Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Referee Nick Patrick On The nWo, What REALLY Happened At Starrcade 97, WCW Invasion, Taking Ref Bumps

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

Nick Patrick is a retired professional wrestling referee known for his time in WCW and WWE. He joins Chris Van Vliet from his home in Atlanta, GA to talk about how he started his career as a wrestler and then became a referee, getting hired by WCW, turning heel as part of the nWo, what really happened at the end of the Hulk Hogan vs. Sting match at WCW Starrcade 97, was he told to do a fast count or a slow count?, his match with Chris Jericho where Jericho had one hand tied behind his back, being part of the WCW Invasion angle in WWE, teaming with The Dudley Boyz against Mike Chioda, The Rock and Y2J, the art of taking a ref bump, why he believes WWE doesn't highlight referees anymore and more! Listen to Nick on "Mailbag Mondays" at http://adfreeshows.com Get your first month of Bluechew for FREE, just pay $5 shipping with the code CVV at http://bluechew.com Get $150 off your Plunge with the coupon code CVV at http://thecoldplunge.com Quote I'm thinking about: The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot. - Michael Altshuler For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://chrisvanvliet.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests.  Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are going. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Bleas! Here we go, my friends. Welcome back to another audio adventure on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris Van Fleet. I'm assuming you knew that because it is in the name of the show, Insight with Chris Van Fleet. But it's so great to have you here and great to have the legend with us.

Nick Patrick is here. one of the most famous referees from the Monday Night Wars, I mean, maybe even the most infamous referee, although I mean, between him and then Earl Hebner, I mean, those are two very infamous figures. But this is such a great conversation because Nick harkens back to a time when referees had names. We knew their names and they were allowed to have a personality and a character. And what he did with the NWO, if you were watching WCW back then, it would was just so good because he was the NWO's personal referee. He was screwing people and fixing matches. And it was just so, so entertaining. So we get into all of that. We get into WCW being sold,

the transition to WWE. We got in, we get into how he even started as a referee. And it's been brought up more than once online. But have you ever noticed how much Nick Patrick from the 90s with that O.T. and the curly mullet. Look like Danny McBride's character. Kenny Powers from eastbound and down. So it's like uncanny. It's almost like the two characters could be brothers or maybe even the same character. But look, Nick is such a great storyteller. You'll hear a bunch of stories here. And you can also hear him every other Monday on ad-free shows.com for Mailbag Monday. He answers your question. So if you have more questions for him after this episode, you can send him in ad-free shows He does one Monday, trades off with Mike Keota who does the following Monday.

So, I mean, that's a pretty good combo right there. And please share this episode with somebody who you know is going to love this and take a screenshot, share it on social media. I asked Nick if he had Twitter or Instagram. And to quote him, he said, no, I'm old school. I just have Facebook. So if you've seen a Nick Patrick Twitter account, just know that it's fake. That's not actually Nick Patrick.

That's just someone pretending to be Nick Patrick. And I don't understand why people would do that. But here we go. Please enjoy this conversation with the one and only, the legendary Nick, Patrick. Nick, wow, such a pleasure to have you on here because when you think of WCW and you think of Nitro, sure, you think of Goldberg and Sting and DDP and Steiner, but you think of Nick Patrick too. So I'm so pumped to have you on. Hey, thanks for having me, man.

It's good to see you. Good to see you, too. And I just, I love that you come from the era where referees had names. Like, that doesn't really exist anymore. Yeah, they kind of, they try to keep them all vanilla. I don't, I don't think they want to pay them residuals for down the road. But I think that's what they knew that. But I was very fortunate to come through the time I did.

I started back in the territory days and made that transfer from where the big companies, you know, vets gobbled up pretty much. much all the top guys and little territories all started dying off and it turned up to him being two big companies battling against each other and the transfer from territory days and you know with cable TV being so big and all of a sudden you know down in Georgia channel 17 was huge for Georgia championship wrestling which turned into WCW eventually down the road and uh we went from just being Georgia company to to go and we had we would be in Georgia and Alabama and you know all of our locals spent every other week we was going up to either northern Ohio and Michigan or southern

Ohio and West Virginia and just back and forth, you know, because those territories was hot for us at the time. And then next thing you know, now they realized, well, damn, we're being seen everywhere. We thought we traveled a lot back then when we was just like every other week going out of town. We little did we know what lied ahead of us. man i'm fascinated by the idea that uh you know moments in life can really shape who you become and what ends up with your life how close for you to actually becoming a wrestler instead of just a referee i did wrestle i started off as a referee and uh in 1984 i become a wrestler i wrestle for two years before i blew my knee out real bad i started off i shot an angle i was with georgia

championship wrestling right before right before crockett bowed it back from uh from uh jim barnett i was there when barnett still had it and uh they they was shot an angle with me and bob rupe i was i was going to become a wrestler there right before crockett bought it and uh then crockett came so i and i didn't really want to go back to being a ref or you know especially up there for them they if i wanted to go up there i wanted to work and try to make money and you know not being a ref and they kind of expected a lot of the refs to come run and tell and stuff and that was never my gig and So I ended up working independent, and my dad was down and wrestling in the Pensacola territory,

which is continental wrestling. And Johnny Rich was down there. They had a group of baby faces called The Rat Patrol. It was Johnny and Scott Armstrong, Steve Armstrong. I think Tonga Kid was there at first, but he had already phased out by the time I'd come along. Well, anyway, Johnny was at a party with Tommy, and big beef broke out, and Johnny was like trying to cover Tommy's back and something. Somebody stabbed him several times.

And it was, you know, he was out for a while. He was hurt, man. You could have killed it, but, you know, he was lucky he didn't hit any major organs. You know, it was some flesh ones, but he got stabbed two or three times and cut, you know. And so they needed, they needed somebody to fill that spot. And I was working, you know, I had just stopped working for Georgia Championship wrestling because Crockett said taking it over. And I was working little Indies of Gunko Enterprises, Ann Guckel was. running some indie shows.

I was working for her trying to get that little thing going and pop through my dad, hear my name in. He said, hey, Nick's available if you need somebody to fill that spot. And they said, oh, call it. You know, so in two weeks, I was down working in Pensacola territory, which was so cool, man. It was awesome. You lived down in Pensacola, and a lot of my friends lived in Gulf Rees, which was right

across the causeway. And the trips were short. The longest trip you had was every other week. you'd have to go up to like Huntsville or Musseltscholes. You know, then you might spend a night. But most, for the most part, the trips were short. And for the most part, you could be on the beach almost every day if you wanted to, you know, early in the day and, you know, go make your shot, come back.

It was such a cool life. And you made decent money and you learned how to work. That was the thing, you know, that you work with different guys who were really good at their craft. And you made money doing it. You know, a lot of guys who starved to death trying to learn their craft, you know, but there were a couple of territories and if you were fortunate enough to get in there, you could learn and still make money

and still do pretty good. I was an underneath wrestler there, and I made more as a referee in Georgia Championship wrestling because it was hot. It was traveling. I made more as a referee than a lot of guys did working underneath the middle of some of the different territories. So when I went down to Pensacola,

I made pretty close to my referee money, not quite, but real close. It was underneath guys. So I was tickled, you know. And I got to stay with it. Stay with my dad, you know, because we'd always worked different territories. We was together in WCW for a long time, but, you know, during the territory days, when I started referee and I was in Georgia Championship wrestling until I started skipping around to a couple of territories

before they all got gobbled up and I got hurt. But staying with Pop down in Pinch of Coal, man, that was a really fun time. He had changed his gimmick. My dad was known as he was the assassin, the original assassin. And he was wrestling as the flame down there at that time. and Bob Armstrong had put on the mask and become the bullet. So it was funny when we were kids, Pop and Bob had the big feud in Atlanta,

man, it was a big money for them. And they rekindled a feud, both of them with different gimmicks down in Pensacola. And I remember me, as the Rat Patrol, me and the Armstrong boys, we were watching the matches one time. We had gone out there. We were the young guys, man. We was young and hungry, going out there, working hard,

bam, bam, bam, still throwing down. down and we watched pop and Bob go out there and they had the people going absolutely freaking crazy and they hadn't even touched each other for about 10 to 12 minutes just all Shakespeare going to do it and then back off and it was intense you could just feel the electricity in the room and we all looked at each and I'm like holy crap we're going out there with bam bam bam bam bam doing all this stuff you know look at them they've just put in almost 12 minutes they hadn't even really locked up yet it was that was a pretty good learning moment right there but you can that when you're over. You know, when you're young and hungry, you've got to work young and

hungry. That's the only way you're ever going to get over. If you think you're over and you're not, then not is what you'll always be. Do you feel like when you started refereeing that like someone actually helped you like learn the ropes there? Because when you're wrestling, you know, like you're a lot of people help me. Because I think there's a lot of people who think like, oh, I've worked enough matches as a, as a wrestler. I know how to referee. Oh, no. So many, like, intricate things you don't know. When I knew that they wanted to do the gimmick with me, I had four guys that was coming and showing up early to the matches and working out in the ring with me. Great guys.

