83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - 83 WEEKS #262 : Starrcade 1997 Watch Along with Nick Patrick

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

On this episode of 83 WEEKS with Eric Bischoff, we are giving you a peek into just some of the amazing experiences offered to our Ad Free Show members every month. Eric and host Conrad Thompson sit down with legendary WCW/WWE referee Nick Patrick for the very first time to discuss what actually happened on that fateful night in 1997. Nick was tasked to referee the main event championship match between Hollywood Hulk Hogan and the icon Sting, so what happened? Was Nick told to "fast count" the pin? Was he instructed to "slow count" the pin? Did Nick Patrick go into business of himself? Find out in this edge if your seat edition of 83WEEKS with Eric Bischoff! Plus, we give you a taste of Nick Patrick's BRAND NEW show on AD Free Shows.com, Mailbag With Nick Patrick where he answers member questions! ATHLETIC GREENS - Athletic Greens is going to give you a FREE 1x year supply of immune-support Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/83WEEKS. Again, that is athleticgreens.com/83WEEKS to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance! SUNDAY - Full-season plans start at just $109, and you can get 20% off when you visit GET SUNDAY DOT COM SLASH 83WEEKS at checkout! HENSON SHAVING - It’s time to say no to subscriptions and yes to a razor that’ll last you a lifetime. Visit HENSONSHAVING.com/83WEEKS to pick the razor for you and use code 83WEEKS and you’ll get two years' worth of blades free with your razor–just make sure to add them to your cart. GAMETIME - Snag the tickets without the stress with Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code WEEKS for $20 off your first purchase (terms apply). Download Gametime today. Last minute tickets. Lowest Price. Guaranteed. SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at SaveWithConrad.com ADVERTISE WITH ERIC -If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to AdvertiseWithEric.com now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ Get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9 over on AdFreeShows.com. That's less than 15 cents an episode each month! You can also listen to them directly through Apple Podcasts or your other regular podcast apps! AdFreeShows.com also has thousands of hours worth of bonus content including popular series like Title Chase, Eric Fires Back, Conversations with Conrad, Mike Chioda's Mailbag and many more! Plus, live, interactive virtual chats with your favorite podcasts hosts and wrestling legends. All that and much more! Sign up today at AdFreeShows.com! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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NMLS number 65084 Equal Healthy Lenders. As an adult, don't we all miss spring break? Nothing like taking a week off from all your responsibilities. Well, here's the next best thing for adults. A spring break from house payments. Savewithconrad.com can help you get rid of all your credit card debt, just like that. We're routinely helping our listeners, say, 5, 6, 7, even 800 bucks a month. And you don't need perfect credit or money out of your pocket to do this,

but check this out, no house payments for two months. It's savewithconrad.com. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and you're listening to 83 weeks. Unfortunately, without Eric Bischoff, he's out of pocket today. So we have some never before heard great stuff that you're going to absolutely love, including a Starcade watch along. That's right. The most infamous show in 83 weeks history,

I absolutely obliterated Eric Bischoff once upon a time. And boy, that went viral back in 2018, I think. And now we're doing it again with the third man in the ring. We actually set it up on ad-free shows on the exact anniversary of StarK-97 in December of last year. It was Eric Bischoff, Nick Patrick, and myself. I tried to play moderator and discuss what really happened. Nick Patrick hasn't done a lot of shoot interview. or even podcast interviews or written any books.

So we've never really heard his perspective. We get to hear him have a frank and honest conversation with the boss about what really happened that night. And to say it went well would be an understatement. Nick Patrick had such a great time. We decided, hey, let's make this a regular thing. So he signed up to join our team at adfreeshows.com. And now twice a month, you get a Monday mailbag.

You've been getting those with Mike Keota, but now you get them on the opposite Mondays from the WCW side of things, the third man in the ring for all of those iconic moments in WCW, and of course he spent some time in the WWE as well. He joins us every other week over at adfreeshows.com. Both of these pieces of content you're about to hear are exclusive to adfreeshows.com, but we're peeling back the curtain here for these two pieces of content. That's right, you're getting the bonus episode of what we called the fast count. Eric Bischoff's conversation will think Patrick about Starcate 97 and then a bonus episode of Nick Patrick's Monday mailbag at the

very end of the show. Of course, along the way, we're going to have some laughs about the good old days of WCW. And if you like to relive these moments, you need to join adfreeshows.com. Try the first week on me. That's right, a one week free trial at adfreeshows.com. We just filmed something last week. I can't wait for you to hear about. But right now, We've got the brand new episode of the book from March of 85, where we go day by day, story by story, gate, show by show from the genius mind of Dusty Rhodes, the excellent penmanship of J.J. Dillon, Jim Crockett Jr.'s personal read books when he helped fund WrestleMania and got his company back on TBS. We talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly, how that deal came together in a way you've never heard it discussed before with Mr. David Crockett and so. so much more, including this Nick Patrick mailbag, including the unbelievable conversation with Eric, and so much more right here on ad-freeshows.com. Try the first week on us for free

at ad-free shows. Without further ado, let's get to it, man. This is from this past December. We called it the fast count. Eric Pischoff, Nick Patrick, and myself talking about Starcade 1997. Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson. Thanks everybody for joining us tonight. We're doing something pretty special. I think everybody who listens to our podcast by now knows that 1997 is my peak fandom, my favorite year ever of being a wrestling fan, still to this day. And I can't believe it, but 25 years ago tonight, WCW had their most successful pay-per-view of all time. I don't think that's even debatable. It's probably not even debatable. It's the greatest storyline of all time, the NWO and everything that happened over, gosh, nearly 18 months.

between Hollywood Hogan and Sting. And it finally happens. And it sets all kinds of records. And we've got the folks who were at the center of that conversation because I think most of us finished that night and thought, okay, well, we hope Sting would get the belt and he did. But how we got there didn't go exactly as we thought. And maybe it didn't even go exactly as we thought with the folks who were joining

me today. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to ad-free shows for the very first time, the very elusive, Mr. Nick Patrick. Mr. Patrick, how are you, man? I'm great, man. Thanks for having me. I am excited to be on with you. I can't believe I've somehow managed to meet almost everyone in wrestling,

but I don't think we've ever actually met in real life, so it's nice to meet you virtually here today. It's nice to meet you, too. And it's funny that this story that we're about to talk about is every podcast I ever do or any, anytime I go to an autograph signing or anything, there's always somebody that asked me a question about what happened there. what was that up all about? So this is a, you know, it's like probably the most infamous thing that I was involved in, actually. It's just crazy to think about how

this moment has just sort of grown and grown and grown as the years go on. And I heard his voice, but I don't, I don't see him here. This was supposed to be two folks here. You know, we're going to get two sides of the story. And of course, everybody who listens to our podcast has already heard me yell at Eric about screwing up, maybe the greatest storyline of all time over a tan and that's available in the archives at 83 weeks.com if you want to check that out but I don't see Eric here

so I'm not really sure if he's a no-show I don't that means it burns up dies and a dark shadow okay that's thing's theme song from the ashes of a once great

Man has really... I don't know what that's playing. That must be right. We look to the skies for an indicator. Someone to strike fear. Oh, my God. It's Sting! He's here.

No, he's back. No. Whatever it is. Yeah, he's stick. He's here. Oh, my gosh. Sorry, guys. I just had to...

I had to try to do something special for the occasion, but... You know, I'm traveling. I'm on the road. it's holidays, and I have limited capacity here in my makeshift studio, so it's the best I could do. How you doing, Nick? I'm doing great, man. Good to see you. Good to see you, you prick. Eric, I got to say right off top. I don't think you look tan enough to be champ. Just saying. You know, and that's funny because I had this whole idea what I heard we're going to do this. My daughter-in-law, Mary Jane, owns a tanning studio. I'm down in Tampa, Florida for the holidays.

studio for the holiday season and I was going to go over to her studio get like all tanned up and just like super gimmick it up but truth be known I got here barely in time for Christmas and it kind of shifted everybody's schedule so I wasn't able to have as much fun with this as I thought I would but in spirit I'm completely tan I I'm looking forward to this uh I had a great Christmas but this is the real present that just keeps on giffing, you defending Starcade 1997. We've heard from your side of the story, what happened on our podcast. What did I say? Well, I can't remember.

Listen, we can go to the tape if we need to, but let me instead quote your own book, because I don't think we did that. Oh, good. It was the first time. We went to Starcade, this December 1997 pay-review, knowing that we had a hit on our hands. We'd been building the Sting character for a year, leading to the inevitable confrontation with Hogan. The anticipation was intense.

It was a classic baby face versus heel confrontation from our own cutting edge spin, an edgy baby face, Sting, taking on a good guy gone vicious Hulk Hogan. But for the first time since the very early matches, Hogan and I disagreed over the outcome. The way he built it up, Sting should have been the clean winner. But Hogan was underwhelmed with Sting and balked. I didn't really see his point of view. I had a hard time reading between the lines with Hogan because he didn't come flat out and tell me what his issues were,

but I think Hogan was disappointed with Sting's preparation. Sting was clearly out of shape. He looked like he hadn't seen a gym or a tanning bed in six months. Up until that time, Sting could get away with that. He'd show up at the arenas and do his act wearing his black trench coat and his face paint, but he didn't actually wrestle. This is me reading between the lines here,

but I think Hogan figured, hey, wait a minute, we've built this guy up for six months, months, he hasn't even bothered to stay in halfway decent shape and looks like he's been living in a cave. In Hogan's mind, that was a letdown. Sting was a difficult guy to communicate with. He wasn't a hard person to do business with. Don't confuse those two. Sting was very honest and for the most part straightforward. But in dealing with Hogan, he kept his cards very close to the best. There was a lot of, call it, diplomacy. They kept feeling each other out. I don't think Sting really trusted Hogan. I think the lack of trust was somewhat well-founded.

there was some of it that wasn't, but a lot was. Sting had spent all of this time building up this character, and I think it was important to him that the payoff of a decisive and one-sided and in his favor, he wanted the win to have credibility, boasting the character as we went forward. Hogan, on the other hand, felt that Sting hadn't really committed or else he would have shown up in better shape.

Therefore, he wasn't that eager to have the match finish the way Sting wanted it to finish. So let's just time out right there, Eric. you know you sort of say we disagreed on the finish in your book Hogan and I disagreed over the outcome on our podcast it felt like you were both kind of on the same page did you arrive at that conclusion once you saw him in person or was this the plan all along

not not exactly clear on your question the way you phrased it but I think I know where you're going so let me wing it we had all talked about the finish for weeks, months, the idea that Singh would go over in spectacular fashion of this amazing event that we've been building up for a long time. You know, that was kind of a foregone conclusion, I think, going into it. It wasn't until the day of that there became an issue with the finish. So what I think I was trying to say in the book, if I didn't do so clearly, and maybe I won't now, is that

generally speaking, everybody knew what the finish was going to be going into the event. It wasn't until the day of that Hulk started having some issues and eventually so did I. I had to side with Hulk. Well, I can't help but bring up what Dave Meltzer said.

Have you seen what Meltzer said? No. Dave Meltzer today, because everybody's talking about this on the 25th anniversary, he quote tweeted someone who's discussing this match. And he said, Eric Bischoff called me up all excited, claiming he had a great idea for the match one month beforehand. Aside from Nick Patrick, not fast counting, which was the key for it to work, it went exactly like he told me, not a late decision. So Dave Meltzer implies two things.

One, this was the plan all along, a fast count, and this sort of involvement of Brett Hart in a way to introduce the character. But the thing I think that had me on the heels the most is just the first handful of words. Eric Bischoff called me up. Now, and that's what's weird. I think Dave, look, we've talked about this before, and I've fallen guilty to this myself. So I'm not pointing fingers necessarily, but I think Dave is, Dave has convinced himself that something that never really happened to actually happen.

and I think Dave actually believes it. I may have had, I don't know, a handful of conversations with Dave Meltzer over the course of the 30-some-on years. I was active into business. But if you listen to Dave, he was like my, you know, consensulary.

Like, I never did anything without talking to Dave first. It's just absolutely not true. Dave is delusional. Just absolutely delusional. and I don't that's weird it's weird how people are band it's like over time people that

keep telling the same stories over and over again they tell them every time they tell that story they gloss it up just a little bit they make it a little bit more interesting they put themselves over just a little bit more they make themselves a little more important in that story than they really were

and over 25 or 30 or 35 years as in Dave's case all of a sudden now I wasn't making a move without calling Dave Meltzer first. And it's just, it's sad, really. Whatever. It's, it's not true, though. So you would say, of course,

Hogan had creative control over the outcome of his matches, so I was caught in the middle. We came up with a finish that mimicked what had happened to Brett Hart in Montreal. Sting would lose or seemed to lose on a quick count by referee Nick Patrick. Brett Hart would rush in, shouting something along the lines of, I'm not going to let this happen again. He tossed the crooked ref from the ring aside.

and then set up Sting to flatten Hogan with a Scorpion deathlock. It wasn't the finished sting wanted because it wasn't clean, but it seemed like a decent compromise between two powerful pieces of talent. The ending did not go the way it was supposed to. Literally millions of fans saw a count that was anything but quick. Replays make it pretty clear that Sting was legitimately counted out, which meant that the one who was screwed was Hogan, not Sting, and it undercut everything we'd been building towards.

To this day, I'm not sure why Nick Patrick's count, didn't go the way we planned. It may have been one of those things that just happens in a live event. I don't think he had done it on purpose, as some people suggested, or else I would have fired him on the spot if I had. Quite frankly, the only thing I could do at that point was try to figure out a way to fix it the following day. And we focused on the controversy. We played a tape of the count on Nitro and claimed Hogan had won just to justify a rematch and to keep interest in the storyline. But it was immensely controversial, but a bad spin on whatever had been a wild wildly successful angle and pay-per-view.

Eric, in hindsight, if you had it to do over again, would you do the rematch the next night on Nitro or no? Well, when you say in hindsight, I mean, purpose is everything that I've learned. Yes. After the fact.

And no. I mean, I'm, no. To answer your question, no. And to follow it up, the reason is it just pisses the audience off. even more. They feel even more manipulated.

Right. It seems to make sense and it's like it's a compromise and it's a go-to. If you have to fix something, like if you really, really have to, but the audience hates it. They wanted finality

in a pay-per-view. They wanted the end of the story. And particularly in this story, because it was such a long, not only a long buildup, a long, beautiful, beautiful, well-crafted build-up. And it's a little bit like, what's the name of that series

that everybody got so pissed off about Dexter. It's like everybody loved the Dexter series, if you remember that. You may be too young. I don't know. Oh, yeah, I love Dexter. But everybody loved the Dexter series. It was so well done. It was so well-written, well-produced, well-directed, well-acted.

Everything was perfect about that series. except for the last episode. Yeah. And it sucked. And because it sucked, everybody judges the entire series on that last episode. And that was StarK-97. And had I gone, oh, but wait, there's more. Right.

