Screenshot
Pat McAfee on Saturday called out the largely-Canadian crowd for booing the singing of The Star-Spangled Banner at a WWE event.
McAfee was at the announcers’ table this past weekend for one of the WWE’s major pay-per-view events — Elimination Chamber. This year, it was held in Toronto.
Before any wrestling took place, however, the Canadians in attendance loudly booed the singing of the United States of America’s national anthem.
Saturday’s incident was the continuation of a trend that’s been going on in the sports world over the last few weeks. At Canadian sporting events where the U.S. anthem is played — such as NHL games — crowds have taken to booing the anthem. The gesture was primarily due to President Donald Trump’s threats to impose steep tariffs on the country, as well as him publicly stating his desire to make Canada the 51st state.
While talking about the matches ahead of them Saturday night, McAfee, in WWE fashion, took the opportunity to playfully antagonize the Canadian crowd
“These are the most stacked Elimination Chambers that the WWE has ever had,” McAfee said. “Kinda sucks that it’s in the terrible country of Canada that booed our national anthem to start this entire thing! But it’s gonna be a historic night for the WWE on the road to WrestleMania.”
In the clip, it’s clear that McAfee was mostly embellishing his reaction. While it’s unlikely McAfee or any other WWE talent would make some kind of political statement on air, the booing made for easy ammunition for McAfee to rip the home crowd.