And you couldn't ask for any better guys. Now, think about going and learning business from Tim Horner, Brad Armstrong, Buzz Sawyer, and Ronnie Garman. Imagine being a young green guy and those four guys showing up early at buildings and getting in the ring with you and working. out with you and teaching you, man. That was, man, you can't, kids nowadays are spending so much money to go to these wrestling skills and you couldn't get any better experience than that, man. You know, because both perspectives healed, excellent heels, excellent baby faces and different styles, wrestling styles and brawler styles and punch, you know, Australian. It was a lot. It was, but it was a great learning process, man. And they had run me until I actually,

they would put a trash can out there by the, by the, by the, by the, uh, the ring and man we'd go till I blow once I threw up then I'd have to stop and we'd stop because I had to go referee matches that night too which at that point in time we didn't always have two or three refs sometimes one ref did the whole show so if I was in there bouncing around with those four

guys for an hour and then going to ref in the whole show by the end of the night man I was shot but it was a great experience and those were the guys actually got in the ring and helped me the most what do you think are like some of the intricate details of being a referee that the average fan might not see when they're watching a match. Mainly in live television production, there's a lot that we are involved in that people don't realize

because they have us with IFB, we got the earpiece on where people are talking to us and we keep time and if there's a message needs to be delivered, we do that. And you have to do it without being picked up on, you know, without the camera. So, you know, I mean, you'll see them talking, but you never know what you're saying. But it's so hard to do because there's a microphone on every ring post and on every camera. So there's like eight microphones in the area. And you're trying to get to guys and talk. So what I used to try and do is like if I'd get in and I'd like check for a choke.

And I'd be saying motion and no choke, but I'd be saying something else, you know. So that's how I did a lot of that. And you have taught low because there's eight microphones around. So you almost got to take your teeth and taught low, almost mumble. You got to being close enough where you got that eye contact with you. You know, I'm used to what I'd grab them by the wrist, I'd squeeze it. But as soon as they'd look up at me, I knew I had their attention. I'd mumble out whatever I need to say to them, you know, and keep moving.

You were involved in some of the biggest matches in WCW history. Yes. I mean, and we're going to spend most of this episode, I'm sure, you know, listing them off. But I'm curious when did you realize that WCW was really starting to gain the popularity that it had? When our houses turned around and there was actually people waiting at the building to see us when we pulled up. You know, it changed. You know, when you're number two for a long time and we was number two for a long time, it has a different feel, a different vibe. Everybody's looking at the numbers.

And all of a sudden, when you see those numbers and it changes everything. It changes the whole attitude in the locker room. The whole attitude of the office. And it puts everybody on a high, you know, and that was, it's a pretty incredible feeling, actually. You know, it's a feeling of accomplishment, especially when the enemy was as strong as our enemy was. You know, to come from being number two for as long as we was, all of a sudden, bam, now, now, and we're handing it to them pretty good all of a sudden, you know, not just, you know, we squeaked back first, and all of a sudden, bam, we started dropping bombs on them.

and they had to completely regroup. So, you know, that has us a great feeling of accomplishment, you know. Unfortunately, our folks didn't know, they knew how to build the fire. They just didn't know how to kindle it and keep it going. You know, the business is like a roller coaster. You know, it goes in cycles. You're going to up and peak and it's going to, you know, it's going to drop. But you have to learn how to get other things hot and other things ready so that that drop

is not as drastic as it can be and trying to get that turn back up, you know, to happen before you bottom out, you know. So then that takes good booking and good writing and good management. And it takes the whole machine, everything working together. During those 83 weeks when Raw was getting beaten by Nitro, was there ever a feeling backstage in WCW of like, man, this is great. We're never going to be the number two show ever again. No, you hope that.

But I never thought that. I mean, only a fool would think that. You know, that's underestimating your enemy. And knowing the enemy that we had, you know, there was always something in the fire. You know, and especially towards the end of WCW, you can really see the difference in the philosophy of the way things were run. And the WWE was, or WWF at the time, they were a family business, man, and they were building. Even though they had become public, they were building something to have. hand down to the next generation that you keep to build.

And it seemed like there toward the NWCW was more like just a business, like maybe even a bar business that you would get and you get it hot and you try to sell it and get out of it before it tanks out, you know. They had more that type of, it seemed like that attitude of running the business. It wasn't something that they were trying to hand down to their children and their grandchildren, you know, different philosophy. And I think that was one of the things that made a slip at the end too because, you know, WWE or F at the time was,

man, they dug their heels in. They were fighting for their lives. That was their family business. You know, you fight differently when you're fighting for your life. Then you do when, you know, it's just a business that you're paying. We'll sell them when it starts to tank out a little bit, you know. Yeah. Do you remember a specific match, Nitro, pay-per-view,

where you went, huh, I feel like, were not on the same path that we were on before? It wasn't a particular TV. It was a time frame. And it wasn't exactly when the guy first come in, because I wanted to give everybody a chance. But after a while, once Vince Russo had come in and was in charge of writing everything

and had as much stroke as he had, could get people fired if they disagreed with it. You know, I mean, after watching and listening to him, I grew up in a business, man. It's my life. It's not a hobby to me. Even to this day with the company that I'm building, I take care of my,

I got my elderly mother and I got an autistic son. I take care of them, I'm running a wrestling company, and I'm not running it so I can book my buddies that I hang out with, and we can, you know, so I can get myself a belt, put it on me. You know, that ain't what I'm doing. I'm trying to make a business out of it.

Anyway, that's how we approach it. Every now and then, I might get lost on questions because I get co-carried away, starting telling stories in my mind goes to so many different places when you ask me. But as far as a different particular match, no, I didn't feel a particular match, but the particular era, a few months in, maybe six months in to Rousseau, coming in. I can feel, man, if we keep going down this road, it ain't coming back up. And it was right, you know, so. Well, look, you tell great stories. This is why you have, this is why you have your show on Ad Free Show's Mailbag Monday with Nick Patrick, which everybody should tune

into if they're listening to this. Wherever they're listening to this, they can go find your podcast. Congrats on that, by the way, Nick. Well, thank you very much. It's a lot of fun, man. I think fans call in they don't call it and they write in questions and Cassio reads them out and tell it who they're from and we talk about anything man it's cool and mostly it's all wrestling questions on because my career spans so long so long it could yeah I mean I started back and I mean man I've been around here as long as rocks man I started back in the territory you know my first gig actually this is kind of funny I was in the fifth grade I ring announced when I was in the fifth grade boy but my day yeah the summertime when I wasn't going to school

my dad had taken me into towns with him every now. I think it was Statesboro, Georgia. And I went with him, but they didn't have anybody to announce. And my dad's, oh, the kid will do it. And man, I didn't scare me. Because I was in school.

I was that kid. I was shy, man, when I was young. I'm still kind of shy. You never think of much as I run my mouth now. But when I was a kid, I was that kid that I, if you had to read in class, I was like, oh, God. You know, I'd be like hiding behind the kid from me,

hoping they didn't call my name. But I just kind of wanted to, blend in and just, you know, make it through, you know. And now Pop said, oh, the kid will do it. I'm out here going to be the emcee for a frigging wrestling show. And I'm in the fifth grade. So I was scared to death, man. They put me out there.

I didn't have a microphone. I didn't have a megaphone. I didn't have a police bullhorn. I had nothing, man. But there's a little bitty building. And I was a little kid in the fifth grade. And pop told me what to do and gave me all the, you know, all the information I needed. Just read this and add.

And you show me some body gestures. And I was like, well, this point. They gave me 10 bucks for it at the end of the night. And I was like, hey, I'll do it anytime y'all need me to do it. You know, when we talk about the downfall of WCW, you know that there's a lot of fans that will point to certain moments, right? Like the finger poke of Doom or, you know, I'm sure we'll talk a bunch about it, like Starcade 97. People look at some of these moments and go, after that, it was all downhill. You don't think it was one of those specific moments?

It was a combination of things. You know, it was all those things, you know, one of those individual things by itself couldn't have made that drastic of a move. But all of them culminating together, to me, is my opinion of why it went down, especially that Starcate. That's the most talked about, man, that was 25 years ago. And they still talk about it. There's people, any time, people want to know about that, man.

