There’s a lot to unpack in Killer Mike’s freestyle over Travis Scott’s hit song “FE!N.” There’s the obvious, which is that Travis recently put in an appearance at WrestleMania, and as Mike put it on Twitter, “I woke up with ‘Mania on my Mind. This beat is so cold I had to kill it.” But, as happens so often with both rap and wrestling, there are a few layers to unpack.

Professional wrestling can often be a tangled web of lore, which could easily turn a neophyte’s brain inside out with its convoluted twists and turns. And, as has so often been said before, rap often follows similar contortions, which makes this post especially fun to write.

So, yeah, “FE!N” has been the official anthem of WrestleMania 41, appearing throughout its promotion for most of the past year (much to some fans’ chagrin). But it’s also the song that many of Scott’s fans believed should have put him in the running for a rap Grammy the year Killer Mike swept the rap categories, taking home Best Rap Album for Michael, and Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance for “Scientists & Engineers.”

His wins incensed some Travis Scott fans, who protested that they didn’t even know who Killer Mike was (which only made them look bad). Most of them changed their minds after actually checking his stuff out, and Mike even admitted to admiring Travis later on.

Ironically, Travis now finds himself in a similar position, with many longtime wrestling fans expressing their resentment of the rapper’s intervention in the Sunday main event match between Cody Rhodes and John Cena, distracting Rhodes just long enough for Cena to gain the upper hand and steal his history-making 17th championship. So, yeah, the marks are out on Travis for both kayfabe reasons and real-life fatigue, as his constant appearances in the ring have felt much less organic than, say, Bad Bunny’s run in 2023.

Still, it doesn’t seem we’ll be free of Scott’s reign of terror anytime soon. At least we get this great Killer Mike freestyle out of it. Hopefully, the WWE will notice and give us Scott vs. Mike in the ring and not just on the mic — now that, I’ll pay to see, twice.