Just tune in tomorrow and see. I think that would, it just pisses people off even more. When you're separating from the military, no one tells you how hard it can be to get your civilian life up to speed, but with VA benefits, it doesn't have to be. From the VA home loan requiring no down payment, to the GI Bill covering tuition, books, and cost of living, to VA health care offering top-ranked low-cost care designed specifically for veterans. All the support you need is at VA. I'm here telling every veteran because I wish someone had told me, get what you earned. Visit shoes.va.org. Not all veterans are eligible for the type or amount of benefits

mentioned here. With 4 imprint, finding the right promo products has never been easier. You can Get free samples, expert help, and art assistance to ensure your logo looks great. Four Imprint offers thousands of options to choose from, including summer ready gear, brand and apparel, drinkwear, outdoor, and more. Your order will be packed with care, delivered on time, and backed by their 360-degree guarantee. That's For Imprint Certainty. Need your order fast? For Inprint offers quick turnaround options, too. Visit 4imprint.com and see how easy ordering can be. For imprint, for certain. Brett Hart wrote in his book,

My debut at Sarkade 97 in December had been anything but brilliant. Eric told me my storyline was going to be about how I saved WCW by helping Sting win back the title from Hogan, which called for me to confront the referee after he made a fast count on Sting. In true WCW fashion, the referee forgot what he was supposed to do for real and made a normal count. And that didn't stop me from knocking him out cold and declaring myself the new referee. Sting resumed the match and beat Hogan seconds later. If I thought things were going to get better for me from there on in, I was sadly mistaken.

So listen, we've talked. Well, wow, wow, wow, fucking Brett Hart, you whiny bitch. So do you ever get, do you ever get tired of listening to Brett Hart whine? Other than your father-in-law, I'm sorry, I'm said I wasn't going to do it, not doing it. but do you ever get tired of listening to wept? I mean, it's all things about Brett Hart and his debut and what he hoped.

Oh, my God. Okay, so let's say, here's where I was getting with reading that. Two things. Number one, I think, and we all know, it's been well documented, especially on the heels of the Montreal screw job, Brett was in constant communication with Dave Meltzer.

If you don't remember calling Dave Meltzer and saying, hey, I think this is what I'm going to do for my biggest pay-per-view, which doesn't seem like something you would do. Why would you give away your finish to a quote-unquote dirt sheet guy? That doesn't seem like an Eric Bischoff move. I think Eric might actually, I think Dave might actually be mistaken. And he got that information from Brett that Brett called and said, hey, you won't believe this.

Here's how they want me to debut at the pay-per-view. Eric Bischoff called me with this big idea and blah, blah, blah. Do you think it's possible that perhaps it was Brett who called Dave? So, Conrad, are you? here on the app-free shows for however many people to see. I don't know. How many people are joining us here right now? I can't see.

I'm not sure, but it's a bunch. It's a bunch? Yes. So you bunch of people that are here joining us for this? Conrad just pointed out that Brett Hart was a stooge. He was a duchy stooge. That's well established. That's not news, I don't think.

No? Why do you still hear that? I love hearing you say it because it's true. Well, I mean, I guess the next piece of business here, is, you know, in hindsight, since, you know, we're talking a lot of hindsight today, was that, if you, if you had to do it over again, would you introduce Brett Hart the same way? You know, I think so. I try to take advantage of a situation. You know, it's always hard to say, kidding aside, as much as I hate whiny Brett. I like not whining Brett. Like Brett Hart, when he's not whining, I really like, but whiny Brett just, it just tires me out. But, you know, Now, as hard as it is, even for me, you know, in this conversation, to put myself back in that moment, coming off of that controversial of a finish, the screw job, and to bring Brett Hart in a control situation and reverse a dirty referee and do the right thing, which is the opposite of what happened to him at Montreal, as a premise for a story. or a basis of an angle,

I still think that's really strong, especially given the timing and the context of everything that was happening leading up to Brett showing up. It was not a bad idea. It was poorly executed for any number of reasons that I'm sure we're going to get into.

But the basic idea going in where you had a dirty referee who was siding with the NWO and was going to do the ultimate dirty deed, which is as a referee to screw one of the combatants and side with the MWO and have a guy like Brett Hart who had been on the receiving end

and the most notorious screw job in the history of professional wrestling actually do the right thing was not a bad way to get Brett over. It would have been a good way to establish Brett. In my opinion, others may feel differently. Of course, Brett wanted to come in.

He wanted to come in on a helicopter, come down and repel. Well, I mean, save the world, you know, put the fire out, be the white horse, the most of, just amazing baby face in the world. But given the circumstances and all the elements that we had to work with, you know, I'm going to get my ass kicked again

for another 25 fucking years over this, but I still think it was a good idea. It was a good premise. Okay, time out. By now, you know, Eric and I start our day every single day with AG1. We both wanted to look out for our health, and we wanted a supplement that actually tastes great. Well, with one delicious scoop of AG1, we're checking all the boxes.

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the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. Let me ask you this. know, do you think WWE this coming year, if it was possible, do you think they would use their main event spot of WrestleMania to tell a C.M. Punk AEW type storyline because it was so hot. Because I think Eric Bischoff that I know would say, that's pretty fucking stupid. And that's kind of what you did. No, no, no, it's not. No, you know, first of all, AEW is a pimple on a pig's ass.

Hang on, hang on, hang on. My point was number one doesn't talk about number two. It's 10 o'clock at night. I'm going to answer the question, dude. You ask me, would Eric, would, would, would, would, would, would, would, would, would, would, would, would, would, would, would, would, would, would, would, would, and you, and you, and you, and you and you, and you introduced him based on a story. storyline and an angle from a number two show. I just think number one doesn't talk about number two. No, number one,

number one became number one because he was talking about number two. Number one became number one when number one was number two, and number one was calling number, or number two was calling number one out and it started beating them. Big freaking difference. That's not even apples and oranges, it's apples and bricks. Totally disagree.

But that's what we like to argue about on Mondays. The reason we're here, the man at the center of all this controversy who hasn't told his story all that often is Mr. Nick Patrick. Nick, you've heard me read some different reviews here from some things that were written about what was supposed to happen one way or another, and we've never really gotten your take.

First of all, what did you think of the creative of introducing Brett Hart as a part of this? It really did dovetail your heel referee persona you had done with the NWO for the better part of a year. what did you think of that creative mr patrick hold on sorry guys he lost connect you need to click the microphone button to unmute it won't let me

bottom left hand corner there yep no got it we go we got them yep we got you man okay question again please just, you know, like, you know, you're at the center.

No wonder he couldn't get a great idea for Brett. Yeah. I thought it was fine for Brett. It really wasn't my place to think one way or the other because I knew that this was the biggest angle and I knew I was the heel ref, but I truly didn't believe that the culmination of what was going to happen was designed to put heat on Nick Patrick. Right. But as far as whether I think, you know, I think it would have been a good way.

for Brett to have been introduced had it went that way, but it didn't go that way. And I still think that, you know, we watch it back because I've only watched it a couple times. You know, it was such a stressful day for me. And once I got through it, I mean, and it's really, it's amazing that it's been 25 years since it happened. And this is the first time that we've ever talked about. Nobody came to me that night after the match in the locker room at the TV the next day. You know, it was just, we just moved on from it, you know. And, uh, but I did what I was supposed to do out of the deal.

You know, I don't know what was told in the production meeting, what people were expecting. And, you know, I was getting pulled, I was getting pulled from, from two different sides. But in retrospect, if you look at. What I actually did, I did exactly what I was told to do. So, Nick, let me ask you, and I know this is Conrad's job, but let me ask you, because you and I, this is the first time you and I have ever talked about this. I never. I know what I thought was supposed to happen.

You know, when I left the room with seeing in Hulk, I walked out of the meeting, having an assumption of what was going to happen. Mm-hmm. Who was pulled? You said you were being pulled in two different directions. Who was pulling you? Well, when I first got there, you talked to me initially and told me what the finish was. What did I tell you?

Because I don't remember. You told me it was just a, and you told me to straight count it, too. You didn't tell me to fast count. You told me to give it a straight, a regular count. And then Hogan come up to me later on in the day and told me he said, when it comes to that count, nice and slow, regular count. I'm like, okay. So I wanted to try and check with you to make sure, you know, but I couldn't find you.

And then later on, after I talked to Holt, Sting come up to me and said, okay, about that count, that rapid fire that thing. And now I'm like, whoa, you know, I've got Hogan on one end telling me one thing. And you told me, so either I do this, and if I don't do this, then I could be fired. I listened to Sting, Sting, and Licks and those guys. And you know they had somebody that they had an ear and CNN. They had a voice. If they were just, they weren't happy about things, they had somebody that they could go to. Well, let me dig into that a little bit.

So I told you early in the day. And I'm not questioning it. I'm just trying to keep this shit straight because it's been a minute. So I told you just running a straight count. finish. Hogan told you regular count, but kind of slow. Yeah. And Singh tells you fast count. Rapid fire, yeah. All right. Now, what was you concerned about Sting and Lex and CNN? Well, I figured I was going to piss one group off or the other, and either group could have got me fired was what I was getting at, you know? I felt like I was kind of being set up as

the scapegoat for if things really did go down the toilet, that they, well, let's just blame Nick Patrick. We'd fire his ass and move right straight on, you know, and problem solved. That's kind of, that's how I felt, you know, it's the position I felt like. No, and that's a tough spot to be, just for the record, Sting and Lex, and nobody had any, nobody had any influence over Turner, especially Sting in Lex at that point. Nothing against them. I love both. Yeah. A lot. actually, but if that makes you feel any better, we're at any risk. Yeah.

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Need your order fast? Four Imprint offers quick turnaround options too. Visit 4imprint.com and see how easy ordering can be. For imprint, for certain. Eric, you've said in the past, when it came to a match of this high profile with personalities as big as this high profile, I would have made sure the referee was in the room when the finish was being laid out,

okay? It's not like on the way out to the ring the talent would get together and say, this is what we're going to do. The referee should engage or should have been engaged laying out the finish of the match as much as the two principles in the ring. That's the way it's supposed to be. If Nick would have come up to me at some point during the day, if I'd been told,

here's what we're going to do. I would have communicated that to Nick and said, get your ass in the room, get with the guys, and make sure you understand what they're going to do so you know, so you're not hearing it for me second-handed. That could have happened, and that would have changed throughout the course of the day,

as it often does, even to this day. I guess the question is, it doesn't sound like that ever happened. Nick, do you remember there being, an all-hands-on-deck meeting with... No, I didn't... No, that's not really how Hulk did his thing.

He had his own locker room and, you know, guys that worked with him would go in there and, you know, it was like a private thing and it'd let you know, after they worked everything out, they'd tell you what they wanted you to do. It wasn't like whenever Hulk had a match that they...

It's not like it was in WWE. I will say to next defense and to support him and that, that really, the way, this finish was laid out, the way the creator was put together for this event and this is on me, this is my fault, it was so sloppy

you know, and it did it did involve a little, you know, for me fuck, how am I going to say this? It's not making me sound like a complete idiot. You know, for me, I had, for me, it was like with Hulk, you never knew what you were going to get until that day, right?

And even that day, he could get to the building and he'd be in one mood. And three or four hours later, he'd be in a different frame of mind. So he had to kind of manage that, anticipate that, and work with that. Sting was a lot like that, too. Now, Sting was really super easygoing. I mean, and to this day, he's a very quiet, you know, very professional. He listens.

Sting listens way more than he talks and he analyzes super analytical. And I'm kind of stuck in the middle, initially, early in the day. So you get these two guys together and, you know, you know you're going to get together

at the launch and start talking about the finish. The talent kind of wants to put it off because they don't really want to get into the finish. You know, it's the lesson they're really want to have to do is figure that out before they go out and do it. So they progressed, at least in this case, with Sting and Hogan they did. And when it finally came down to getting Sting and Hogan in the room, and I was, you know, a part of that, they were both like trying to read each other. You know, Hogan, Hogan was analyzing Sting. Sting was

analyzing Hulk. And I really believe this. I've never talked to Sting about this. And I got to be pretty good friends with Sting, you know, before all of this. I knew him pretty well. And I think Sting expected to be swerved. I think Sting expected. This is, I'm guessing, just guessing. But I think Sting anticipated having the rug pulled up from underneath them. And because he anticipated it, He showed that. Sting came to that first meeting very tentative and very skeptical. And Hogan came to that meeting skeptical of Sting. Just wasn't sure.

Sting was really into it. And I know we're going to have fun with the whole Tamp thing, and we're going to just look that ride. I'm going to go to my grave with that one for a lot of reasons. But you had two guys at the very top of the game that were, working on a storyline for a little over 12 months. It might have been 16 months, 18 months. And neither one of them fully trusted the other's intentions.

Right. And when you get two people at that level, and they're feeling each other out, and I'm in the middle of that, trying to basically negotiate, you know, all intents and purposes, because Hulk did have creative control. It was true. He had never exercised.

it up to that point. He'd never, you know, beat, you know, beat his chest and threatened and postured or anything like that with it. It never came up. It was never an issue. And going into this, you know, when I left for, for where it was, I think it was Washington, D.C., wasn't it? Is that where this was? Yes. Yes. Yeah. When I left for D.C., I didn't think there would be a problem because we talked about it for so long. But, man, when I got there, staying in Hogan, we're both kind of like fairly defensive. And looking back, the mistake I made is I didn't have Nick in the room in the very beginning.

Nick should have been in that room from the very beginning of those discussions. And I should not have let the talent tell the referee what was going to happen shortly before a match. That was a mistake on my part. put Nick in a horrible spot. I put myself in a horrible spot. I didn't know I was putting myself in that spot, but I did because I didn't take enough control.

But yeah, I can see, I understand how it happened. I really do. And Nick was in a tough spot. He really was. Sting wrote in his book, or actually said in his documentary, I don't really know what happened that day. I'm not sure to this day.

There were nerves that day. A lot of politics going on that day, too. So that made it even worse. Literally, as all of this is going on, there's still some level of confusion in the back as to what we're going to do, how we're going to end this match. We went into it believing one thing and then suddenly there was trouble. So Eric,

just circling back to what Nick said earlier, you know, originally you said, Hey, do a regular count? Do you think you and Hogan had already gotten together and made that pivot? Because it does sound like you sort of had the fast count in mind. Did you change it once you saw what you really had? No, and that's what's weird. And when I say weird, I mean, it's just so hard to put the

pieces and something, you know, that happened 25, 30 years ago back together and make sense of it because we're all dealing with things from our own individual perspectives. For me, when I got to the, when I left Atlanta to go to Washington, D.C., Sting was going to go where we're holding clean. It's what we've been talking about for a year. It was not like, we weren't sure. It wasn't like we hadn't had that conversation before. It was a foregone conclusion. It wasn't until after that first meeting with Sting and Halk,

where, did I just describe, where Sting was reserved, almost not engaged, like showed up in the room, and I'm not saying he said this, or gave, it gave me this impression. It's like, well, now looking back at it, but it was like, okay, tell me how you're going to screw me.