That was as crazy as that was and as odd and as horrible as it felt while I was doing it. Because it was just, if you've heard the story, then you know what I'm talking about. It's not, I'll tell you the story if you want to hear it. I'm sure people don't want to hear it. Okay, well, here's the story. I showed up for the biggest pay-per-view and gross. in wrestling history money-wise, and I knew I had the main event. And as soon as I get to the building, which was really odd, because I get along good with Eric now.

But back then, it wasn't like we didn't get along. It's just he was a boss, and I was a little front referee. And, man, I had a lot of things going on in my life. And, you know, egos and all that stuff. And he had to cater to a bunch of egos. And I didn't have time for all that crap. People are people, man. But anyway, I show up to the building, and, you know, him and I hardly ever had

ever had a conversation. I'd say hello, we'll shake hands, and that was it. Well, he'd come up and met me as soon as I got there. And I've been, I still have my bag on my shoulder, hadn't made it to the locker room yet. And he says, here's what we're doing today. And he gave me a straight finish. And I said, that's okay.

That's, you know, kind of plain. I figured that they'll dress it up during the day. And so, so okay. You know, and he told me to just do a straight, One, two, three count, you know, not a fast count. And that was when Hogan covered things. So anyway, I'm there, and an hour or so goes by, you know, you're there all day long. And back then, Hogan went over his stuff.

He had his own locker room. And nobody went in there except for who he was working with and who he invited in there. A security guy would go somebody take him in there, you know. I wasn't one of those guys, you know. But I was cool because I was good enough. I knew what, you know, all you had. just tell me what you want me to do before we walk out to screen and I'm going out and curtain and I'm good to go. And they knew that.

But anyway, Eric told me how he wanted it to go. Sometimes, okay. So Hulk comes up to me first, a couple hours in, you know, while we're there, he goes, hey, Nick, about that count, man. Nice to slow, man. One, two, three. I'm thinking, okay, that's normal. I can't do it slow. That'd be ridiculous.

I said, what's, we're going to, there's a heat in that, you know. But I also, so about an hour or so later than that, Sting comes up to me and says, hey, Nick, you know, about that count. Rapid Fire, baby, one, two, three, that, that, that's, okay. So now I got one guy that's a franchise, Hulk Hogan, the other guy that's, the other franchise, Sting, both, both telling me, too, come. the same finish but to complete whether you count faster whether you count slow completely changes the the complexion of the finish you know and you never talked to both of them at the same time together no no they never got us ever together all of the other in the room at the same time with hulk sting me and eric all together in the room that never ever once happened not

not so i was like okay man and uh so I looked for Eric all day long. He had his own match, so he had someplace wherever he was. Man, I could not find him all day long. So I think to myself, well, they said, straight count it. So I'll straight count it. And back then, my straight count used to be a little bit slower than normal because I had the old school. One and two, a little more drama.

But at that time, the WWF had guys counting like their butt was on fire, man. One, two, three, you know, like they were trying to put out a friggin' fire. fire. So I said, well, let's go somewhere in between there. I'll go a little faster than I normally did kind of a mild WWF count. You know, that's kind of way if you look at it, that's what I ended up given. Yeah. And the announcers, I guess, when they had, I wasn't in a production meeting either. You know, I was, I had other matches to handle. So once I assigned who were refs or who was going to do what, I was trying to find out my stuff. And so I, you know, like I said, I never, I just, the difference. I just gave it a regular count that was a little slightly faster than my normal count, but by no means a fast count. And nor was it a slow one either. That was, you know, so I figured what the hell I'll split the difference and, and nobody will get what they want. But the whole time, I really felt like what it was, I felt like they were setting me up to be the fall guy. so because I figured you know because

Holk could have got me fired he's hey man Nick Patrick I don't want to work with that guy I don't want him but I could get fired and Sting could have done the very same thing you know so I'm like I'm going to do exactly what Eric said to do you know but it'll be different

than normal because I'm going to do a little faster than normal or yeah I didn't know what to do so that's ended up being what happened and man I got to the back and I was waiting for somebody to come up I felt like I do that if everything went south and people from turner started bitching and never started by start bitching it's an easy thing to do and say well that damn nick patrick didn't do what i taught him to do

fire me and can everybody carry on you know so that that's what i felt was happening so i went to the back and i got dressed and i showered and i'm waiting for somebody to come and give me my pink slip and i'm like well nobody said a damn thing to me i grabbed my bag and i got the hell on out of the door got in my car and I was in a hotel and everyone said, well, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen to have to have the bar at TV. And we never spoke of it ever again until I did the podcast

with Eric Bischoff about that match. Yeah, you did the watch. That was the first time we talked about it. That's the first time him and I ever spoke about that match in 25 years. Not after it happened. You know there's people that say

man, this was such a big, important pay-per-view. There must have been a way to track down Eric Bischoff. You must have been able to talk to somebody who could find him. I'd look everywhere. And Doug Dillinger was a security guy asked him, you know where Eric's at? I don't know. Okay. He didn't want to be talked to, okay? He made a decision and he didn't want and he knew that he was going to get hammered from all sides all day long because of that decision. We had his own match to think of and the whole rest of the show to think of, you know. What did it come down to?

Was it that Hogan didn't want to lose clean? He didn't want to put over Sting? Is that what it really going down to? When we had the podcast with Eric, what it was is they felt that Sting had not put into the match what he should have. He didn't have a tan. Yeah, that was a tan, but he wasn't his pump. And if you look at, you know, he wants the match back. His costume changed, you know.

But he had a different costume, but his arms were still big. He didn't, you know. And, you know, the tan. was just a metaphor, you know, and Eric said that, and I kind of agree, but I think mentally, frame of mind-wise, they were different because

he didn't really participate in the construction process of it. No, I wasn't active, and he just like, and Eric said he showed up and said, okay, how are you guys going to screw me? You know, and also, for the biggest, you know, that was the attitude going in,

and there's a, you know, somebody sent me a picture of me and Hulk and staying just as the bell rang and we're all standing there and I'm looking at the body language of all of us and man we looked like three guys that did not want to be there and when I watched the matchback I felt horrible during it because I was so much pressure man that was a huge match and I felt like I was getting set up to get fired and I you know and so I'm like man so it was it was horrible but when we watched it back on on the on that podcast there was a point in time once it started very

uncomfortably. But then they got into it and had actually a decent match and the people got with it. It didn't get uncomfortable again until right as we'll go ahead into the finish. Even the finish makes, like when you're watching it, one, two, three,

if you're a fan seeing this live, it makes sense. It's everything that happened after that where you went what? Yeah, it was Brett coming out still, you know, and starting to match again when it, you know, when I didn't screw Sting. You know?

Yeah, that was what was so confusing. He was the only one that really kind of got burned out of the deal. Because looking back on it, and if you watch it back and watch the people at the end of it, the pop was through the roof. Sting still got the belt. And Hogan kept all of his heat. The only person that got burned out of it was Brett. And I'm sure that that was thought, well thought of it, done by design.

Yeah, that's so bad. And that wasn't done by me on design. I did what I was told to do, you know. So. I felt bad for Brett watching back because he's like, that was a fast count. You're like, no, no. No, there's guys in WWE to count faster than that. Anyway, that was the deal.

And I never got fired. You know, I think I'm just glad they got through it, you know. It was like, oh, that was over. Let's get the hell on from here. You know, I truly think is what they felt. it comes down to though like why couldn't sting just win clean like that would why didn't that that could make sense i think when he didn't participate in the finish when they didn't look like he'd been in the gym when all those factors changed the minds of the people because Hulk

had creative control at that time and from according to eric he had never really used it up to that point and uh you know it never pushed an issue on any of the things that, you know, that was written and come up with, you know, because he was helping in the construction of those things anyway. But at that point, he did. So, but according to Eric and during that other podcast, that that was why, because they felt that Sting wasn't, you know, for the biggest match, possibly wrestling history.

And if you think about it, damn, it could have been. It was built up. That could have been, people could be talking about that match right now, just like they do about flare and steamboats. and macho man in steamboat. Even though it wouldn't have been that kind of a technical type of match, it would have been box office personnel because they both had the psychology. Hulk has the psychology and Sting had the fire.

