back to visit my mom, that boy might get a good ol’ fashion Marietta tushy kickin’ https://t.co/QbNXsY6WVJ

— Glenn Gilbertti (@TheRealDisco) April 4, 2026

Stop. You know nothing. You have drawn 0 dollars. No fan has ever left a show thinking about you. You were lucky to be a juiced up double-lifer “over with the boys” type in an era where you hid in plain sight coasting on others’ success. Couldn’t hang then, can’t get booked now. https://t.co/0kiDAgyhlT

— Cody Rhodes (@CodyRhodes) April 2, 2018

(H/T: PWInsider Elite & BodySlam+)