He came there expecting, in my opinion, to have the rug pulled out from underneath them. And because he showed that, again, my opinion, my impression doesn't mean I'm right. But because Sting showed up so defensive, expecting to have the rug pulled out from underneath them. That was the way he carried himself. Hulk read that completely differently.

Hulk, and I can't speak for Hulk, and I can't tell you how he read that, but he was concerned. He didn't think that Sting's Head was in the game, and that was the issue. And it goes to the whole tan. You know, I use that as an example. Conrad, you can, you know, you can beat my,

ask with that all you want, but it's fine because it's fun, and I laugh every time I hear it. But that was like one small example of just not being prepared. And I think when Sting showed up in that being cynical, defensive, expecting to be screwed, Hulk read that a certain way, and it was like, man, you're just not, you didn't show up for the game, Sting This again, from Hulk's perspective he didn't think

Sting showed up for the game and wasn't mentally prepared that was the issue the TAM thing was a metaphor really

Hulk didn't think that Sting's head was in the game and I saw it I recognized it but I read it differently

because I knew Sting a little differently that's just was always Sting. You had to really convince Sting. When I convinced, when I convinced, when I convinced surfers sting to become heel sting before I knew Hulk Hogan was going to be the third man, he looked at me the same way. It's like, man, what are you trying to do to my career?

I mean, the first, I don't know, a couple hours of that conversation was like I felt like I was pulling teeth until he got into it. And then he, then he bought in. It was like, wow, this is fun now. But that's the same thing that I saw between Hogan and Sting that night that afternoon in Washington, D.C. is like Sting came into the room, expecting to get screwed.

Hulk looked at this guy who was defensive and expected to get screwed and thought, his head's not in the game, and that's where everything broke down. And I really wish Nick would have been in the room to help manage that. And at least see the process because how horrible will it be for a,

referee, you know, to get the finish 20 minutes before you go out for a match, especially one like that. That has to, like, really, really, really suck. Yeah. Under normal circumstances, I could, I can handle a normal, you know, you can, a regular match, yeah, but one of that magnitude, no, it's, you need, it's a thought process. But even though, even though the finish was really basically simple, you know, it wasn't a complicated, you know, a lot of twists and turns like you would, Like you would think you would get out of a, out of a, well, a nowadays title match as each other with their finish five times, you know, that wasn't their gimmick, you know.

And it was just kind of, it was kind of disappointing because it was such an awesome buildup. And it could have been such an epic man. It wasn't never going to be a flare steamboat or a or a steamboat macho man. But it was going to, it could have been its own thing because, you know, Hogan had it was an excellent. the psychology guy. And like Eric said, of Sting would have been in the game. It could have been one of the more epic matches

in the history of the business, with the buildup and with the characters involved and the psychology, you know, it could have been. And I think that, unfortunately, we're talking about it 25 years later,

for the wrong hem reasons, you know, because, you know, it should have been something that people compare to, to like, macho and steamboat you know one of those type of matches

let me ask you Nick after all these years because I never actually to be really honest about once it went down and it was the mess that it was

I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about how did this become such a mess you know I wasn't looking for someone to blame I was looking for a way to fix it like I was immediately thinking about okay how do we make this right and I never went back to thinking about how did this happen

but in your mind because I went in when that match went out when they went through the entrances I was expecting a fast count yeah I think Sting was expecting a fast count.

That's my guess. Was it Hogan to make sure that did Hogan tell you not to fast count? Yes, definitely. And when I first got there to the building, you also told me to do a regular count. That's why I figured you and Hogan was on the same page,

because he actually said slow. You didn't say slow. You said it on a normal count, a regular finish. And so that's what I did. Because I had guys pulling out, well, hell. And if I just do a regular finish, that's what I was told to do in the first place, you know. And like I said, I felt like I was being set up to be a scapegoat in case wouldn't win at all.

If it went it went totally south, you know, I would have been the easy one to blame, you know. But I don't know how it could have really been fixed because things were the way they were. I guess people, you know. Yeah, there was no fix. I mean, it's unfortunate. No, looking back, I really would. wish, you know, I wish Stey and Hulk would have talked, you know, before we got to the building. They should have been talking a couple weeks before. They should have been talking

about the finish a month or two before and really getting their heads together coming up with something that they were both excited about. But it didn't happen, you know, and I think so often, whether it's personal relationships or business relationships or whatever, communication, man. The communication just absolutely fell apart. It fell apart on my end. You know, I didn't take enough control over it. You got stuck in the middle of it. Hulk had his idea of what he wanted. Sting had his idea of what he wanted. And we probably all had a similar version to begin with, but it changed throughout the day. And we didn't have you in the room. And I wasn't in the room and didn't force that communication. So everybody

completely understood what that finish. was going to be, that's what didn't happen. I wish it would have, because it would have been, you know, it would have been a phenomenal ending to a phenomenal story. And I wouldn't be sitting here a couple days after Christmas trying to defend myself. Man, am I pumped about spring finally being here. The grass is starting to turn. When I come up the hill to my house, I see all the trees are changing colors.

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and check out. That's just 20% off your custom plan when you get sunday.com slash 83 weeks. That's get sunday.com slash 83 weeks. Let's take a look at what actually happened. Mr. Patrick mentioned that he's only seen this a couple of times. So it's not a terribly long match. Let's let's roll that beautiful bean footage. Here we are, the main event, Starcade 1997. Eric, do you remember how this was shot? You know, obviously, so much of it was done at the most. A lot of the stuff, like we're singing in a rafter that were shot separately.

And we just used a lot of that random footage for this show for this promo. But this is obviously, you know, highly, highly for new. This is a, this is something that was. done you know at the arena the day of typical you had to guess would Neil Pruitt have been involved in that yes they did a lot of your W.O. stuff yeah yeah it this would have been done outside so there would have been some freelancers involved in this but it would have partly been either Neil or Craig Leather's overseeing the chairman of W.

I think we can just get to the match. He's got an interest in who with any of the math. You do this. Watch the body laying with the guys that the fact. They pray to confirm everything that Eric is talking about. It was just apprehensive with each other. Instead of two guys working together to create the awesome form of art. that was kind of like two guys that were guarded against each other.

You know, it's almost like, and look, I love Steve Borden. I really do. I keep saying that because I want to make sure, you know, when I do things like this, people take little bits and clips of things that I say and it ends up in the headline, and it's not, there's no context to it. I loved working with Steve Borden.

I really did. And I loved working with Hulk as well, two different people yeah the one thing I will say about Sting is he expected the worst you know he expected to get screwed he expected to be disappointed he expected not to get the

opportunity that he really was hoping for and you got to be careful when you come when you bring that attitude to your performance because it gets misinterpreted and I think part part of the responsibility a lot of it relies on Hulk

A lot of it lies on me. I mean, it was me. I was in charge. So ultimately, it's on me. I was the one that didn't make sure that everybody was communicating. I was the one that didn't make sure we had a clear, concise finish. That's on me. But Hulk brought his own baggage to this problem, and so did Sting.

Sting, Stings... cynicism or I don't know it wasn't cynicism it was like almost like he was expecting to get screwed he he brought a little bit of that to the table and when he did it gets interpreted differently you know I don't I don't know how to explain that he went from being the top guy in WCW to no matter what he was number two behind Hogan I mean Hogan was box office. Hogan helped turn WCW round, and he probably felt like, you know,

to use a little book phrase, someone had moved his cheese. This is fun to go back and watch. First of all, Mr. Patrick, can we just agree you had the greatest mullet in the history of referees? I mean,

that's glorious. Look at that. Yeah, it was a blast once I got over all the, all the drama, you know, and just got it, when you're in the ring working,

you're focused on what's going on in the ring and you kind of forget about all the crap. You know, that's what I love about the business. you can be having the worst, you can lose a family member or something, you know, and that's happened to me before. I lost a family member. I was out on the road, and I couldn't get a flight at times.

I worked, you know, but that time that you're in the ring, and you focus your attention on everything that you're doing in the ring, and then everything else just kind of gets left behind, you know, and I don't think that we got that kind of magic out of this, and damn, it's a shame. Eric just the way the match is put together you know I mean even going down to Sting's entrance which after we watch the match there's some controversy that we'll go back and rewatch but

Sting didn't come down from the ceiling or from the rafters he just came from in the back in hindsight if you had that to do over again would you I mean that was such a spectacular part of so many shows and now he's just one of the guys that felt off to me thanks for pointing that out.

Okay, good. That's all to be one of those types of that thing. No, you're absolutely right. And that's one of the things. You go back and you watch these things like, oh, my God, I can't believe I do. That entrance is what made this character.

Things spending 18 months for whatever it was in a rafters pointing a bat with a fucking bird on his shoulder. That's what made this. And what made it so spectacular. And they have him come out, like everybody else, you know, at the end of the night, after, you know, 15 or 20 other guys have come out through that same entrance.

So he's just like 15 or 20 other people. No, man, it's such a good point, Conrad. And I tried to make light of it. But, you know, in hindsight, that was a dumbass move. Not to, because that, that entrance could have been everything, you know. You read something they did kind of get past it. They did get in and start going pretty good. You know, right now the match seems to be flowing pretty well.

It wasn't, to me, it wasn't a stinker from start to finish. There was a lot of apprehension in the beginning, but they both seemed to put the story together. But then when it come time to tell the finish, we had to get right back to that apprehension thing again, you know. But the body of the match itself, you know, to me, it was still pretty decent, you know. It's not like a lot of people.

And it's like Eric said, it's because the last thing you see is what they, what the opinion of the whole thing is, you know, so that, well, you know, with the last part of it being, uh, being not, not good, uh, it's not good. Yeah, he says, it's not good. It's not good. You can say it. It sucked. It's okay. Okay. It's sucked. The bad. The other thing I've always thought was fun is to think about just the way the match starts. I mean, I like the Michael Buffer piece. I feel like that adds a big fight feel to it. I like bringing them to the center and giving referees instructions in the center. It feels, again, like a big fight feel. But we've seen Sting almost so desperate to get his hands on Hulk Hogan that it does feel

like it could have been with a different entrance. Man, we just get straight into the action. But, you know, Maybe this is the type of match that Hogan wanted to do what Hogan wanted to do. I mean, my understanding, and Mr. Patrick, you probably put together more Hulk Hogan shows than any of us could ever imagine. He was a guy who really liked to play off of the crowd. It wasn't like you hear more commonly these days where people sort of lay out,

all right, you'll do this and then I'll do that. He's very much, quote unquote, calling it in the ring. Is that fair to say? Yeah, you had a structure. You knew what you wanted to do. You know, he had a good framework, but you fill in the blanks with calling it out there. But, you know, like I said, there's a structure, but things are left, you know, you can wing it. It's not like nowadays where they talk about everything.

Okay, then my music starts, and I step to the curtain. And then, you know, I was like, man, I don't need to know all that. But this is a, I like working that way because you get to fuel. people what they're doing when you when you lock into a game plan you're locked into that game plan if that game plan isn't working then you're kind of screwed you know at least hope had the psychology and to know how to feel the people and then and find what they were you know what they're buying and uh so nick what was the last time you left the match uh oh i got let go from W.W.E. in 2009, but I'd had back surgery. So it was probably late 07.

So do you think, like if right now somebody called you up and said, hey, Nick, I want you to referee a match and you had to lay out a finish for two guys who'd be a part of the laying out and finish. You think you could do it today? Like listening to, because of the way they lay out matches today versus the way they used to lay them out, you think you could do it today? I think I could I don't know if I could ref it or not physically I wouldn't be able to follow it

because I've got bad knees and a bad back and a bad neck and a bad attitude but I wouldn't be able to follow it like I used to could but as far as helping them put it together I definitely could

but it takes me to line up a good match with guys you have to be familiar with them and know what they do you know I wouldn't want them to go out do a Nick Patrick match. You know, I like to hear what they do and get all their stuff in, you know, but help them structure it in a way to where it tells a story. It never ceases to amaze me.

Even to this day, I'll go an independent show and I'll go back in a locker room and, you know, I'll be standing around just listening and watching like a fly on the wall. And I'm listening to these young guys laying a match out. And I'm going, I don't know how in the hell you possibly remember what you're talking about. I don't know how you're going to go out and do what you think you're going to go out and do. But they do. They remember that.

I mean, the detail to which they lay out matches today is mind-boggling. Yeah, it's crazy. But, you know, the bad thing about that is 90% of them, they think they had a great match because they didn't forget any of the spots, but all the in-between stuff gets left out. You can see them, the wheels turning in their head, thinking about what they're doing next instead of selling and facial expression and body language.

I mean, a lot of that gets missed out on when you just when you line up every single thing from start to finish. I think you just said something really, really important, Nick, is some, not all, not all, some, too many, too many talents today go out. And as long as they remember everything, they think they had a great match. That's, that says it out there, brother. I'll tell you what, this referee here, he's definitely on Hogan's side. He just hit Sting with a bat and there was no DQ. I mean, what the hell? It's like there was a crooked referee here.

I didn't see that. I was caught up in my own wisdom and see that. When you're separating from the military, no one tells you how hard it can be to get your civilian life up to speed. But with VA benefits, it doesn't have to be. From the VA home loan requiring no down payment to the GI Bill covering tuition, books, and cost of living, to VA health care offering top-ranked low-cost care designed specifically for veterans. All the support you need is at VA. I'm here telling every veteran

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Hey, we've got a few people here who want to ask a few questions. We'll do some of those as we get towards the finish here. Sam is on with us and has a question. Sam, thanks for joining us tonight here on ad-free shows. What's your question for Mr. Bischoff or Mr. Patrick? Godred, what's up, my man? This is actually the first time I meet you virtually. props to what you've built. I love all your podcasts. Amazing stuff. But you're here to put

Nick and I over, not Conrad. That's true, that's true. But I got to tell Conrad just, I got to give him his props, respect. I love what you built. I'm a big fan. And I hope to meet you in person soon. Looking forward to.

My man. This question, Eric, what's up, man? I met you a few weeks ago at another one of these ad-free show. top guy exclusives and you guys I hope you guys like to plug but this question is for

my man Nick Patrick Nick a big fan of you as being a heel referee I thought you know as a kid I used to hate you just to get so mad just look I like man I hate this guy this guy's gonna cheat and

just looking back the whole character the whole gimmick behind it was awesome thank you hopefully if if it ever gets duplicated again. I hope it's in similar fashion because you really left the mark. I mean

25 years later, we're still talking about it. Well, I appreciate it, man. No, for sure, man. My question to you is this. Whose idea was it for you to, you know, be a bad guy referee? Was Eric behind it? And did you

just, was it just one of those things like, hey, let's try this out, see where we go with it? Was there a plan? I mean, just the whole idea behind it was awesome, that the NWO had their own bad guy referee. I'm pretty sure it was Kevin Sullivan's idea, and then he came to Eric, and they grew it together.

But if I'm not mistaken, the initial idea came from Kevin Sullivan, I believe. Yeah, I agree with that. Hey, let's take a listen here. We've got some audio we probably want to listen to after the big boot. I think the leg dropped. Sting down. Big leg drop.