And it could have gone down in history as, you know, as memorable as one of those. For that reason instead of for the reason that it did. There's lots more to get into with Nick Patrick. But first, I want to say a big welcome to our new sponsor. Blue Choo. Yeah, we are on board with Blue Choo guys, and they are hooking you up in a big way. Your first month is free when you use the promo code CVV at checkout. You just have to pay $5 for shipping. Yeah, your first month for free. Just use the promo code CVV and pay $5 for shipping. Blue Choo is a unique online service that delivers the same active ingredients as Viagra,

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And of course, don't forget to use that code. CVV at checkout to get your first month for free. Just pay $5 for shipping. Yeah, your first month for free. free. What a great way to kick this off with Blue Chew. So if you've ever been thinking about becoming a member at bluechew.com, do it now with that code CVV to get your first month for free and just pay $5 for shipping. Are you surprised that here we are 26 years later, Sting is still wrestling? Yeah, because I talked to him, man, I don't know how long ago it was. I guess time

I'm going to go by this, maybe six, eight years ago, and he had a neck problem. And he told me that if he took the wrong bump, the doctor told him that he'd be paralyzed. The next thing, I know he's back in the ring of wrestling again. I'm like, holy crap, did you get it fixed, or did you change your mind, or what's going on, you know? But, you know, that's, I've seen other guys do it.

You know, as Dean Malenko come back, he had a big giant scar down his neck. There's been a couple of guys that said that neck surgery, and that Daniel Bryan, you know, different guys. I've had to major neck surgery and told that they're finished, the edge. And here they come, they're right back, you know. I know that with physical therapy, you can get to where you're feeling 100% again, even 110, but after time, those injuries, when you get older,

those injuries are going, they're going to let you know they're there, even though you've rehabbed them. I'll tell you right now, I'm 62 years old. I've had five surgeries, and man, there's days I feel good because I train and I work out with my son. And there's other days I had done anything wrong. I felt like somebody just beat my butt. I'm like, oh, God. I tell them sometimes people, they say,

Nick, you're going to get back in the ring? I said, no, I got bad knees, a bad back, a bad wrist, a bad neck, and a bad attitude. I am not getting back in the ring. Are they all referee-related injuries? No, most, a lot of, was wrestling. Actually, I was my main one when I was wrestling. One was refting and the rest were car.

recs getting to towns are coming home from towns. Oh, man. I was in several car wrecks. But in ring accidents and injuries were only two or three, actually, other than concussions. You know, sometimes you get concussed and don't realize it, you know. But my worst concussions actually even come from car wrecks too. I only got a couple of them from working. And it wasn't because somebody tagged me real hard.

It was from taking a big bump in my head snapping back to hit the mat, you know. But other than that, that's the extent of my injuries. I was told everybody I was like the evil conneble of referees. I had so many broken bones and surgeries. I have both my knees redone. I got somebody else's ACL in my left knee. I don't have one at all in my right knee. And my wrist got, I had pins in my wrist that they took back out.

They got snapped back in a car wreck. My neck, as they told me, they wanted to look at my neck. I'm like, man, tell my hands were all. arms go numb and I actually got no other choice to leave my neck alone. And I wanted to put a spinal cord stimulator in my back surgery. I had one back surgery. And I rejected that too. I just, I do a lot of stretching. I use a lot of ice and I work out with my son. And then I got myself off of all the pain pills and stuff I had to, man. Because, you know, wrestling, especially here I come through, man, we ran pretty while.

You know, we worked hard and we played hard. And you'll come to a point in life a lot of times, okay, well, this is a road right here that I'm on. And if I don't get off this road, this is a dead end road. This road ends up in the graveyard. And I'm getting off of this damn road and going down to know. And a lot of my friends didn't come to that realization. That's why the list is so long guys.

You know, it's just, and you can sit and try to compile the list and think of all the guys and look at it. and start talking to other people and other names and start popping in. That's how many, it's just unbelievable. And I decided that my legacy to my kids wasn't going to be that they found their dad dead in a hotel room. And I realized that my autistic son, he loves to work out. And it's really hard to live a life and give him a life outside of sitting and watching

television, passed out in your recliner on pain pills and muscle relaxers, you know. So I got myself off all that crap. just if I heard I hurt man but I found it stretching and exercise and doing and and ice a lot I can't do heat especially on my lower back man my lower back if I put heat on there both my feet go numb I got my left foot's been numb for about 10 years now you know how your foot feels when it goes to sleep and my left foot's been asleep for 10 years and it's funny my right when my back really really acts up my left my left leg will hurt and my left foot will be like throbbing But my right leg, which I never really used to have any weird sensations yet,

but my right leg is a damnest thing because nerve damage makes you feel weird things. My right leg will feel like it's wet, like my pants are wet. And I'm like, I can touch it and feel it. And they're not wet, but they feel wet. And it's just from nerve damage, you know. Nerves send out weird impulses, you know. I'm grateful I still walk and I do cardio with my son. And my son's 37 years old, and he's autistic, and he kicks my butt in that gym, man.

And I kick his too, though. So it's funny, I tell everybody I take care of myself and in reality, he takes care of me as much as I take care of him. And he's helping me right now. He'll take care of my mom. My mom's 85 and it has dementia. And unfortunately, it's not in a good stage right now. She seems to be getting worse pretty regularly. But, man, if it wasn't for him helping me out, it'd really be tough.

But on a lighter note, he's a young man that is happy every day. I love that. And it makes me wonder sometimes, you know, even though he's autistic and I'm always trying to strive to help. I'm like, damn, he's better off than me. He's happy every day, you know. I get grouchy about this. I got business over here. I got to go take care of this.

You know, but he's just like, man, just so cool and so mellow. And I've seen him react at a couple like stone ass of murals. emergencies, man. One time his brother, I was babysitting his dog, get a little female pit bull. She was sweet as could be. And she'd just come walking in from the backyard and walked up in my feet and just collapsed, man. And it was like, holy crap. And I was alone with Nick. And it was father's day. I know it wasn't

probably. It was some holiday that all the vets were closed except in one emergency clinic. So here I am crying on the phone and I'm grabbing this dog and I'm trying to run. And Nick, man, he's open the doors. It's just like, I didn't have to tell him squat. He all of a sudden, like, like, he just put autism on a check for a minute. And his emotions was so, he was so cool. He, uh, it's funny.

He thinks of things in different terms. Like, like people passing away. You know, we all, we all grieved. It's hurt, I just recently lost my dad. And it's been almost two years now. So it's not, it's not that recent. It's almost two years now. But in Nick's mind, because we told him, we know, we're Christians.

We believe it. When you die, you go to heaven. You go to heaven. You can be with God and you go with the people. And you see the people that do your family and friends that have passed before you. So in his mind, that's what he thinks. So in past, Nick couldn't understand why we were so sad because mom was going to be with God and see all these friends and that to die to die. You know, and so I'm hoping that that stays with him for life, you know, as, you know.

Because so far it has. And Pop was so far, the only really close thing that's happened. But, man, he was more of a trooper than any member of the family. He understood exactly what was going on. But Big Nick, man, when the doo-doo hits the fan, Big Nick is a cool customer. Man, I'd like to have him in my corner. The fact that you started off as a wrestler, I think, really helped you take ref bumps. Yes.

There's a science. There's an art to taking a ref bump versus taking a wrestler bump. Yeah, you don't want to look. I never wanted to look like the wrestlers because then it looks like everybody can do this. You know what I mean? You did what people like to call the Patrick Flop. Yeah, I told him, I said, man, you don't have to shoot me out of a cannon. You can walk up and flake me and I'll act like you shot me with the 357, man. I'd flail my arms and throw myself and do a little roll. And yeah, I tried, but I wanted to be, I wanted it to be different, you know, and it worked for me. You know, and I never really hurt myself doing it. I was lucky.

I hit my elbow a couple of times, playing, doing it on the floor. But for the most part, I was fine. And I didn't really have to take a whole lot of crazy bumps until I did the NWO gig. And then I was taking, then I took everybody's finish in WCW. and then when Vince bought it, I took everybody's finish up at WW2 eventually. What was the hardest finish to take? Power bombs.

Because even when you're going to make sure you land flat. And even if you land flat, you're landing hard, you know, and it's going to not wind out of you a little bit. That to me was, that was the hardest bump, you know,

the most impactful bump. There's different bumps that are more, more of a degree of difficulty. Like I had big show one time, press slammed me out over the top rope, out onto some guys out on the floor. That's a little more of a degree of difficulty. But I had big Scott Norton,

a couple of got big guys down there to catch me. So I felt fairly comfortable with it, you know. And it looked pretty cool, too. It ended up making the cover of WCW magazine at the time. But I remember I was scared. And as he threw me, my left hand caught that top rope. And the rest of me looked like I was parachute.

and they caught that and that ended up being on the cover of the magazine. I thought it was a pretty cool shot. But, yeah, that was a more degree of difficulty. But the power bomb is this, man, especially if you take it like from somebody like Kevin Nash, you're up there. A long way to fall. Yes. Yeah.

And if he wanted to put some oomph into it, man, it'd be hard for you. You know, he was always good, though. He would get you up and he gets you where you could lay out and land flat, you know. It protects you. The idea of making a heel referee, I think, is brilliant. Whose idea was this to make you exclusively the NWO referee? That was Kevin Sullivan's idea. He'd come up and he approached Eric and then, I guess, the two of them pretty much hatched it.

But for the most part, it was at the beginning, almost everything, was Kevin. He was the one that come to me and told me what they wanted me to do. And they wanted it to progress a little slower, actually, that it did. You know, but man, it just ignited all of a sudden. You know, and all of a sudden people were pissed off at me. And I think that the one that really, when they realized that they had to go ahead and quit milking and start going with it, as when we was at Sturgis and they had me do the deal where Lex went to rack a guy and he clipped me with his feet. And I went down.

When I went down, I took his knee out, clipped his knee. And was it an accident? Was it not an accident? I've been denying all these things. But when that happened from that point on, they were hot at me. And milking it and trying to do it slow, wasn't going to work anymore.

So they went ahead and greenlighted it. And, man, I ended up getting some heat out of that thing. That was a lot of fun. That was probably the most fun I had in the business. Other than when you're learning and beginning, you're beginning working stages since you're becoming a wrestler, that's awesome fun too.

Don't get me wrong. But as far as when being in an international, company when it becomes all pretty much all about business, that was the most fun that I had working for big companies. Any time that you got on the mic and you got to cut a promo, it was so good because the crowd hated you so much. Thank you, man. That was fun too, because they didn't put me into a box with my promos. They come up to me and they would give me bullet points. They wanted me to get over, okay, say this, this and this. Just work. that into your deal.

And I would go off by myself. I used to go sit in my car, you know, so I could check out and facial expression and stuff. And I'd just come up with my own spiel and practice it, you know, in the car where I could get away for everybody and be quiet. And I'd not hear 10 things going on in the background. I could focus my attention. And I just would get into character and try to think

to what I would say, you know, being a liar, trying to wheezel my way through and make excuses and fibs about what I'd never, you know, that was, I'd never do that. I was that purely by accident, you know, until it was time to become an ass. And then I would, you know, then I'd amped it up more, but I still approach it the same way. I'd go out to myself and they'd give me the bullet points and I'd go out and put it together and come back and do it.

But like nowadays, they give these kids these big long scripts and they have to write, read it, and remember it, and they practice it over and over before the show. I wouldn't, my promos would have sucked if I hadn't done. it that way. Honestly, because I wouldn't have had the feel, I wouldn't have had the emotion, it wouldn't have been me. There was a little part of me in the other, you know, in the Nick Patrick character

that may let me be able to deliver, you know, and otherwise you're just and you can see it in a lot of these kids' eyes too. Some of them are very good at it, you know? But the greener kids, you can tell that, you know, the wheels are turning, they're trying to think of what the next line

is instead of getting that real facial expression that could have got that point across, you know, because your promos are as important as with body language and facial expression as your work is. Did anyone ever tell you that you looked like Danny McBride,

the actor Danny McBride from Eastbound and Down when you had the hair and the goate? Oh, yeah, that and another guy that in Kenny something. That's the character he played, Kenny Powers. Oh, Kenny Powers, yeah. Yeah, I hear that a lot. I heard that a lot back when I had the mullet back in the day. Yeah, I get that sometimes.

That's funny. I never heard from Cape Hours. It's a spitting image. I mean, if there's ever a movie made about Nick Patrick's life, I think we know exactly who's going to be playing you. Yeah, and if they ever do anything where we do a heel switch referee gimmick, man, we could have him go in and make the false count. And I mean, we could do the Hebner gimmick over.

We can redo the Hebner gimmick. I want to go through some of your greatest hits here and some of like your most memorable moments from WCW and WWE. And I want to start with the match with Chris Jericho where he had one hand tied behind his back. Oh, man, that was a blast. They came in and asked me if I wanted to do the match. And I said, yeah, and I got to know Chris and went to a concert with him and we talked. And he constructed the whole thing, man.

And I knew from very early on that he was going to be a big star. It's a matter of being in the right place at the right time and giving him a chance. But he'd come up with all of that, man. And the only thing I'd come up with was him slamming me off the top at the end to set up the kick. And the rest was him. And it was so fun. I wasn't in shape either, man.

I was trying to start working out a little bit. They hit me with us. Okay. And back then I smoked cigarettes and stuff. I'm an idiot, right? But I smoked cigarettes and stuff back then, man. And I had to go out there. I got going 13 minutes live with a kid like Jericho,

even with one hand time behind his back. you got to go a little bit. And I was taking hip tosses and stuff, you know. But I'd always bail out of the ring and regroup, catch my wind, you know. And he was gracious, man. He let me get some heat on it. It let me do a couple of things to him to set up him, him beating me up in the end.

And it got a great reaction, man. And it's funny, we did a German tour right after that happened. And for some reason, I guess they had trouble getting buses. so they rented a bunch of cars. And we had drivers for every car, man. And it was so cool. Me and Booker T got in one car. And they let us just have our own car.

We let people pile their extra bags in there. It was me and Booker T and our driver, man. And we went to all these different towns. And it was fun. And we said, hey, man, stop here. I said, oh, hey, where can we eat? We're a good bar. It was a lot of fun.

So anyway, it was the last day of the tour. And we all kind of got to know our drivers a little bit. And everybody got to let their hair down and drink because we didn't have to go anywhere. Last night, you know, last show was over. And we're in the bar. And all of a sudden, on the damn sports network on the bar, that match come on. And we're all in there hammering getting drinking. And all these drivers of the cars, they're like, ha-ha, because they hadn't seen it yet, right?

And, man, that whole bar went wild. Man, they were laughing their butts off at me. Every time I'd make one of my faces or I'd do something. I made a lot of my mean faces in that match. But they popped for me, man. And at the end of it, they all gave me the round of applause at the end. We all drank a beer to it. It was really a cool experience, man.

But the match itself was so much fun. And Chris is so good and so smooth. And like I said, I knew back then he was going to be a big star. And he did and still is. One of the other really big moments is you refereed the very first match of Nitro ever. Which match was that? This is Liger versus Pilman.

Oh, really? Okay, cool. I love that you don't even know that. No, I didn't know that. That's pretty amazing, though. That is cool. Liger and Pilman, I remember working with those guys back in the day. I don't remember the particular match you're talking about, but they had great matches. Working with Pilman was awesome back in the day, too. I got a funny Pilman story. I work with Pilman at Center Stage, and they wanted him to get juice.

didn't want to, but he did. And so he hid his head. It was just like a little thing trickle. And so he goes, hey, Nick, and he goes to hand the damn blade to me. And he just went boom, and he stuck it right in my bicep. And I went, and I looked down and there's this damn little blade sticking out of my bicep. I went, oh, crap. So I flicked it, that came off, and I stepped on it.

And I'm looking around like, oh, crap. So they keep wrestling, and I reach down, and I scoop it up. I get it in my hand. I ended up getting rid of it, right? So now I'm working a match, and I look, and Brian's got like two little drips and the sweats almost washing it away. And I looked down at my arm, and I had a trail of blood going from my bicep, down my forearm, down my finger, and dripping off my finger.

I went, holy shit. I saw that. And now the referees and now the announcers like, I wonder what happened in a quadrice. Yeah. Yeah. Well, something. happened. He got his bicep, he all of a sudden started bleeding from the bicep, right? Oh, that was crazy.

I didn't know what, you know, I just had to kind of keep going with it. You know, I tried to wipe it, but, man, you know, that much blood is just being a wipe it makes it worse, you know? At least it was just kind of a stream for a minute. And when I look, and I've got a scar to this day, it's not, yeah, it's a, you can't really see it on this, of course. But I got about, I don't know, I guess it's about an inch long. Yeah, but it was funny. We got to the back. I said, he realized what happened when he saw my arm bleeding.

We got in the back, he'd come up to me, goes, dude, I'm so sorry. And I looked at him and I just busted it out laughing. And when I busted out laughing, then he busted out laughing. There we both stand laughing at him with one trickle of blood, me looking like I did the transfusion. Here's a moment you definitely won't forget. Scott Hall making his debut through the audience during the match.

rapper. Yeah. I was ready for that. You know, a lot of people, Eskis, did we know what was going on? And we did. I forgot who guys was in the ring. I think it was either Wayne Bloom or Mike Enos, one of the guys. Mike Enis and Steve Dahl. Steve Dahl. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But we knew it was coming, but I was anxious to see the reaction because, you know, they kept everything so much under wraps back then as to what was going to happen. They wasn't surprised at boys. They didn't want in K-fame sheets.