One, two! Red Heart has come out and taken. Red Heart is there. The heart's at ringside. It's never happened again, and it's not going to happen again. What? You're talking about it. That was a great thing.

That was three. What do you think? I'll tell you what? Nick Patrick made the three count, and Brett Hart certainly doesn't seem to agree. No, he doesn't. He's got it. Well, Brett Hart is here tonight.

As a referee, is that right? Is that correct? He's a referee, signed as an official. Yes, right here, you got it. He's signaling for a restart. Ring the bell. Yeah. Into the corner.

Starris lost. That didn't miss. Hooked him up right there, guys. much Hogan doesn't let him throw in the corner because he knows the heels are coming now he's ready now he's ready

they're clear the ring now red heart again singer splash out to the top can he put it on him can he put it on it guys here comes sting it's going to bring back

The Scorpion Deathlock Pointing at Brent Hart Trying to get him over Can he get him turned? There it is. Shut down on him. Redhart down. Hart's waiting for him.

The winner and new heavyweight champion of the world. Steve. The crowd and duel for WC. You can feel the audio. Eric, you watch that back for the first time in a long time. What did you think?

And it dug it. I mean, listen, it's not, I mean, look at the crowd. The crowd says everything. It doesn't matter what I think. Look at the crowd. What do they think? Yeah. The reaction is definitely positive.

I do think there was some confusion at first. I think that was pretty obvious, you know, when Hogan got the three count, I don't think anybody really knew how to react to that. But Sting was clearly super excited. I mean, that first Stinger splash on Hogan, he almost went all the way out of the ring. He got so high for it. And if you go back and you take a look at that, when he tries the, the Irish whip into the corner for the second one, uh, Hogan stops him and holds the rope.

Like, nope, not yet because he could see that Scott Norton and both Bagwell were coming in and they needed to get the jump on Sting. And then he sort of fishes his hand back to Sting like, okay, take me now. I'm ready for the second one. Hogan's a consummate professional here. He's going to get a lot of criticism. And I think there's probably a fair amount of that to go around.

But still, in the end, when people are critical of this, myself included, sometimes we gloss over the fact that, hey, Sting won and WCW storm the ring. And he left with the big gold belt. So all's well that ends well, I guess. The other thing that everybody had a question about is Sting on camera. One of the first things he says in a while is Mamasita right there. What in the world was that about, Eric? Any idea?

No. Sting probably doesn't either. No, if you asked Singh, he would probably do exactly what I did, which is like, no, no idea. Josh, dragged the video of the match back. to the entrances. I just want to watch the interests with no sound because there's a moment that's going to happen here that has been discussed for a long, long time. I'll stop when we get there. But before we do, I think our man James has a question for us. James, long time top guy, thanks for jumping on with us today. Do you have a question for Mr. Bischoff or Mr. Patrick?

Oh, I actually do. Hey, can everybody hear me? Good to see you guys. Hey, thank you for doing this, Conrad. Obviously, a pleasure. Mr. Bischoff, I'll see you one next month. in Atlanta and actually in Melbourne, Florida. So I would digress and just respectfully ask the question to Mr. Patrick. Mr. Patrick, thank you for joining us at every shows. I just want to know, were you aware at the time, like, obviously, this is a big storyline. So were you aware at the time when you made that three count that this would have such a lasting effect, or were you on the, you know, hey, next time, you know, we do Monday Night Show next.

We do Thunder, you know, blah, blah, you get caught in the cycle. but I guess upon looking back, reflection, were you aware that this will be that big of a deal, especially at the time and then moving forward? And I guess, Eric, you can answer that one too, you know? Were you aware at the time and then aware, like, a week or so after that this would be such a big deal, you know? We, Nick, you go first because I was...

I think we lost Nick again. Hold on it. I'll go ahead. No, you know, there's been a couple of things that I've been involved with that I had no idea, you know, when we were doing it, that would end up being as, you know, iconic, I guess, in some cases for the wrong way, but it is memorable for whatever reason as they were. And this was one of them, you know, to me, this, I mean, look, it was a big build, it was a great build. I still think it was one of the best storylines that's been told in the last 20 or 30 years

to be honest. In terms of story structure and all that, it just it built and built and built and it grew the audience and it just did everything a good storyline is supposed to do but it had a shitty finish. Gosh, it pause.

If you can. I didn't mean to cut you off there, Eric. I just wanted to make sure we had this moment ready. whenever Mr. Patrick returned. Sure, sure. But no, to answer your question, really, you don't realize it. You know, when you're in the middle of it, you don't realize anything. It's not until, you know, days, weeks, months.

And in some cases, decades later, they go, wow, I had no idea. That was going to be that big a deal. It is a big deal that we've got you here today. We got Michael Gallagher with us. Michael, thanks for jumping on, ad-free shows.com. Do you have a question for Mr. Bischoff about the biggest WCW match in history. Sorry, guys.

I was getting bedtime ready for my little guys. How's all doing? Good, man. Good. Hey, Mr. Bishop, how's it going today? Outstanding. Good. Mr. Patrick, I just had a quick question for you.

I've always wanted to know. Dern sold out. How tired would you the entire night? Yeah, I was blown up at the end of the night. guarantee. It was more remembering a lot of things. And back in the day when I was young, the reps did all the matches all the time, you know, so it, but the pay-per-views are, they're tough.

And I put my work in on that one for damn sure. That was at the end of the night. I slept good that night. There was much something that was running through my head because you have to, you know, when you hear what the guy's doing, you know the finishes, but then each guy gets you sidding and they want to tell you all these spots. And it's like, man, I had a whole pay-per-view full of

finishes in high spots and everything, you're running through my head. So it took me a while to unwind afterwards, but yeah, I put my work in on that night. That's great. Another really quick question, I apologize, because I know you grew up in the wrestling business. You know, when we started doing the watchalongs from this year, Eric really commended your promo skills when you were doing the Randy Anderson stuff. When you were younger, obviously your dad, did you want to be a wrestler? Like, how did you get into the referee versus being, going that way?

Well, my first gig I ever did in the wrestling business, I was in the fifth grade, and Papa take me to the matches with him in the summertime when I wasn't going to school. And I went down to South Georgia, and they needed a ring announcer. I was in the fifth grade that threw me in the tam ring to some little play. And I didn't have a microphone or a megaphone or anything. I was standing in the middle of the ring going, and in this corner, whang! And I was one of those kids.

that I didn't like talking in front of people. Like, you know, when you have to read at school and everybody was going to have to read, I was like, oh, God. You know, I'd be like hiding behind somebody because I didn't want to get picked, you know. But going out and doing that, it kind of got me over that, over that fear. I mean, it was kind of like getting thrown in the pool. You swim or you sink, you know. But let me ask you on top of that question.

I mean, you were really, really good. I mean, your promos were really good. Did you come naturally for you? Did you work on them? Did you think about it a lot? I mean, how'd you prep? I just, well, I would get the points that I would get with you guys, you'd tell me what points you wanted me to get across.

And I would just sit and think about how I wanted the story I wanted to tell to get those points across and try to stay in the character that I was in. And I'm glad that y'all let me do those promos that way because that's the way I always did promos and I was comfortable doing it that way. If I'd have had to go on and done it like they do it now where they had you a three-page script and you practice it in front of people for hours old,

I wouldn't have been able to do it, you know? But you guys just kind of gave me some lead way to go out and just be me. And that's how I did it. And I got, I talked in front of, people because when my dad and I first started the old deep south I did everything because I was when we started it I was out I wasn't wrestling or riffing because I had a bad knee I had knee surgery at the time so I did a little bit everything man I did ring announcing and I did

commentary and I promoted towns and I did all all kind of crap but the commentary is where I got more comfortable with talking and you know telling a story and kind of keeping it rolling you know without just going from point A to point B you know that that helped me. me out a lot doing that you did a great job your problem was for some of the best man well thank you man let's uh let's roll the footage here josh mr patrick i want you to pay special attention to this part because during the entrance it's been said by a lot of fans and we've been got this question in the chat that during the entrance he's coming over and talking to you and you would see multiple times where he approaches you and says something of course fans expect

you to remember exactly what he said 25 years later i can't can't imagine that you would. But here's a conversation right here. Any chance you guys are talking about the count or no? No, not at that point. At that point, he was just in character. And I don't have no clue what he was saying. If it would have been, if it would have been that important, I'd remember that.

But a lot of times, guys are just talking, you know, just being in character. That's basically all that was. So he wouldn't, we weren't discussing anything at that point. Josh, if you can, fast forward to the. the fake count and in the meantime we'll go ahead and take another question i know that we got phil's iPhone on with us uh josh whenever you get to that fake count if you can just go ahead and pause but phil's iPhone you're with us today you got a question for mr bischoff or oh hey everyone how are you guys today we're great man oh man uh actually i just rewatch this

actually uh this afternoon uh the whole paper view so um wasn't so much a question i just want to say yeah, you know, this this is one of my actually favorite favorite paper use, even with the, you know, fast count and everything. I just want to say thank you guys. I mean, not much of a question, but just, just say,

thank you, man, man, this brought me back, and and it's still one of my favorite paper you was, I mean, as a young lad, I couldn't even know if there was a fast count. So I just want to say, thank you guys, and appreciate everything. So thank you for coming on. Our friend Cody Rhodes text me about this

match earlier this week here. It said, I don't understand why you didn't like this match. This was a great match. You know, Cody's a few years younger than me. And listen, I thought all as well that ends well. You know, he, Sting left the champ. But Cody this day thinks it's much to do about nothing. Let's take a look at something that has been discussed a little bit today on the 25th anniversary. Josh, let's play the footage here of the leg drop. Then we're going to see the cover and a lot of folks question why doesn't sting try to kick out was that ever discussed as far as you know nick no it never was discussed with me i know that was going to be the count that was going to be the finish it was just whether or not i was going to count it

slow or i was going to count it fast i guess they both were kind of sitting there waiting to see what was going to happen but uh you know i just went with regular count that's what i was told to do it's what I did. You can see by the reaction of the people, too. You know, I think the only people that was really disappointed in it are the ones that thought for some reason that I was going to do, going to do the fast counter. I thought they had some inside scoop, you know, because if you just looked at it objectively and like Eric says, you look at the people, you know, I felt, I felt awkward because

of all the drama going into it, you know, it wasn't like I was performing. and it's smooth. I was just, you know, I was like, oh, God, you know, here comes the finish. Now, you know, so it wasn't like one that you could just enjoy and go with the flow. You know, as a ref, I used to love to do that. You just would get with the characters and you're your own character. You're, you know, as a rep, you're there when they need you and you're not there. You're supposed to, you know, if you're a heel rep, that's a different thing. But when you're just being a regular ref, you're only there when they need you. supposed to be, you know, you're supposed to be not recognized otherwise.

But like I said, look at the people, you know, the people who tell the tale. And I did a regular count. And I think the only people that really were disappointed are people that thought or thought they had some inside scoop and was expecting there to be a fast count. And they were the ones that were like, what? You know, because it was a normal count. And the reaction that we're paused on right now feels a lot like when the Undertaker streak ended at WrestleMania.

I was lucky enough to be in that building and we all just sort of looked around like, hey, a mistake happened, you know, that wasn't supposed to happen. We all just knew before the match ever happened, well, the Undertaker's going to win. He always wins and he didn't. It was sort of the same thing here. I think everyone was ready. You see a handful of fans excited. You know, they're clearly into the NWO thing and don't want this gravy train to end anytime soon,

but there is a look of confusion. And, you know, Eric, you've sort of set the stage today to say that maybe sting came in a little paranoid and you didn't really understand that but in hindsight if he thinks it's a fast count and it's a slow count you do kind of neuter his character here he was it was well founded to be suspicious or find some of this suspect right well never know will we this is one of those I mean this is so weird to go back and watch this because you know just watch. And again, like Nick said, you know, you watch the crowd. The audience kind of got with the program. It ended well, seeing one, but there's just a little bit of controversy in the

middle here. Was it a fast count? Was it not a fast count? Should it ended there? Should it not end there? And in a weird way, that's what we were going for, right? That's why I bought, you know, I wanted Brett in this to play off of what just happened in Montreal. I want to I wanted to kind of build off that controversy. I just think it got too confusing. And the count, the pace of the count, only adds to that mystery. Well, we do have some words from Sting. And I think Josh has some footage where we can actually hear what Sting had to say about this way back when at StarCamp.

Let's go into the finish in great detail. We want to know exactly. Yes. Because, man, unbelievable. You of all people, Tony. Well, hell, I was the one I had to say, was that a fast count? That was a fast count. I thought it was going to be a fast count.

What the fuck's going on? We had a plan. I did. We had a plan. It was a year-long plan, and it was in motion, and that day, suddenly it wasn't in motion like it was any. like it was anymore. So lots of changes, lots of behind-the-doors meetings happening. And I think because of that, number one, I don't believe that our match actually followed the big build-up.

No, you're right. It did not follow. But I think it was due to all the chaos that happened, you know, the hours that, you know, of that day that led up to the match. And not knowing for sure what we were going to do and how we were going to do it, literally, until we walked through the curtain. And I think if we'd have just kept with the game plan and done what we had all agreed on, things would have been a lot different. The match would have been so much better. Right. The finish, the reaction, everything would have been better. And we wouldn't be talking about this right now. Right.

The fact is, though, that was the top moment for our business at that time, for WCW. What are you trying to say? Are you trying to say that I sabotage the company somehow? It's my fault. It's a big setup here, see? I'm being set up. I'm talking about... It's Sting's fault that WCW went down.

So he's having a little bit of fun with it there. Clearly, he's... throwing the politics flag and we've even said it was in your book eric that ogan did have creative control um ogan's going to get painted with this man as this being quote unquote his fault nick you were there for all of the great and not so great moments in wcd at that point it felt like wcd could do no wrong we're still months away from the w f beating nitro even one time. Some people debate, Nick, with the benefit of hindsight, what was the beginning of the end of WCW? Bobby Heenan would say it's when, you know, Goldberg lost a year later. Others would say

it was a few weeks after that at the finger poke of doom. And of course, Eric has said, no, you didn't really understand the business. It was the whole AOL mess, blah, blah, blah. Some fans point to that moment, though. Do you think that moment is maybe the beginning of the end of I don't particularly think that moment was because I want to dress up. You said, look at the people here. There's a moment ago. It was almost like they were stunned. Yes.

And everything was like, whoa, for a second. That's a great reaction. You want that, you know, look at when Hope turned heel. When he turned heel, there was that moment of. Yes, gasp. And then all of a sudden, the shit started flying. You know, so that moment, that gas, that what the hell moment, that's not necessarily a bad thing, you know, a lot of times that they call that a money reaction, you know, when you get that, what was that reaction, you know, I mean, let's face it, hell, here we are 25 years later still talking about it, you know, so it wasn't, to me, that wasn't a bad thing, you know, the reaction itself, you know, because like I said, that shock and it stunned a lot of times, that's what we work for. to try and get.

And as far as the beginning of the downfall, I don't think that that was the beginning of the downfall. And I may take a lot of flack or a lot of heat for this. I don't know and I really don't care. But I think the beginning of the downfall was when Vince Russo come in and had so much free hand. And I think that to me, to me that was the beginning of the end. Well, there was a lot of things.

There was a lot of factors into it. I mean, for a long time, it was coming because, I mean, we were owned by a major corporation. And now all of a sudden, we've become, instead of being number one, with this headache, this constantly one lawsuit after another, guys coming into work and, you know, something happened in them getting hurt, and all of a sudden they fall out in the ring, and then they have, you know, and the company pays for their surgery, and they're home for getting paid for six months to a year, you know. There was all kinds of things that led to it, you know.

It was things that run rampant. But honestly, to me, when Vince Rousseau come in and took over, it started to get a little interest there at the beginning, but then it woof, to me, like it nose dive. You know, that's just maybe I'm wrong. I don't have numbers to prove it. I'm just going by how it felt. Yeah.

Eric, you were going to say something there. I forgot. I'm sorry. Oh, no, no, it's great. Hey, Mr. Patrick, I want to ask you because Tony Chivani has said before, one of the things he didn't like about the war games match, and I'll tie it in here to what we just saw, is that it was a submission finish. And he felt like it eliminated some of the drama from the fans because there is the buildup of the one, the two, and the big anticipation. What's going to happen? Is his hand going to hit the third time? And that doesn't really exist for a submission finish. I understand we're trying to play off of the Montreal screw job.

That's why Brett Hart's there and we're going to restart the match. And it's the same move and they have that move in common. I get that. But would you agree with Tony Chivani that there's more drama in a three count than a submission? Or do you think that's just his opinion? I think it's how it's set up. It's how you set it up. It's not, you know, one is not better than the other.

It's how you have the story that you tell to lay it out to make it what it is. I'll take that a step further, not to interrupt you, Nick, but to support what you're saying, a really good submission finish is more dramatic than a three count. Yes. The guy is he going to tap? Is he not going to tap? Is he going to make it to the rope?

Is he not going to make it to the rope? That's a ton of drama right there, man. You could make that finish last for 20, 30, 40 seconds instead of one, two, three, so Tony doesn't know what he's talking about. As usual. Go out to Eddie Prather. He's with us today. Eddie, do you have a question for Mr. Patrick or Mr. Bischoff?

Hi, hi, Conrad. Hey, Eric. It's always good to see you. Hey, Eddie. Hello. It's a pleasure to be able to talk to you, Nick. I've been following your career since when I first saw you in Georgia as a referee. Well, thank you, man. I appreciate that.

I appreciate that. Hey, Nick, my question's for you. Did it, when you had your heel run with the NWO, did you go back to anything you learned from probably one of the greatest heels ever, your dad, that helped you with that? Promo-wise, yeah, but work-wise differently, because I was, you know, Pop was a badass heel. And I was not a badass heel.

I was a coward lying chicken shit, you know, and I got my heat by coming out there making faces of people acting like I was Billy badass and coming up like, well, you know, to somebody that they and those people think, well, I know I could whoop his ass, you know. To me, that was heat, you know, when you see somebody that you figure you can whoop their ass and they're often acting all up in your face and all that, to me, that gets heat. And that's what I tried to play off of. And, you know, my dad's kind of heat wouldn't have worked for me. All right, guys, we've got to take a time out right now to talk about something I love.

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and then we'll start to put a button on all this. T.J. Stevens, he's the top guy who's got a question. Do you have a question for Mr. Patrick or Mr. Bischoff today, T-J. Thanks for jumping on with us. for taking my question, Conrad. I actually have a question for both of them because we've talked about the pre-match happenings, about what's going to

happen, all the different stories coming into the referee's head. Here's my question. So the three-count with Hogan happens. The crowd essentially goes silent because they don't really understand what's happening.

Nick Patrick takes a phenomenal bump. May I say after that as well? So as the crowd's silent, and Brett's kind of there with the timekeeper, you know, waiting to restart the match, but the crowd's confused and silent, what is going through both of your heads as we get ready to start the rejump to finish? Is this going to fail? This is going to work?

Like, what's going through both of your heads watching this play out? I was in catering. I was down selling, and I had got my part of the finish done. My deal was, well, am I going to still have a job when I go? get back to the locker room or not. I didn't know. So that was kind of what was going through my mind. I thought, well, okay, I've done my part.

Now, you know, I wasn't really thinking about what was happening in the ring. I was, you know, that was kind of more well. It was on my mind at the time. And honestly, I wasn't watching, like, on a monitor. I was out in the crowd. I was actually down on the floor behind the curtain. So I wasn't even up elevated. I couldn't really see what was going on in the ring.

I was just feeling the audience. Yeah, I like doing that too. And there was that moment when I wasn't sure what I was feeling, you know. I mean, they were stunned, which means I was like, whoa, wait a minute. Why are they quiet? It was weird. It was weird. But I couldn't really see what was happening, so I couldn't connect the dots until afterwards.

Well, the pop that ended up coming later, it was pretty much the calm before the storm really. Yeah, you know, I kind of thought, all right, this is great. I'm going to go down on history again, you know, great. Wow, I'm the greatest ever. Until I got home the next day. It was like, buck, I'm never going to live this down. Oh, my God. Eric, do you remember Sting after the show? Did you have any interaction with him? Was he pleased with the way it came off? Uh, yeah. I honestly, I don't remember. You know, I'd be making shit up.

I don't like to do that. I don't. I don't. Nick, do you remember at all? There was a fair amount of chaos at the end. You know, there was some, there was some what-the-fuck moments going on, you know, in my office. Afterwards, confusion, trying to figure it out. But I don't even think I'd talk to sing until a day or two afterwards.

And nobody said a thing to me. I went to the back. I was expecting the worst. And I said, okay, here it comes. I got cleaned up, took a shower, got my clothes on, and there's still nobody said anything. So I said, well, let me get on out to my car and get on back to the hotel why nobody said anything to me.

But then maybe it'll happen tomorrow. Oh, crap. Did you, we've talked a little bit about your dad today. Did you seek his counsel? Did you say, Dad, what did you think of that? Or does he come to you and mention it? Or is it just not even discussed as another day at the office? No, it was kind of another day at the office for Pop, you know.

I'm not sure he was still working in a guerrilla position at the time. He worked a guerrilla position for the longest time. But I don't know if he was still doing that at that time. But I didn't really bring him into it. You know, it was something I wanted to get, I felt like I could handle myself. And I didn't, you know, I just kept him out of it. Any final words you want to put on this thing, Mr. Bischoff? I mean, we've, we've beat it up from every angle now, from every possible perspective.

We've heard from Sting. And, of course, we read some of Brett's words, and we read from your book, and you and I discussed it. Now we had the missing piece of the equation tonight. Mr. Patrick, any final thoughts from you, Mr. Bischoff? No, I think, you know, having Nick on kind of in getting his perspective, to me, it adds some clarity. I mean, I can understand the position that Nick was in, and it was a very confusing situation. It was a tough one.

But I think we got the full picture, man. It comes down to communication. You know, and let me just say this. Again, with all due respect to everyone involved, Hogan had a responsibility. Sting had a responsibility. I had a responsibility. So did Nick.

And I don't think any of us lived up to our responsibilities that day. We could have all done a better job communicating. It does come down to me. But I think all of us, Sting especially, you know, everybody likes to point the finger at Hulk and say, Hulk selfish, you know, he said he was in it for the money. Hulk had nothing to gain by keeping Sting from being in that spot. Absolutely nothing to gain.

and nothing to lose either. Hulk was not financially motivated for whatever decisions Hulk made. They weren't because of financial decisions. I think there was a breakdown in communication. I think some of it has to do with Sting. I think if Sting would have done a better job of staying in communication with Hulk and me in the weeks leading up to, not just day off, not showing up the day of the event and going,

okay, what's the finish? that's a lazy way out. You know, you're involved in a 12 or 18-month storyline. Both Hulk and Sting had a responsibility to keep the lines of communication open, as did I. I failed on my part, and by the way, so did they. So there's enough blame to go around. I don't think it lands on anyone's person. Excuse me, it doesn't land on any one person. It doesn't land on any one person. It is is what it is, man, but we're still talking about it. We're still making money off of it, so I'm grateful for that. But, Mr. Patrick, how about you?

Any final words on Starcade 1997? No, looking back on it now, I feel much better about it, honestly. You know, I never really sat back and watched it objectively to see, you know, like we just did, you know, and you point out the reaction at the end, we got the reaction. Yes. I think we could have got to it maybe a little easier way. But we did get to the reaction, you know,

and at the end of the day, that's what you want. And, you know, the people were happy. The Shing wrote off, you know, with the title, and Hulk still retained his heat. You know, there was a lot of factors that still were kept into place by things happening in the way that they did. And like I said, that pause, that silence there for a moment. and it sometimes isn't a bad thing because look at the roar that happened right after that

silence. So, you know, that's it. All in all, I feel way, after watching the talking and watching it back, I feel way better about it now than I did before. Well, we were thrilled to have you today. I know you don't do a lot of public appearance stuff anymore. So it's just awesome to be able to put you and Eric back together again. Catch everybody up and tell everybody what you're doing these days.

Well, now I'm running a small wrestling company called Deep South Wrestling. that my father and I started back in the early 80s, and it ended up morphing into becoming the power plant. And also, Vince used Deep South as one of his training camps for a while before him and Pop had a little falling out. And I take care of my mom. I thought we lost my dad a little over a year and a half ago. And my mom is suffering from dementia and wants to stay in her home. So I'm making sure that that happens. And my oldest son, Nick, is autistic. But honestly, he takes care of me as much as I take care of him, man. We go to the gym and, you know, so taking care of him is not a deal.

But I take care of folks and I run a small wrestling company and my company's starting to grow and it's fun and it's brought the fun back into the business. And in fact, I got a big show. I got, I'm doing a joint promotion now with the first time. Me had some of the smaller promotions around here wanting to do joint promotions with me and mine. And our first one is January the 7th in Rome, Georgia. It's going to be called New Beginnings and Deep South joins with KLT wrestling.

And we're going to bring the best of all the local independent guys and try to present them in a way where they can be seen instead of having to go and get looked at in a little five-minute format where you either impress somebody that's maybe watching you, maybe not watching you, and goodbye, see you later. There's a lot of kids out there that can work and it can tell stories, but they don't get that chance. You know, they're not, they don't, they, they've even had tryouts. I've had some of the kids that work for me that's gone and had tryouts and be sitting there, you know, and you work your heart up to get a, to get looked at. And there were two different times that kids went to have trials, drove all the way up from Atlanta to Charlotte to get looked at. And Vince was having a bad day and come out and cut a big promo and shut everything down. And all those kids, see you. They didn't get a chance, you know.

And I know that there's a bigger picture and all that, you know, but still, you know. people are people man and I never was around independent wrestling a whole lot growing up you know because Pop was always in the main deal and I was fortunate enough to work territories before I went to WCW and WWE eventually and so I've learned

I didn't have a lot of respect for a lot of the indie guys you know not so much the guys but more or less the promoters and I'll be honest with I worked a couple of shows doing some indies that oh I'm going on my way home I thought man I better drive safe because if something happens to me, this would be the last damn thing I did in the wrestling business. I mean, a couple of them have been that bad, but some of them are very good.

And there are some kids out there that can flat work and tell stories, man. And I'm about giving them an opportunity to do that. I say deep south is every match is a main event, and I treat it that way. We put one match out a week on YouTube. We do our show. We have a place downtown in Little Five Points in Atlanta. It's a seven-stages theater. It's got a marquee out front.

And when you work your way up to being the main event, guys, we put your name on the marquee out front. And it's been very inspirational. Kids have brought their families there. And actually, I've seen kids come to tears seeing their names on the marquee of downtown Atlanta. And we put one match out a week, make it the main event. And I'm just, I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel.

I just want to be different than everybody else. You know, if I come out there and I put out a wrestling show, I don't want people to have to try and find the logo on the ring or something to say, oh, damn, what companies is this because they all kind of look alike. You know, I want to be different. I don't want to reinvent the wheel, but I want to be different. And that's what I'm trying to do. So I'm on YouTube.

Check out YouTube slash We Are Deep South and check out some different episodes. I really suggest checking out, I did a retirement match. And these two kids come out and they put it on the line. If you want to see two independent kids for their heart and their soul, into a match. Check out a rose to Jody. It's a two-part thing. It's the first part is a rose to Jody and the second part is a conclusion. Check it out, the Skrill of the Great versus nauseaism. And it was a tremendous match. And I got kids that come out there and are pouring their heart out to try and get looked out. And that's what I'm peeing on. I'm taking the kids

that are putting in the time of putting in the work and I'm trying to give them a format where they can get looked at. Good for you, brother. I'm so proud of you, man. And if there's anything I can do, man, on me, my, no fees, no charge, no nothing. But you got a show coming up, you know, this year, 2023, when it gets warm, you let me know I'll be there for you. Well, I damn sure appreciate that. And I will hold you to that. You got it. Thank you, no word.

Hey, thank you guys for having me tonight, too. Absolutely. Thank you for jumping on. I want to encourage everybody. Go find Deep South Wrestling on Facebook. It's at DSW. of course you can also go to deep south wrestling.com or just check them out on youtube but you can just hear the passion in your voice man about how excited you are

about this and you know just knowing the history of of the power plant and how involved your dad was with all that and the great alumni that's gone through deep south wrestling there's some of our swag right there man i love it that's old school man check it out deepsouthwrestling dot com and uh you never know who you might see there the the stars of tomorrow are there today. It's deep southwrestling.com. Thanks again, Mr. Patrick, for all the time. I don't know.

This exceeded all expectations. Thank you, Nick. Really great looking up with you again after all this time, brother. Hey, good, I hope your son's doing all right too, man. He was always a super nice, very polite kid. You did a good job with him, man. Thank you, sir. All right, man.

Good talking to you. Thanks, everybody. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Okay, boys and girls. By now you know the NCAA tournament is upon us, and I can't believe this is real. Alabama's actually good at basketball now, too. I've just been a football fan my whole life,

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that map and you're like well is that a good seat with this app you can see what you're going to see it's fantastic and how about this event cancellation protection i bet you wish you had that at the start of the pandemic they got it here they've even got job loss protection and the lowest price guarantee so if you want a great deal and the peace of mind game time is for you game time is the place for last minute ticket deals. Forget planning months in advance. Game time has deals right up to the day of the event. You get these exclusive flash deals on tickets for everything like football, basketball, baseball, concerts, comedy, theater, everything. And the game time guarantee means you always get the best price. Let me explain. If you find tickets in the same section in row for less,

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every other week here on ad-free shows that's awesome man i love i always love talking to fans and answer them the different questions. I've been through a lot of different generations, so it should be interesting. It should be a lot of fun, man. It's always good to interact with people that have followed you and appreciate your career. And now we'll do this every other week,

so everybody tune in to add free shows. We appreciate you checking this one out, like and comment, and send us some feedback. We want to know what you like and what you don't like. We are starting this, and we're going to have some fun. And the best part about it is you can ask, anything you want is it about wrestling yeah you got deep-seated wrestling questions ask those if you want to know nick's favorite color that's fine if you want bullet-sized shoe he wears whatever it is

all questions are on the table and every other week every two weeks we're going to answer the ad-free shows family questions dick are you ready for your first ever nick patrick billbags yes sir i am i'm ready to roll all right here we're going to go let's crank it up first question of the first show episode one goes to mark bishop mark you are now a trivia question you're the first ever question on mailbag with nick patrick mark wants to know on georgia performance in the n w and feud with jericho how did you feel during your feud with chris jericho since it was different than your normal riff role i love that it was a lot of fun christmas was young but i could tell already

just by watching work and uh and listening to it you know the way he carried himself the way lying things up he's going to be a big star just a matter of you know which company back then we just people were already jumping back and forth and didn't be a break at what place that go over the other but uh it was a lot of fun because i used to wrestle and i knew that i could have it there was another one of those opportunities to show the people that i could do more but uh As far as that match with Chris, he'd line the whole thing out. You know, and, yeah, it was fun, man.