They wanted to keep it out of that, you know, unless there were certain things they wanted leaked, and then they had leaked themselves, you know. But that was really a pretty well-kept secret, but, you know, they did let us that was in the match know that there was a point in time that he'd be coming out. We didn't know when, but we knew it was going to happen. But then that match just stops.

Yeah, yeah, that's, I guess that's what they wanted us to do. You know, like, oh, we're rolling in awe of what happened, you know? And that kind of makes sense in a way. It put more emphasis on his intro than it did the match. But that was what it was intended to do. And bad for those guys in the ring, but it accomplished what they wanted to accomplish. Walk me through the very last episode of Nitro,

because I remember watching that live. I remember it all unfolding with Shane being there. what was the atmosphere like backstage there? Everybody was kind of really apprehensive and wondered when it was going to have jobs. And the crew really felt bad because crew people, that was their gig. And they turned down other gigs, you know, other sports gigs. And because they had booked up for like six, eight months or whatever, you know. So then all of a sudden now they don't have six, eight months where they're working.

They've got to try to get out in the flow and get on with football, which already has people, or get on with basketball, and it already has people, you know. And it was really hard on them. And it was hard for the crew because especially the night before we had a house show. And from all the people that was at the house show, they held a meeting and they told us,

hey, there's a lot of rumors that we're selling to WWE or to WWS at the time. We just, guys, we want to tell you all that it's all bullshit. And we want you to show up down here and this is going to work business as normal. You know, there's a lot of rumors, a lot of talk, but just don't listen to the rumors because it's not true. Wow.

And we're like, okay. So we show up and there's Shane and Jerry Briscoe and a bunch of security guys. And they had us all going to a room, which I was cool with it because, you know, I was ready to try and make the ride. Because I was there for Black Saturday, too. I'm one of the only guys, people that I know that was Black Saturday and at Panama City. And it was really similar. You know, he offered everybody a job that was there if you wanted to come and work for him, you know. It was a, but I felt more comfortable, you know, the first time at Black Saturday, I turned it down and stayed with the people I was working with, you know.

I could get in. That's a whole other funny story, too. I could have got in on the ground floor at WWE. And I didn't, oh, man, dude, I'll tell you that story later. That's funny. But what was I talking about before I started rambling about that? So you were there, you're in a room with Shane, Jerry Briscoe. Oh, yeah.

So we're in a room, Shane, and Jerry Brisco. And I was cool because I've known Jerry Briscoe since I was a kid. And I felt comfortable talking to him. And I knew Jim Ross because I wrestled. When I was a wrestler, I was down in Mid-South in Louisiana. He was there, and I wrestled there for a few months. And my dad knew him real well. So I knew some people, you know, and I felt comfortable that whatever they told me was true.

And so I sat and I talked to him, and they told everybody, that everybody would be offered a job and that they were going to have a big meeting in Atlanta and that they would sit down and talk to everybody individually. So I was very fortunate. By that time, I had become an agent at WCW and was an employee. So when they got bought out and everybody, they told me to take, I was off for like six months before they started using me. And a lot of guys were.

A lot of guys went to their little training thing that they had. So guys could get used to working because they had a 20-foot ring instead of an 18-foot ring. And they just, it's a different company, you know, up there. You know, and they was trying to get guys acclimated to what they were about to get into. But what a surprise that must have been? Like, you just show up for work and you're like, Joe, it was. And then there was a lot of people crying and upset because they knew that that was their, you know, their last.

last time that they were going to be there and that things were going to change. But that was pretty amazing, man. I was offered a job and then they came and I sat down with Jim Ross when he came to town and sat and talked to him and they didn't offer me the agent job and I didn't want to go in up there as an agent because agents up there, man. They had a, and I was really glad I thought that because I was right when I got up there. I heard Steve Kern say when he first went up there, they'll pull you aside and say,

if you're going to survive up here, you have to learn to be able to swallow a great big mouthful of shit like it. So whether you're right and wrong, you know what I mean? And that's how you survive up here. And that's not, man, that's just really not me. You know,

I figured I could still have a job, which I really needed a job. You know, I told you, my son's autistic. My kids were still in school. I wanted to get my kids through school. And so I said, hey, referee job was fine.

with me, you know, and they offered me. I took a $50,000 a year cut in pay, guaranteed base pay. I was making a certain amount as an agent at WCW, and they offer you a certain amount base pay at WWE, but you get paid a percentage. And I was always, I always got more than my base pay, always, a good bit more. So, you know, but on pay. paper to look at it, to go from one and the other to be a $50,000 difference. You get a percentage of what, the gate? Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, then that ended up turning into a whole other thing, you know, the invasion.

I mean, we'll get it. It might as well get into it now. You had a match with Earl Hebder. Oh, that was fun too, man. Earl is a good friend of mine. And it was funny. They got us together. and Earl had heat from doing the Montreal scruid job.

Of course, he still has some from that. Yeah, and they wasn't sure who was going to really be the heel items thing because they knew, first off, when WWE bought us, all the WW fans hated everybody from WCW. They were like, they hated us. Even if he was a baby face, they hated you. So I already had heat from being the NWO thing. Plus they hated me because I was WCW.

So I said, and they're going to hate me. And I guarantee they're going to take me as to heel. I said, really? You think so? I said, watch this because I had the next match. And I popped out through the curtain and I did like I used to do when I was a heel at WCW. And I was on my way to ring, I bust out to the curtain with that meanbug face and looking at everybody. Like I was challenging the whole dang world.

Because to me, it really gets heat. If you see somebody and in your mind, you know, you say, I can whip this guy. you know, and he's giving you the mean mug and that gets heat to me, you know. And I did it. I walked out to that curtain. I walked to the top of the ramp and I looked on the sides of the arena with my and, man, they went off booing me because they already hated me

because I was WCW and the end of the old thing too, you know. But doing that, it, man. And so when I come back to the curtain at the match, they went, okay, you're going to be the heel. That's okay. The United States Soccer Federation present the U.S. Soccer Podcast. My name is David Goss, and I'm joined by my co-host, Megan Clemenberg. And now we're giving people an inside look at the World Cup.

Time's ticking. I think you can feel the intensity. All the guys are wanting to really take their claim, and they want to be on that World Cup roster. There's no doubt about it. Hosting the World Cup on the home soil comes with its pressures, but we're just really excited just as the people are. The U.S. Soccer Podcast, presented by Henco. and listen on your favorite platform. You had a handful of matches.

We talked about the one with Jericho. We talked about the one here with Earl Hebner. You also had you and the Dudley Boys versus Jericho, the Rock, and Mike Keota. How cool. Oh, yeah, that was my chance to beat all three of them at the same time, man. That was awesome. That was a lot of fun. That was, we got a big pop out of that.

And the Dudley boys put into work, man. All I really did was stand on the apron and get heat until it was time. to come in at the end. You know, they did all the work, man. And hats off to those kids, because I love those kids.

Those good talent, man, and drew money for different, different organizations and great attitudes and good guys. And that match was a lot of fun.

But they finally got their hands on me at the end. The people, they did tell you, man. Then Kyoto, I think gave me the kicks and ended up doing the people's elbow

on me if I had that. The referee's elbow. Yeah, I think I took a rock, bottom and then I ended up getting a Kyoto people's elbow. And then after that, I got up and beat all three of them and pinned them and put my foot on their chest and then on several bison. And then I woke up.

How much you think has changed with the way that referees work from the 90s, early 2000s, to what we see now? They want you more to just blend in and not be as much of an authority figure. They don't want you to be as verbal, you know, now on TV. At least I noticed that. Especially in WWE, like, I think even the most hardcore WWE fans don't know the names of the referees. Whereas just off of the top of my head, I know Mike Keota and Teddy Long and Tim White, Nick Patrick and Charles Roberts. Yeah, you knew all the old guys. Yeah, you knew all the old, right?

Yeah. And I'm bad about that, too, because there's a couple of those young kids that I really like their work. They're pretty good. And really up there, if you're not pretty good, you're not going to be there. So most of those kids are. In AEW, the referees seem to have a little bit of leniency. They're able to showcase a little bit of personality. Yeah, I like that too, because the ref is a big part of the match.

But you have to know when to do it and when not to do it. You have to realize that you're not there to get yourself over. you're there to get them over. And if there's a little spot that gets you over, then that little spot is yours and that's fine. And you don't have to keep shining that. You've got your spot in. You've got over.

And the rest is for them, you know. And as a riff, that's what you have to realize, you know, unless, of course, you're in a gimmick where they're turning your heel, doing something with you, then you go all out with it. But you have to know, when you're not and you're just a regular ref, you have to know how much you win the back off. That's a feel thing, you know, like, especially like in tag matches.