It was a blast. We went about 13 or 14 minutes. I got to the back, and I had not a match in a long time. And I had just started working out. I was just starting to quit smoking cigarettes at the time. So, man, when I got at the back after that match, I was like, I flopped out on the floor. I thought I was going to die for about five minutes.

But I got my wind back and kind of come back to life. It was so fun when I was out there doing it back one. Performing in front of people was a rush. Like, it's really hard to play. And I had a match been a long time. I wrestled for years. I'd go out there and hopped and be on paper because, too. That was a blast.

It was an honor. And I knew that Ken was going to be great. He's still kicking. He's an older guy, too. Now, he's an older guy, too. Now, he's a little kid. Yeah, yeah. When's the last time you saw Chris?

In person, then WWE when I was there. Really? That's the same thing you in person? Yeah. You ever talk randomly? No, I don't really have his number. And I don't, I hadn't been to a lot of rock show, man. I thought it, baby.

I'm trying to mean you've talked to your rock, man. You've got to go side patsy. Oh, I'd love to see. Fazi, but I've just, I'm old and set in my wage, man. I'm hard. It's funny. I like to go out and have fun. But to me, when I go to a concert and I'm out of the crowd, I'm that guy.

It's funny. I'm that one guy that the drunken person in the building wants to be my friend. I'm like, oh, my God. I mean, I want to shake my hand and be in my face and I'm like, oh, please. man i've just come to watch some music man but that i you know so i and i don't know why and it's happened now a bunch of times to me so i kind of got guns shot but uh but i still you know it would be fun i love you see paucy actually because i went and saw a great concert with chris one time at w c w kney wain kenny wain shepherd came oh yeah and we saw

Kenny Wayne Shepard and Steve Byde Oh, Oh, yeah, it was three different bands It rocked. Who was the third one? Steve Moore's. I know, no, no.

The guy does flips him dover. Oh, Eric. Eric, no, Eric Johnson. Eric Jeff was man, he's an incredible. Yeah, he saw him. Steve By and Kenny Wayne Shepard. I got to see, the only time I've ever seen Eric Johnson,

I live in Huntsville, Alabama, and they had a Jimmy Hendricks tribute show come through a couple years ago, and Eric Johnson was traveling with him, and they all did Jimmy Hendricks songs, and man, boy, he ripped it up, son. It's amazing. Boy, Kenny Wayne's great. That's great. Y'all went to that show together. Yeah, yeah.

Mustang 5-0 convertible, man, the yellow one, bright yellow. And Jericho did? Yeah, he did. We had the tops down. we hit the show and he took back to the hotel and went on home, man. What city was? What's the place? Orlando, Florida. That's an awesome show.

That's an awesome damn show right there. Yeah, it was. It was. It was great time. And unfortunately for me, the drunk guy that said all the concerts that gravitate towards you. Is your new co-host. Yeah. We're going to do it every other week.

All right. I love it. Here we go. Lauren Eason. and wants to know what was it like refereeing in that ski mask oh and for those who don't know i feel like everybody on ad free shows does know this but do a short setup why are you refereeing in a ski mask and then tell us what it was like but it was the nw o referee and uh they wanted me to wear a mask and so they just by chance went out and they didn't have a mask

we wanted to make a mask and so they just went and got a ski mask i thought I thought, well, that'll work. What I wanted to try to do was I wanted to kind of look like that, like the Scorpio killer with a dirty hairy. You know, that was the kind of the look that I was looking for. Oh, the goofy eyes underneath the deal, you know. But working in that thing, man, I'm glad they were just a little short enhancement batches because it was itchy on my big.

Nightmare. Oh, yeah. It breathed. It made me wondered, boy, how did Popwear fast all those years? he's forever he was possible which I didn't know it yeah until later in life and I thought

my bad fuck how out of the world did you wear a full body suit I mean we've all the way down to the wrist you know and an amass and in the heat of summer in the Georgia chair off and in Louisiana and in Florida for most

wrestling fans we got some kind of see I got a mask back there I got a couple other wrestling men every time I've ever put them on. I'm like, I can't even walk through my own house. Yeah, you want to your glass. I can't even imagine wrestling, like your peripheral's gone. Yeah. You're just, you're doing this. Yeah. I can't imagine. It's a little over there brutal. Do you still got the ski mask? Yes, I do. Yeah, really? Yes, I sure do. I still have the ski mask.

That is, I had an old original interview shirt back in the day, but it's, it disappeared and I'm not grab signing somewhere and it's gone. Any NW shirts I have now are the ones that they put out now. The ski mask, that's a good. Yeah, but I still got that ski mask and I got a little a little stuffed werewolf

instead of a little NW and that they put out in as Birch at one point. Oh, back OG, it's OJ and I yeah, with a little werewolf. I had the NWM shirt on. I got one of those. There we go.

There we go. I got some of my old shirts too from back in the day not any WCWCW shirt I got a couple of them yeah I got the old blue smackdown shirt I think I still got a raw shirt I think I still got one of them old white shirts

that they made us wear when they first took over and and bought WCW yeah if the invasion gimmick and it had us all wearing white shirts oh God I hated those white shirts man they only gave us like two or three a piece so we're working every night and you can't keep them clean

and you're on the road yeah and I got and I was down to my last shirt right so I worked a match with Austin and and Kurt Angle where you're getting bitter on it or me it ended up being my own blood Austin had had the title

it had the little jagged edges on it right and it had a deal where Angle pulled me in and I took a belt shot and when I first went there I was Doug Beau you know because when I first got there, they'd bust the balls. And I wouldn't know if they could bust me all they wanted.

They couldn't get to. So if they wanted to hit me and hit me. You might have to be able to hit me with that damn belt in some inches. So I didn't even put my hands up. But he took care of it. He could work, you know. But still, even though the belt didn't have, or he had a little jagged edge, right there on my temple.

It was a littleest cut, but it looked like I got shot. I was going to say this right here, Blades, buddy. It started bleat. And I mean, that white shirt was soaked with blood. Now, I'm on and it, and working at a building of Long Island. And I'm thinking to myself, when I got in the back, I saw it, you know, but it was, you know, it could have took maybe two or three stitches. But, uh, man, I was not. Yeah, well, I wouldn't go, go sit in the hospital, Long Island with, with a small cut. I'd have been, I'd have been there for three days, you know, I mean. So it's a gunshot. What do we just have? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, man. It was the belt. Yeah, so I had the commissioner of doctor used the blue and blue be shut, man.

I went on, kept on truck. But I had to get rid of the shirt. It was just, it was, yeah. And I told them, I said, guys, this, this, we're going to make us wear these white shirts. We don't need a shit load for a row of them. Because they ain't going to last on them. When you're separating from the military,

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Adam Arpin. Thank you for sending us. question? Adam Harbin wants to know out of the guys that left WCW for WWF prior to the purchase. Who did you think showed the most growth and had you thinking man? WCW sure did drop the ball with this guy once you started working with WWF. Is there any of those guys? Who the two even that are even ties? Mark Callis is the Undertaker. Yeah. I don't call Steve Austin. Both of those two. I just couldn't team to catch a break down in fact you saw the deal that they put out the

uh undertaker put out an interview but only anderson told him even booker in time he said people just aren't ever going to pay money and see me wrestle he said that to the undertaker and i don't know big i had a picture of uh that i put on facebook when he was wrestling as Mark Callis and he choked Lugar on the ropes and I was standing there about to get an accountant I had this stupid dumbfounded look on my face I don't know why it did it was one of those odd pictures you know so I I kept and said the look on my face would only said that nobody will ever pay to see you wrestle my lupilio I'm like all you know but him and stone stem and don't call was the tune that I would

How long did you work with Stone Gold before he made the switch? Oh, the whole time he was in WCW. I did a bunch of his matches. Great. And you knew early on this guy's got it? This guy's going to get it. Oh, yeah. Just a matter of time.

I thought he was going to get it there. But they never really, he never really got the show like he did up in the north. It was meant to be. Well, they found the match. Yeah, yeah, certain things have to, have to, you know, it takes all moving parts working together, you know, or something like that to click. And he had a better chance of that at one up there than he did. WCW for sure.

Over at ad-freeshows.com, Jeremy Preece sent us a question. You had a unique way of counting the pin. Was that a natural way for you, or did you pick that up somewhere? Did it different, different times when it, uh, when, when, uh, when, In the old days, I did it slower. But I did it left-handed, too. You know, a lot of I'd go right-hand. Are you left-handed naturally, or just, look?

I've kind of weird. I write with my left-head, and I can shoot a pistol with either hand, but I bat, throw, everything else I'd do at right-hand. You know what's funny? I'm almost the same exactly way. I'm left-handed, too. But everybody teaches you everything, right-handed. Yeah, yeah.

And so you just, that's what you learn. just writing remember the kid did you write upside down left-handed and get the get the lid all across your hand from dragging it across the baby yeah yeah yeah upside down left up so that was just the way you did it yeah that's just the way I did it and the old days you counted slower they weren't slower more dramatic count and then later on then especially with WWV had their guys count like their bones on you know like so it's it's special They wanted us to speed it up a little bit more. One, two, three, you know, it just, you know. So when you, when you switch from WCW to WV or WWF then, anyway, they told you speed it up? Did they tell you how to count it? They wanted me to fire it off.

Yeah, they want to be spewed if you had already spent it up some. Yeah. Georgia Championship days. I'd already spend it up some. But not as much as they did. I mean, that was, oh, they want to get fired. They were fired up. Yeah, so I'm okay.

So, but that's, that was, if it changed, that would why. Um, Jeremy Strunk says, Nick, maybe a silly question, but we've heard the tales about how hard the WWF rings were back in the day. Was there any noticeable difference in delivering account in the WWF versus the WCW? not really because they've got padding on the ring so taking you that felt normal yeah it felt normal didn't feel any different just counting with your hand now somebody power bombed you with one rig running you know you know take any hard box yeah well i took everybody's finish in both tarantorries you know but the but the wcw race that was pretty solid too you know they didn't have much play in them they were big and they had the big wooden plank and they had the big wooden plank

next to the metal and then the ropes were getting to the WCW ropes had the cable ropes he was covered with like like hose type in it tape all the W WSWE they got real rope ropes it's different a different feel or now they don't what's the airfights there ah if you don't tape the end on the on the cable cable ropes the hose will spin on you and guys that jump up and springboard and all and stuff that top rope. Oh, it's vans.

Yeah. So you have to tape him down in the corners. Oh, okay. It's more solid. The ropes are more solid. You can get them tighter with the cable. But there's more play with the ropes, the rope ropes, and you have to change them more often

because guys sweating and all, whenever they have, they get on the rope. and they store them and that you make some dry rod and they found out that oh yeah they found that out hard when it's recent as when i was up there uh we went over to europe wait when you say they found out uh w wwe okay that was because they had them dry rod on them yeah we went over to europe they had a rake stored in europe and uh and the undertaker hit the ropes uh top rope broke broke on him well i was yeah i tell all these young kids when i teach them to run the ropes that uh the old school way if you watch guys run the ropes in the old school they hit the ropes or turned a little

bit slightly sideways and they got down or you know just a slight caught sideways and the reason they did that is because back in the day you worked in different territories you didn't know how the ring would be and if that top rope breaks and you're flat and you see as you see kids today a lot of Not all of them, but some of them. They run, hit the rope. Back is flat against. Yeah, full back like that. All right.

Well, if that rope snaps, you're doing, your back of your head's going right on the edge of the acre. At least if you're caught sideways a little bit, like watch Rickmler old stuff, how he hit the ropes. He's caught a little bit sireids. And he did that for a reason. Because he didn't know how good the rig was, how old the ropes were.

If that rope breaks and you've got it caught sideways, you've got your arm booked there, you do more of a cartwheel. And you more than likely land on your feet or on your, or you hit your shoulder, but you're not going to come down and hit your neck in the back of your pits like wood if you've got your back flat. That's what I try to teach kids how to do that. Well, I was about to say give a plug. You're still teaching people now to do South wrestle, right? Yeah, I sure am, man.

I teach them to wrestle, to rev, to announce, commentate, promote, whatever they want to do, man. recruit there's a lot more jobs and wrestling will just get in the ring and take them if they're interested in that what can they do can they contact you yeah they can reach me at deep south wrestling.com and they want to check out some uh some of our matches and some of the product that we put out they can go on youtube and say and look up we are deep south on youtube and you'll pull up a bunch of different matches at some of the product got out of has the next question. He says, hey, Nick, welcome to the ad free family. And yes, thank you, sir. Thank you very much. We do call the family. It's not a, it's not anything else.

We are not friends. We are family here at ad free shows. But Leland says, hey Nick, welcome with the ad free family. I'm sure you've heard you got tough competition like Keota. He's undefeated against other Monday mailback opponents. So you got your work cut out for you. I do have a question though. I remember that first raw TV event back when referees would come down the entrance ramps to the ring. You step through the curtain and the building erupted in booze. How many referees would get reactions like that just walking down to the ring? How are we able to maintain the character even after switching companies? Because you Of course, when you ran the NWO, they hated you or brood you.

But then you were with the alliance when you switched as well. You were still a hill referee. It was funny. I knew that they was going to boom you. And I did that on purpose because they was already telling me that they wanted me at Earl that had a match. But they didn't know who was going to be the heel out of it. Because Earl had the Pontreale screw job under it.

I said, I guarantee, I promise you, I'm going to be the heel. And that they were going to hate me far worse than him. Watch this. And then I went out and that happened. And they say, you're right. So I ended up being the heel of that match. Is there a, this is my own personal question. Is there a robbery among riffs or is it a good camaraderie?

I think it's a good camaraderie. And I've never had a problem. Anybody rep, pretty wise. Okay, good. Even when I was a younger guy, the older guys always wanted to help you to teach you. You know, I had guys like Rodham West keep way back in a day that took me under his wing. And I learned a lot of Bobby Simmons. One of the older guys.