When the baby face draws you and they got the other guy, and they know the heels are doubling, and if you keep your back turned too long, all of a sudden the people are no longer mad at the guys that are beating up the baby face. They're mad at your stupid ass because you're not turning around and looking at it, you know? So you got to have that feel. And you've got to let them have enough time to get the people mad, but you've got to turn around before that heat starts shifting off,

on to you. You know, and then we got to do a lot more of that back in the old school. And today as more everything's just kind of choreographed, talked about. And back in the old school days, we worked a lot, you know,

we went out and called it. And it was like doing ad lib. And when you're doing that, you have to be able to have character. And, you know, so it just, it just helps add to it.

But it's like I said, it's a different, different day. You know, they're not doing new, they don't, I don't think anybody does have to be more. They damn sure don't do it on TV.

You know, if there's anybody that does any kind of ad lib calling it in the ring, it may be at a house show somewhere. That'd be the only place you'd see it. Is Charles Robinson, like, ageless? Like, the fact that he's still doing this now. Yeah, man, he's a great guy too, man. I'm so glad that he's up there and still able to ride that wave because that's a hard way to ride up there.

Man, I'll tell you right now, especially because he went back to back too. I did 12 years in WCW and then nine years in WWE back to back. The only time I was off is when they got bought out or if I was hurt. And man, the intensive travel, like you go out overseas somewhere every month. You know, so I've been around the world at least a dozen times, and I'm not saying this to sound funny. I literally don't care if I ever get in my life, get on another airplane, go anywhere. If I can't get there in a car, I tell them if I can't. can't get there in a car or a boat and it better be a pretty short ride with both of those,

then I don't want to go. And it's not, I just, first off, I got too much stuff on me right now. I'm taking care of my people and running a wrestling company. And there's some of my own shows that I can't even get away and get to because I can't get somebody to watch my mom and my son, you know, but I've got people to handle stuff for me. I've got a really good, good team of people working for me. So I never, you know, I don't worry about anything about me not being at a show.

It's in good hands. So I got good people working for me. And I got a good crew of kids, too, the people that I use. But as far as that goes, I've just been so busy taking care of my mom and my son and trying to run a wrestling company. It's deep south wrestling, which is. Yeah, right here all this shirt, man. This is part of our swag right here, my dad.

But I don't know if you can see it good or not. I feel like the camera was like purposely not showing it. Well, let me see if I could tip us down here. There we go. There's a little bit of swag right there. That'll keep us back on track here. Are we good? All right, man.

Yeah, we got hoodies and stuff. But anyway, Deep South Resolution is the company that Papa and I started back in in 1986. I was down with a major knee surgery and he was in between territories. and he bought a ring and got a place and we started just training

the local guys that were interested to want to become wrestlers and there wasn't any local promotions here at the time and we were getting calls from people

wanting us to run shows so, we started running shows too the next thing you know we was on Atlanta TV and we did a joint promotion with Bill Watts and Omni

and suddenly we grew and turned into something and I said earlier it ended up blossoming when Pop went to work for WC. you. They wanted to start a training facility and they put him in charge of it. So our little deep south just kind of morphed into the power plant. Yeah. I mean the power plant is legendary.

Yeah, power plant cranked out a bunch of wrestlers. A lot of legendary names, talent that, you know, for different companies and people that you see, you know, some of them got Japan deals. You know, back then, if you couldn't get a good deal here, sometimes, if you had a good connection, somebody could get you something going on Japan. There was some guys, you know, it's a lot of travel. And you've got to be in a good spot, you know, especially now to make the money like guys, you know, I don't know if anybody's making money like guys used to back in the day.

Back in the day, a lot of guys would just Japan was all they would do. You know, they would take the time off to recuperate from their Japanese tour while they was home, you know. In the States, you had to keep yourself busy the whole time. I remember Pop coming home from a couple of times from overseas when I was a little kid and just pulling out and watch a buddy, of throwing it on the table. Holy crap, you rob a bank.

And no, I just came from Japan. Man, I'm going to grow up and go there someday. I did. Nick, Booker T. recently said that he thinks that you should be in the Hall of Fame, and it's hard to disagree with that sentiment. Well, that's cool, man. I appreciate that coming from somebody that is talented with Booker T and has done as much in our industry in Booker Tee.

He's a good friend of mine, and we did a lot of traveling to you. other. And he's seen, you know, he's, he's seen what I was able to do. He knows I can agents. I'm not just a referee guy. I can wrestle. I can, I can, I can, I can, I don't riff anymore, man. I have my retirement match here. And I picked two kids that really, man, they get, they, they really shine. And they got a local following. And one of my local shows, I, uh, I had a retirement match. And they had a, They had an I-quit match. It was a culmination of a three-match series that they had. And I riffed the I quit match because, man, I was all about doing that because all you really,

you're not up and down counting. You're just putting a microphone to somebody now. That's what they want to quit. I was like, I can do that now. And I was to make that my retirement. Because, man, like I said about all my injuries, bad attitude and all that. I'm out of the room. It's so fun.

And you want to, if you do it, it's an art. And if you can't be, if you can't paint the picture the way you want to paint it anymore, then it's time to let somebody else paint. You know what I mean? And to me, I love doing it. I love the feel of it. But damn it, I'm all 62 years old. I got ark right.

And it hurts anymore to do it. And it hurts to get up and down. And I've got, I'm almost to a point with my right knee now where I'm feeling like it's almost to like bone on bone. And I'm hoping that I can, you know, I'm not sure what my next move is. I don't want to, dang sure, don't want to do a knee replacement. I know they got this new thing where they shoot some gel in there. Stem cells could be an option. Yeah, I'm looking at different options, you know,

before I get on Social Security here in the next couple years, I still got insurance, and then to see what I can do about that, because right now I wouldn't want to try and get in a ring and hang with a couple of young kids. I'd take away from their match, you know, and I would never want to do that to any young talent that's going out there and trying to get themselves over, you know, saddled down with an old farting camera to get up and have the knees are shot. You know, so I had my retirement match and those kids, I mean to tell you, if you check

out deep south.com and we are deep south on YouTube, YouTube slash we are deep south. You can find all of our stuff. And the match I'm talking about, my retirement match was a, it's a two-part. I put out a match when I have little seasons. And when I have a season, I put out a match of wets. week and it's like a little 30 minute show and I build every match that I do and I say deep south where every match is a main event. So when we do a show, you may be the third match on the card, but you're still going to get a week

where we take your match and highlight it and make it the main event for that week. So just because you weren't the last match on the card, that doesn't mean you're not going to get your work. So that's how I'm trying to present it. And I'm trying to let the kids go out there and work and get over. and tell stories, because we've got kids you can. And the system that they're locked into to try to get looked at, I just so firmly disagree with, man.

I see these kids coming up trying to pour everything they can doing a five-minute match and a five-minute presentation in front of a bunch of folks that's critiquing them, and you're supposed to hook their attention and make you think, well, why it makes me want to buy you at five minutes? With the very same people that are sitting there watching these kids, if you put a pair of boots and a pair of tights on them, and put their butts in the ring and told them to entertain me

and make me want to give you a contract in five minutes. They couldn't do it themselves. And it puts these kids in an unfair situation, just in my opinion. And I know that they've got so many to look through and they've got to find a way to do it. They've got to pay somebody to take a look at these kids and find out who the storytellers are because there are some out there. And that's who I'm looking for.

And that's who I find. And that's who I put on my Deep South shows, the kids that are out there every weekend somewhere, not just in this area, but in a four or five state area. These kids are the man, they're putting it in. You know, they got regular jobs some of them. They're families and training in a gym and going to these. It's hard to not be a fan for some of these kids because they're paying dues. To me, they're paying dues more than the kids that are getting paid to train at the big facilities.

You know, there's a lot of pressure there, but you're getting paid and you're not having family life in a regular eight-hour job. and heading the gym. You're getting paid to work out and paid to be in the rank then. That's an ideal situation for somebody's young, but that's not for everybody. And all these young, and there's some of these young kids that deserve to be in that spot. And I had a couple of kids that I know they're very close

that went all the way from Atlanta up to Charlotte to get looked at. They've been worked out for like a month, two months, trying to get ready for this, because they knew in advance that they were coming to Charlotte, and they got lined up with a whole. come and we'll look at you. They got up there and Vince had a bad day and got pissed off and come out and run everybody out of the arena.

Not everybody out of everyone. And all these kids, their dreams and aspirations, they're hoping, everything that they've built for out. Yeah. To me, I realize there's a bigger picture to look at the people, people, man, and that's no damn way to treat people. Yeah. And, you know, and I won't do that. And when I find the kids that can tell a story, I'm going to give them a chance to tell a story. So that's what Deep South is about, man.