Tommy Young on that it's always been a kind of the camaraderie. Always pretty much look out for each other. And there's not really a whole lot of backstab in a must. So, it's appropriate. Good. Go real. Matt Sangervasi, I hope I got your name right, Matt, but Matt Sangervasi says,

how old were you when you found out about your dad being the assassin? Did you go to school bragging, telling all the other kids at school that no one believes you? Did he cave you? Can you give us a story of what it was like as a young child of a wrestler? I always knew Bob was a wrestler. but it's funny my mom has a story about me she'd carry me to the matches and it was like the first or second time that they took me to the matches they didn't

know if i'd recognized that while he had you know wore the mask and well i i don't know i guess i called him hooty and i kept calling hooty i guess because his family called him jody and i guess i was so young that was the way you pronounced it oh i guess that's what i That's a close like to think. But anyway, I was a little kid in my mom's arm. My body didn't really talking. And then they were distracted on the aisle and walked by and looked at me. I went, boody, golly.

I started going to be written for him. So, you know, I knew, I've always, you know, ever since I was a baby, I knew. But when he came home, he was the assassin there. Yeah. And he came home, and you're like, why does everybody hate you? Or did you, when did you start grasping that? I was kind of entertained by it that he had so much heat, and he kind of explained to us what was, you know,

he smartened me up from the time I was little because he was always involved in blood-fewed angles, you know. Yeah. And that'd be really tremendous. I mean, you'd see the Jake's Snakes interview about it, you know, careers never smarted them up, you know, and they thought their dad was getting killed. And my dad had it in all these different places.

then changed territories and damn here come those guys showing up again you know and it could be traumatic to a kid watching your dad bleed and and you're being real blood you know and uh and it's but he's smarting me up uh from a very early age and uh you know it took me in the back and especially because there was it's going to be a heavy heavy thing it you know so much more to you know that we are friends for working together and and in the back and as a matter of fact i was gosh i was the little kid old wintry school a little day back on the top it just working at big angle the guy they were both were bleeding like crazy pop had to me a a bunch of funny tape and an old blade let's just down the toilet kids i'm sorry you know i was hit on the shit man i was mr i was that was nick k fave

already out of it plus and shit down the toilet yeah i was nick k fay yeah i was nick k Fade, man. Y'all love it. I always knew. And growing up, it was cool growing up. A lot of people knew, but I always lied about it because it was Kay Fave. You had the K-Fave. So in school, if you were K-Fib.

Yeah, I told everybody that Popple's deputy sheriff, because he had a little badge, special deputy sheriff had a couple, two or three of the guy, because the cops that came down to work, the senior auditorium, well, they were all the friends, and two or three. government got special deputy sheriff badges and pop had one of it and so i told people he was a deputy sheriff and saw him stepped up with all but they all knew hell the assassin was showing up at mr hamilton's car and sending out of nore him every week forgot say you know that's that you know they do but it was funny they they wanted to quiz me like they were tried to break you know and i'd say early campaign yeah i never broke either i'd say well i'll see what if you don't believe me let's go

you ask him yourself oh no no no and i don't know i don't know i don't want to ask him by the well they quit asking me so that would always get him off of you know so all you can ask him stuff come on let's go let's go talk oh that's okay do you ever remember being young uh this probably be a no because you were in on it early but do ever mean remember being young and hating a wrestler because you thought Hey, maybe he went my dad up or anything Where you've been on it so early that you knew? Yeah, yeah, I knew.

That's awesome. Yeah, we didn't have to go through that. That's just what I did. I saw Baron Von Rashman's kidding real time. I tried to help him because I was young. I was just starting to break in Georgia championship wrestling. I think I was 19 years old. And Von Raskin was there and he worked with Austin Idol.

Austin Island. He did him with a chair. And he got sauce and, bleeding off man that little boy he said in the bleachers he broke down crime and took off running out the back door man and i said i ran and caught it you know

he's gonna be okay and i just tried i stayed with it you know and uh and i got him feedback and look man i went here i'm gonna check i said i told my rash catch man you look boy's upset it's bad you know and uh and said bon let me take care of it you know so so he took care of you know man the little kid didn't know what could expect and all of a sudden he was dead wow a chair rolling blood and a little kid he called that's but you couldn't imagine

that because you were you were smart no burglick yeah yeah that he called k favorite and he just say hey don't tell anybody no i'd heard the term k fable he said it's something we'll keep ourself outside that's pretty neat uh good question man he also says follow-up who has better catering WCW or WWE I think I have to say WCWCW it was when you were there yeah what I was there because by time I got the WWE they were left and eventually and their catered good when I first started and then they started getting a little bit worse when they started trying to say when they had you a little bit worse I didn't even know if they have Cater anymore I don't But, man, when there was competition, hell, we was that barbecue joint showing up,

having barbecue, because it was, yeah, it was steaks. Everybody wanted to be on the head. We were eating good there for a while, but, but, uh, and when it was we lost war, and there were no more competition, which the back day rash, man. That's a day, right. Dave McLean said Nick who helped you train for your match against Earl at the invasion pay-per-view

I didn't train. We just did it. Johnny Ace was the was the aging. Help us light it up. Mr. Ersson, corks, something out. We just did it. You, I mean, you, if somebody knows your history, you had wrestling background. Yeah.

What about Earl? Did anybody help Erring? Do you know? I don't think he did, because he, I'll just talk through everything. We just talked through it and did it. It was mostly him whooping my ass until I turned the tide. I was going to say, I was going to tease that kid earlier that was telling me about Mike Keota. I had a mask with Keota.

It was me and her Dudley boys against Mike Keota, Rock, and Chris Jericho. That's right. So, you know, I was going to, I was going to rib him attack like I whipped everybody. that's my kid are you undefined against my godd oh i tore keota up and you go back and watch that match i not only did i beat mike coyote i stacked all three of them on top of each other fend him with my taggump foot on a mile a rock of jericho i'm in a thank um keota sandwich out Don't bother Mr. Patrick here. That's right.

You better watch out, Mike. There's a new sheriff, baby. No sheriff, baby. Brad Stanton, he sent him. Thank you, Brad. He said during the Glacier versus Rath match at Great American Mass, 1997, Chivani says you were almost through.

probation was this match your punishment he said I was going to say I was if you can probably see the expression on my face I was almost scratch if I had to try and remember you know it didn't it didn't it wasn't so bad that it stood out in my mind but it wasn't so good that I could remember right I thought I would have to go for there. Leisure versus wrath. And that's, that's a shame because both of those guys can go, you know, and I don't know why.

Pleasure's still going. Yeah. Yeah. Super guy. Super guy. That had a great gimmick, too. I thought the gimmick was great. Yeah.

Uh, coach Rosie Josh Rosenbaum, good ad free shows. Remember here. He says, Mr. Patrick, welcome to ad free shows. I'll look forward to hearing some wonderful stories. my question this week is who is your who is your best friend in the locker room that you can fight with

and live life with when you're in WCW when I was at WCW who was your best friend then who would you go hey I was there for so long and I had different you know friends at different time because guys come you know and go

but uh I would have to say I did a lot of Teddy I said talking about Teddy Teddy Long the friend of mine that's passed away now the referee bigies we got a little

and we did a lot of travel he was wrong in this and like he said we could talk to each other about anything always had each other back and he he was a good Brit I never really had anybody

that we had that hate argue thing. You know that he with anybody? No, well, I mean, not saying that. But there was one guy in particular a major, major player industry that almost comes close with us. But that's, but it is. Somebody will have to ask that question next week. We're not going to get into that here.

But there's Teddy Long and Mickey Henson. Yeah, those were by two. At Buffer T, too. Buffer Tee, was a really good friend of Biden. We talked a lot. We did a lot of road together and wall. I'd have to say all three of those. When you're separating from the military,

no one tells you how hard it can be to get your civilian life up to speed. But with VA benefits, it doesn't have to be. From the VA home loan requiring no down payment to the GI Bill covering tuition, books, and cost of living, to VA health care offering top-ranked low-cost care designed specifically for veterans. All the support you need is at VA.

I'm here telling every veteran because I wish someone had told me. Get what you earned. Visit shoes.va.gov. Not all veterans are eligible for this hyper amount of benefits mentioned here. With 4 Imprint, finding the right promo products has never been easier. You get free samples, expert help, and art assistants to ensure your logo looks great. Four Imprint offers thousands of options to choose from, including summer ready gear, brand and apparel, drinkwear, outdoor, and more. Your order will be packed with care, delivered on time, and backed by their 360-degree guarantee.

That's For Imprint Certainty. Need your order fast? Four Imprint offers quick turnaround options too. Visit 4imprint.com and see how easy ordering can be. For imprint for certain. We'll get a couple shamless plugs here because you mentioned, hey, I'll talk about this and this if we do that. One, you did a great episode with Conrad and Eric Bischoff, 83 weeks. Go check that out if you haven't I heard Nick with him.

It was an absolute fascinating episode. It's what started this whole deal. here when we wanted to invite you to the ad free shows family and uh you also recently did thankfully an episode of me for cassio's good for my podcast we talked about some of that as well so when you mentioned any of these hey i mentioned on earlier uh you have you're the star of the show now you're in the game everybody wants to talk to you but go check out eric bischoff conrad and nick on 83 weeks that's in the archives and also if you want to check out me and Nick, hanging out and talking about the last thing he stole.

I'm not going to tell you that, but all the Cassio's cut episode. Thanks, Coach Rosie, for that great question. Heather Wibley, a top gal. She says, Nick, what was the most important thing your dad taught you about the business? Oh, so many things. I think coming right out of the shoe. and I use this on every kid that I train when they first start especially when they start doing shows

and getting out and being part of a locker room when you first start and you're learning you should be open eyes open ears and closed mouth that's how you're going to learn if you're sitting around running the mouth and trying to be little to get noticed and try to be entertained trying to make people like it you're not learning to keep your mouth shut your eyes and your ears up and you're going to hear people talk you're going to learn things

than that you're going to see things when your mouth is flapping and you're not learning and i i i stress that to my young kids that's probably the most before i've heard that as a kid that he brought me as a little boy into all right kid i'm thinking it in a lot solid Keep your mouth, shut your eyes, your result, all right? All right. I'll have the fifth grade. Yes, sir. I'll do it.

Fifth grade, you were already going to rest in the locker room? I had my first gig in the wrestling business. I was in fifth grade. I ring announced with my dad. I used to go on the road with the summertime. I wasn't in school. And my sister had stayed on with my mom. And I went down to Statesboro, Georgia, one time.

I had a kid will do it. I was like, oh, what? I was that kid, man. I didn't, like, when I was a kid in school, and the teacher would be calling on folks to read, man. I'd be like, you know, trying to hide behind somebody, man. I was shy. You know, and then Poplake, man, threw me into the deep end.

And I was, okay. And it was funny because I didn't have a microphone, a megaphone, a fool of order, and nothing. And he told me what to do. And I went out there when I had my little cars that I was doing, I was giving it in body luggage. I was yelling at the top of my voice. And then this quarter, we're going to 200 and I get it old.

It's like in the fifth grade, man. They loved it. They liked it. They let me. Do you love it? Oh, after I got over being scared, I loved it. One good every time, and they gave me $10 for it, too. So I really loved it.

Yeah. That's so good. Pat Cook wants to know Nick for the advent of VR tools like the Oculus for fans. to experience wrestling from whole new perspectives. Could the referee eye make the greatest comeback story of all time? I'll tell you what, with today's technology, they'd probably come up with something that would be pretty cool. But back then with the technology,

and I looked like a pretty good Guba Q-tip. I had a big, giant gimmick on the top of my head. It looked like an oversized bicep. Huge. and the battery fact that they had me wear that I had to wear it around to make it work there was no possible way I could take a bump I couldn't wear it in the front

and it was just they had it in the back and there's no possible way to take a bump but it broke my frigging back and also it just limited you so much and a lot of the shots was like bouncing because I moved it and the ring is bouncing but here there are certain shots that are very fooled the guys are down selling

And I'm in close checking or something. They got some cool shots. I think with today's technology, they could probably come up and get some pretty cool stuff. Man, that old technology I was doing it with was sucking it bad. Yeah, man. The new VR, you know, virtual reality stuff is pretty amazing stuff. I would like to see it somehow in the wrestling business.

That could be a new thing. That's my son, my younger son. He does that. He's got the only virtual reality gift. But I just, it's hard for me. I guess because I've had so many precautions. I get motion sick real quick. And if I'm certain video games, I watch it.

You know, like the military game. And I can watch that for a minute. When I scan up and down and they're doing it, I start getting motion sick. And I can't watch it out of this. I don't know if there's questions because I do radio here else with all the family my co-hosts he's same thing he's a huge

video gamer but he is he's 61 years old and he says man every time I've ever put on one of the VR headsets I motion signals to the to the Mac yeah yeah that's what I was afraid of like it yeah I get it without I can get it just watching it on the big screen there's certain games those games

well they're the military games we're coming in and work yeah the first person stuff yeah and they scroll up and down and man My brain is like It does not compute Drew Landry said I heard the WCW ring was smaller

than the WWE ring Is that true And how different were they It was a WCW ring Was an 18 footer And we talked earlier The ropes were different It was about the same

stiffness wise They were constructed differently They were very similar But Vince's ring is a 20-foot ring. It's bigger. Well, you don't really notice the difference that much unless you're one of those guys that runs high spots. It changes

your, uh, your footsteps. You've got two more feet. You know, you're used to run ropes and you get into a camera. One, two, three bounce. One, two, three bounce. Yeah. It's like the day acts. Chach, cha, cha, cha. Yeah. And you got two more feet. And also you have to practice

and adjust your footwork a little bit. That's really all you. It takes time to do that, but it doesn't take a long. As a ref, it didn't throw you off too much? No, it didn't throw me off at all. He was more affected workers, you know, guys that were actually doing spots. That's why when Vince bought WWE, they had all the guys go to almost like a training camp deal with where they started.

And they were working in the 20-foot range, you know, the gentleman was like, oh, what the hell? Yeah, you know how to work, there's little things, you know, like I was just talking about, running the ropes. You know, that's two more extra feet. You're usually going to chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat. yeah but now you've got you got to change your footwork up a little so you know that that was really the main difference and the ropes were completely

i would imagine uh even jumping off the turnbuckles you got to lay at a certain spot you got to jump a certain distance the whole thing is a little bit different just to know you off a little bit yeah yeah it just takes time no jobs once you do it then you don't to Kim Kyle wants to know hi Nick is there anyone to keep an eye on a deep south wrestling who you think is the star in the making so we should tell everybody we mentioned a little bit earlier you are still working with deep south wrestling still in the independent circle at training a bunch of people still putting on shows in Georgia there's somebody to keep an eye on in deep south I got several because I try to use all the best kids to all the different local promotions you know what Everybody works for everybody. It's not like each place has a stable. But I picked two kids in particular to do my retirement master because of their workability and because of how they market themselves.

You know, they are very exemplary what you need to do on the indie scene to become successful. Even if you're not, if you are or even not trying to break people, still always would be the best you could be. and these two kids have shown and more than this these two that I chose

to do my retirement match was a kid named Scrilla the Great which is Scrilla the Great okay Scrilla the Great

and nauseousism check out those two kids and nauseousism will remind you of a combination Ray Mysterio and Sting

whoa yes sir so you can check this kid out and I have a badass also now But every week to fish, a young man named Jacob Johnson that the first time I saw him work out at this place,

he does his beat down in the forest for his finish. And the first time I saw him do it to somebody, I come up with a kid, everyone said, did he hurt you? He said, no. And I went straight to Jacob. I said, you need to do that at every match. You need to do it. Really?

And if it looks good enough, it's to use for a setup for your finish, like Goldberg. spear he gets a guy at a corner van and they tell the story right but he goes off and they I don't want to beat down to the corner and it looks like it beating them half to death i mean i want to call assault and battery you know come up because that's basically what it looks like and then he comes out scoops about gives him his big slam finished check out jacob johnson wells squirrel of the great nauseaicism and jacob johnson to be three that I throw out. And there's another

one too. It's really cool. It's got a really cool gimmick. It's named Papa Marco. And he's got a guy that's his manager in Talofaro. It's like a zombie voodoo gimmick, you know. Oh, nice. And Talafaro's got he can kind of remind you a little

bit of the, uh, he's got the long tail coat, the top hat. He's got a skeletoric face and stuff. It's a really cool looking specific indie level and then just really badass costumes and they're experienced workers too barcoe was like he's my trainer that deep south he's done all kind of different right now he's doing pop of barthole's and it's a very cool gift it could be it it could

break through by the way scryl the great king of controversy he was also in the uh peanut butter falcon wrestling movie yes well so uh you can find him on twitter at at Scrilla the Great so make sure you check that out. Just a couple more questions for you Nick here on our inaugural episode of Mailbag with Nick Patrick.

Marcus D wants to know what were if any. The biggest differences between the WWF locker room and the WCW locker room when you went there in 2001. A lot of differences. When I was with WCW there was a lot of subdivision,

big stars, a whole good, a couple of other guys They had their own lock-a-loom. Okay. They didn't. All the clicks. Oh, boy. Big time. And there's clicks everywhere.

And it's none of that. There's clicks at the week. Sure. But it's a lot more like a team up there. Everybody dresses. Even Undertaker. Other taker. Everybody else.

All, you know, it's a team. Nobody's got their own, you know, it creates something. It's that way. It's, uh, it's, uh, the old way. I hate guys had their own. locker room if it's catered that was one of the reason hulk having his own locker room why that one paper was such a force of it but nobody i i i didn't get to be part of it which paper view you talking about for this that that uh that big hogan versus sting pay-per-view that summer slam that was

yeah that something that i talked about with eric yeah you know this low count the fast count the low count fast count do ogan had his own locker room and uh this is the biggest pay-per-view of possibly all the time that had the highest grossing all the revenue and all this thing as a referee i i wouldn't sit down talk to anybody when i got when i got in the building eric pulled me aside and said hey here's what we're going to do regular count oh he kept everybody out of his locker room you know unless you're invited in he catches me in the hallway told me to do a slow count 30 minutes later stink he'll buy tell me to do a bass count oh you know but You know, there's just so much click and subdivision and chance in your tail.

And at least in WWE, if you want an answer, you could know to the horse's head, not the horse's ass. You know what I mean? And you'll get the answer. You may not like the answer, but you'll go and get, you know, and if you've got enough guts to go and ask it, then you'll get, you'll get an answer. And why can you're hating, Vince, if you've got enough guts to present yourself, don't you? he respects that he'll talk to you oh yeah uh matt s wants to know i joined the starcade watch along in december and was amazed by that for such a big match at no point did eric get everyone in a room together on the day of the show just to make sure everything was understood was eric

distracted by the fact he was also wrestling that night immediately before the man of him What do you think, Nick? Probably so, but I truly think that he just didn't go out. He told me what he wanted. You know, there was a lot of drama going on, and I think he wanted. He said what he wanted done and got away from it. That's like he said, he had his own match to think about. And that was drama from the time we got the building to the time we left.

That is just the way it was. And even watching it back, it felt so uncomfortable. while I was doing it because of the situation that it felt like it sucked the whole time oh it just it's the whole time it just felt like it didn't flow it but just just felt off right you know but watching it back they actually got into a really good blow and then had these and and it could have been much better yeah I think you know that had everybody been on the same page definitely much better when everybody's at the same page but at the end of the end of the the day when you look at it and you watch that pay-per-view back that the people at the end

the only person that really got hurt out of it really was brett hart because i made the normal cow and there were really no reason to come down be pissed at me and it can come in and start you're over because it's a normal but at the end you look at the picture at the end of the story ogan walked out of there still had his heat Sting walked out of there Had the title of the people If you watched the celebration People didn't give me shit

About what you know They had that moment of when I When I made the count It was dead silent You know like one minute We just sit here Right You know what I mean

And But that's a good reaction A lot of times We worked hard to get that reaction You think back And watch that bass at the beach Polo would turn off steak the second that it happened you could feel

that it got silent for a second and then all of a sudden it started raining they started throwing bombarding trash yeah but that it's that shock that oh god you see that's a great reaction to get but you got to follow it up with something you know it's got to be something they can sink your teeth into man if you can draw that reaction that's a money or

reaction what one of the both of those one of the most ultimate swerves whereas a fan watching it you you went wait wait wait wait this is what we wanted to happen but there's no way it's happening yeah what the hell is it's not really happening right it's hard to get that moment yeah it is it's very hard and those two uh incidents did it man they did it and with all the Controversional, like I said, at the end of the day, the only first really got hurt out of it, Brett, and that is. Well, that was just because you did the count normal. Yeah, doing whatever I was supposed to do.

Yeah, and it wasn't like it killed them off. It was just like, oh, we've had enough of this guy. You know, there's some ways you can. Right. At the end of the day, I had a heat, and anybody that'd come out there and knock me on my ass took it over for it, you know what I mean? So, you know, which was, it was cool.

And that worked out immediately. because I was telling this the other day I was talking about the interview somebody and the when Hollin Nash was there you know they're great workers so they could get heat and psychology but they were cool

and a lot of people liked them you know they have for selling merch you know and and Hobbin had heat he had actually a little more heat than them because you know they had heat but a lot of people liked them because they were cool I was right the only real character

that they was calling into the other time that everybody hated, you know? Yeah. Everybody wanted to see me get my back here. It worked, you know, they had, you know, so they worked, you know. Yeah, and so it worked, you know. Scott Golden wants to know, Nick.

How do refs avoid shoulder injuries when they do the slide count? And also, is there any tips on learning count cadence? Not really. You just want to try and be consistent. You know, you don't want to be all off. Whatever your county is, at least be consistent. Yeah, whatever it is, be consistent.

If it's off, they'll tell you it's opportunity to adjust. Be you, but be consistent, that's all. Did you ever get a lot of shoulder injuries doing the side counter? Is it just come natural? No, because I would slide with this arm up. You know, when I slid, I would slide off this side. I counted with this side. Okay, there you go.

So it wasn't like I was rolling up on my, on the shoulder that I counter. the shoulder that I counted on. You hurt your shoulder more technically funny bumps, you know, than you do, you know, rolling bumps. You don't land like that. It's easier to, you know, hurt your shoulder that way. But I never really hurt my shoulder ever. I've hurt my knee before, but it really didn't have a whole lot to do with the refing aspect.

I'd hurt my knee before, the lower radio, and the bouncing ring made it hyper-extending, you know. That's up. What's up? When you're separating from the military, no one tells you how hard it can be to get your civilian life up to speed. But with VA benefits, it doesn't have to be. From the VA home loan requiring no down payment, to the GI Bill covering tuition, books, and cost of living, to VA health care offering top-ranked low-cost care designed specifically for veterans. All the support you need is at VA. I'm here telling every veteran because I wish someone had told me.

Get what you earned. Visit shoes.va.gov. are eligible for the type or amount of benefits mentioned here. With 4 Imprint, finding the right promo products has never been easier. You get free samples, expert help, and art assistants to ensure your logo looks great. Four Imprint offers thousands of options to choose from, including summer ready gear, brand and apparel, drinkware, outdoor, and more. Your order will be packed with care, delivered on time, and backed by their 360-degree guarantee. That's 4-imprint certainty.

Need your order fast? 4-imprint offers quick turnaround options, too. Visit 4imprint.com and see how easy ordering can be. Four imprint for certain. All right, two more. Liam Evans wants to know. What's your fondest memory whilst working for WWE? Honest memory.

Is there a match you like or a promo or something that you would go, hey, put that. That's a lot of promo. I didn't get a lot of promo, but I enjoyed. And I couldn't tell a particular match because I worked several matches. really enjoyed work JBL and everything okay because they liner match up and it was more of a skeletal structure and they would go out there and work old school fill in the blanks but i mean they did they had a format they wanted to follow but they'd go out there and they they wouldn't walk in talking about

everything they went out there felt proud and tried different things it went off page sometimes you know And that as a worker is fun, well, why. As a ref, it's more fun? Oh, for me, it'll always, yeah. But I had that background as a worker, too, you know, so that probably helped me. You're a little different than some of the rest. As a ref, you're, you're part of the deal. You're in the storyline, going with them.

You're just a different character, and you're not to be there until they need you to be there, for She. But, uh, that, uh, that was how I did. It's, uh, look, I love Jim, the different character. It's, uh, WCW was poor, being, and I didn't wish it was still around, man. Because there was, there was, it was such a good gig where we had no idea how well we had it back in the day. And, and tell, and, and W.E was okay. don't get me wrong you know there was some good parts about it they were the only gave it town they treated you according how's it yeah so you know so let's anyway i'm getting off the track

of the original that's fine taker and j bill that was your favorite town that's some of your favorite time yeah that was my that was my favorite bats to do with them uh as far as really favorite moments you work so hard up there that uh long you're always going So your career and all the stab, Sean. It's a whole video. Yeah, and then it ends up a blur. It's all because you have a time at home. It's a pit stop and line up your rent of cars and your hotels, pay your bills and

kiss your pins and catch a game. If you can't have it gone. Gone. Yeah. Last but not least, Jeremy Driscoll wants to know, Nick, how tired were you after sold out 1997 when you refereed every match? Were you tired? Oh, yeah, I was shot, man

I had me one or two cold, but I was so tired that I didn't know what I was about half a couple Eve after I was so tired after that I had beer, I want a six pack and I drank two of them and I said, that's done I'm on somebody Here's my four beers, somebody take them I'm not going to be it

I'm done Yeah Oh, what's Yeah, I'm glad I'd had it by then man and it was more My, it wasn't so much my body as my brain You know, I had so much running through my head off it.

It's in spots, it's tired, you know. It was like, you know, it's hard when you do shows at nighttime and you're on the first flight out the next morning. So to unplug your brain and unwinded up to really fall asleep. Trying to get some rest, yeah, because your adrenaline is jacked and your mind is going a thousand miles an hour. Now you're trying to make your eyes close, you know, and say, but, uh, yeah that was that was cool but i i feel you at doing stand-up comedy gigs you you get back to your hotel room

and then you should be resting because you got to travel usually the next day and you start going over you start replaying everything why didn't it say this why don't it do this i messed up this line or you messed up this spot or whatever the case may be it's crazy where you should be resting but you can't you can't you know that brain off and we mentioned earlier and i'd love for you to mention it here you even had to you revs so long for that pay-per-view that you had to take breaks and go use the bathroom whenever oh you don't yeah i looked at the i looked at the format and if they had like a video package or something coming up i would follow that whoever got beaten that match was the first one out i'd be with them and i was out that door straight to the bathroom because i knew

that there was a video package happened and I hit it real quick wash my hands and come in the side and try to shoot back up in the rig well I couldn't go back and forth for every match because I wasn't going to do all that walking I do had enough to do it without doing the entrance and exit for every single match you know said there wasn't there's not like intermission in a paper piece I had to pick two spots all the two spots in three hours two spots in three hours you had to go I had I had two small windows of opportunity hit and I took bobo that clue is number one right Yeah, oh, yes, I don't believe. That it's, or somebody had been stretching that promo out, man.

Well, Bonnie, how old time are you after your first mailbag show? Are you ready to go? Oh, man, this is awesome. I have a great time. Well, I love Interactive fan. It's great talking to YouTube, man. We've got a lot of golf. We're going to have fun, man.

Every other week, you can send your questions here to Nick Patrick. It's the mailbag with Nick Patrick. We're going to do this every other week. I mean, look, we don't want to start a rivalry with Keota, but we do want to be the best mailbag show, right? Yeah, he don't want to get back in the ring with us. Even with my bad knees, back, neck, wrist, and attitude, I'll tell you that right now. Well, the record, you're undefeated against Mike Keota, right? That's right.

That's a fact. I'm undefeated against every day. I never been to beat my life. Oh, God. man it has been a bludger hosting this with you uh in a couple weeks we're going to do episode number two so stay tuned to ad freestows.com that's where you can put your questions in will be on twitter and social media as well you can get all your questions in as well whether it's going to do with the wrestling whether you want to do just something you want to know personally

about the man nick patrick or something absolutely from left field whatever it is any questions you Nick Patrick has agreed to answer them every other week here at ad-free shows.com. Nick, thanks, man. This has been fascinating to hear you talk. I hope you had as much fun as I did. It's a blast. It's a blast. I'm really looking forward for doing this.

Thanks for adding. Thanks for everybody for subscribing to ad-free shows.com. And for consuming this, and we hope you get your question in for next episode. For Nick Patrick, I'm Cassio, Kid. Thanks everybody for joining us for the mailback. Episode 1 is in the books. We'll be relying on you for episode 2. Until then, stay mad.

Hey, guys, it's the hardcore legend Mick Foley here, and I need to call a quick timeout, a brief timeout, because I wanted to tell your listeners what I have been telling Foley is pod listeners for a while now about all the cool things happening over on ad-free shows.com. A brand new series has arrived on ad-free shows. Top of the card unpacks everything you need to know in the wrestling trading card space. And we're starting with the Grandaddy of the Mall, the 1982 Wrestling All-Stars Series A set.

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Now, the next week, I'm sitting in this chair, and that same guy, I don't think I had said a word to him that day. I don't think I had seen Rick up until the point he came through that door. And he's, you know, telling me to get up, get out of the chair. He's so pissed off. He's bleeding. I'm on the phone, and he's got blood running down to his chin because he bit his lip.

He was so mad. He bit the inside of his mouth. He's got blood on a backstage conference. I hadn't even gotten out of the chair yet. Ad-free shows members got to sit shotgun alongside Kevin Nash and click this co-host, Sean Oliver, as they watch back some of the worst matches in history. None more so than the yet hey.

Randy now. The mummy is. not Frankenstein. You don't walk with your arms straight out. With the arms out, right? And a Yeti is also not a mummy, but I don't know. Is it Jim Hurd? Who is here? Well, who's brainchild? Who gives a fuck?

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