We're trying to be different. I don't want to look like everybody else, be like everybody else. If I can't be different, I'm not going to do it. And so that's what I'm looking for right now. And check us out, man. We're putting out some really good stuff right now. I got one more for you. WrestleMania 23.

You refereed the match between JBL and John Cena. When John Cena won his very first World Heavyweight Championship. I did a lot of matches with those guys. They had those guys married together for a little while is what they call it, you know, when they run the loop and all the house shows and different, you know, and I did several.

Was that the I quit match or was done? I did an I quit match with him too. I don't think it was. Yeah, this was wrestling in 23. Okay. Straight a match, yeah. Oh, yeah. I love why you refereed so many matches that you're like,

I don't know, sure. I'm not trying to be like big-headed, but they, you know, if you think about it and you watch the advertisement for every paper view. Everyone is billed as the biggest one since sliced bread. And you have to treat it that way because it's a business. But, man, I did 12 years in WCW and 9 in WWE

going overseas somewhere every month and a paperview every month and two live TVs every week. And after a while, they kind of run together. I can remember a lot of things that happened and what happened in the background, but sometimes putting them all in a chronological. logical order is very difficult because it's just so broad of them, you know. Well, let me ask you this, Nick. What do you think is the biggest match that you've ever been a part of?

Well, it had to have been the Hogan Sting match simply because of the highest grossing stuff. But there was other matches back in the day, man, that were equally important to the industry. Like, I, if you look at Dusty Rones' old highlight, Bill, when he won the title in the Omnia, Atlanta, Georgia one time against Harley Race. And a young Nick Patrick was the referee there. I was in my early 20s, man. And that was unbelievable to be able to work those two guys. And they were shooting an angle for Japan. They're filming it.

I was the ref for it. You know, it doesn't, for that era, that doesn't get much bigger than that. But all the WrestleMania stuff is huge. But I would have to say that the biggest one, would, you know, because of the grocery deal was the one we talked about earlier, was staying at home. It's the most, it's the most famous. It had the most eyes on it.

I mean, it's the most famous and also the most infamous, or at least one of the most infamous matches in a WCW. Although there was a, there's a lot of infamous matches in WCW, the finger poke, the Jarrett laying down. I mean, we could talk all day about all this. It's such a pleasure to be able to spend some time with you. And I know that everybody's going to want to go check out Mailbag Monday on adfreeshows. It's every second week you're on there, right?

Yes, sir. Yeah, we rotate weeks. Me and on Mike Keota there, after I put it on him in that tag match, I have to give him a plug now. So he's going to help him heal up after all these years, man. But he's a really great guy. Mike is such a good guy. He was on the show about a new guy.

I always liked him, man. He's one of the guys I always really got along well with up there. There was several good people up there, man. It made it bearable, you know, because, you know, the office is always trying to break you down and say what crap you'll take. you know but they got some really super good people up there man and i wonder how some of them survived man they just thick-skinned i guess man bless their hearts and howard fagel man how did he survive

what a super guy he was too man man i got to really meet some really cool people up there and uh and i was glad i got to experience that you know i always kind of wanted to go up there i'll tell you how the the black saturday story i first met vincent man i used to go early back to K-Faib was so huge back in the day that when we was doing our WC, or Georgia Championship wrestling taping right before Black Saturday, our producers, our camera people, there wasn't a production meeting where they were told everything that was going to happen. Because only K-Faibed everybody, man, they didn't need you know.

They are. They work baseball and footballers, their damn job to catch them, you know. And I'm thinking to myself, wow, okay, this isn't work, you know, and they do see us all sitting here in the same locker room back here. I mean, they're not stupid, for God's sake. And there's going to come a time that if we let them know what we're doing, that maybe this cameraman might be in the perfect position, you know? So I used to go and stand in the control room because I was really interested

to listen to the director. Okay, camera two, cut to this, camera three, papa, you know, and I thought that was really cool. And I wanted to learn both ends of it because in my mind, I wanted to try and become the liaison guy between the two. Because as a referee, I had to sit and listen to every man. at every spot and everything. And I knew what was going on, you know,

and I could relay that. Okay, look, at this point in time, this is coming. If you get in position, you know, so I figured that that would be a good thing for me, coming for the future, right? So one day, I'm standing in a control room, and there's this guy standing back there with his arms folded, making his face, you know.

And I'm like, damn, who's this guy? Because back in a day when we was working on Turner, they wanted no blood. I mean, you could accidentally get smashed in the nose or, I mean, because accidents happen. You know, sometimes you get a legitimate nosebleed. And, man, they would go through the roof about, you know, like we did it on purpose. You know, so this guy was getting his face. I thought, oh, God, because here's one of those Turner execs coming down here to get on somebody's

butt, right? Right. So I just, I didn't say anything to it, you know, and I just checked him out. When I walked by, I went, how you doing? And I just, you know, that was it. I kept on going. Well, it turns out that that person was Vincent K. McMahon standing there doing this because he has just taken over the whole wrestling world down here. And if I would have been smart enough to come up and say, hi, I'm Nick Patrick.

I'm just hanging out in here because this is my idea. You know, I could have been on the ground. Oh, man. Yeah. But instead, you know, I didn't know who heck he was. Sure. You know, I was just trying to avoid an ass chewing. He didn't look happy.

He could make them a face, he made me his lips, he pokes out and all. And I thought to myself, and this is going to sound terrible. I thought to myself, this was my exact thoughts in my head. I thought,

damn, who's this stupid looking so bitch? You know, because you know, and Lou and I know, Vincent K. McMahon. And I said,

hey, hey, they walk right by. Man. So, you know, what the hell? I have no regrets,

though. I love the road that I went down. And, you know, but I just thought that was a funny story, you know. It wasn't meant for me to go down that road at that time, you know. What a life you've lived, both in the ring and outside of the ring. What a legacy you've left. The stories that you have. And we've only scratched the surface here.

Amazing. Nick, it's been such a pleasure. And I end every conversation talking about gratitude because it's such a big part of my life. So what are three things in your life that you're grateful for right now? now. I'm grateful for the support that I get from my family, take care of my mom, and the support I also get from my friends. I'm grateful because I asked God there at the end of my career, man. I was burnt out on the road and I wanted to get out somehow. Still, you know, I said, look, I don't need to have a whole lot of money. I don't want to sleep in a car. I don't want to be broken with my family,

but I need to be home. My parents are getting old. I got an autistic son to take care of and I got to find a way that I can do it from home because I got to get off the road. When you're sitting in a hotel room in a five-star hotel, then that's what people, you know, that's where people go on their vacations and, you know, and then they pay money to do that, and you're thinking to yourself, man, is this as good as it gets? It's time to get out, you know, and I need, and I had too many things on my mind that I needed to address and take care of home. So I'm thankful that, uh, that God,

give me the opportunity to be able to come home and start a company at home and be able to make enough money where I'm being, I'm not rich. I ain't making a ton. I am really hardly anything, but I ain't going under. I ain't sleeping in a car. I got a company that I'm running and I'm taking care of my family. So all the things that I asked for came true. And as far as being grateful for anything else, I'm grateful that I was able to experience

all the things that I did and see all the things that I was able to see because I was able to see the good side of the world and I was able to see the bad side and realize that you meet the same people on the way down that you do on the way up and show kindness all the time.

Be a real person. Don't ever get so full of yourself that your problems are all of a sudden the most important thing in the world because there's always somebody out there who's got way, way worse problems than you do. And they're holding their head up and they're fighting every day. So, you know, I'm thankful that I was able to see and learn that.

Well, I'm thankful for this time with you, Nick. I told you'd be like 45 minutes, but, man, these stories are just so good. I'm glad we kept going with them. Cool, man. Thanks for having me, man. Anytime you want to talk, holler at me, dude, I'm around, man. We talk wrestling and whatever, man. That's like we do on a mailbag.

We'll talk whatever, man. I love it. Patrick, thank you so much. All right. Thank you, sir. Have a great day. There we go. Nick Patrick, ladies and gentlemen, man, he tells some great stories. You can hear more of those on Mailbag Monday, adfreeshows.com. It's him on one Monday. It's referee Mike Keota the following Monday. What a great combo there. So go check that out, adfreeshows.com. And I posted on Twitter and Instagram recently that we are so close to 350,000.

followers on my main YouTube channel. So close to 275,000 on the CVV clips channels. So if you're listening to this right now, it would mean so much if you could support me by subscribing to both of those channels. It is absolutely free to just click that subscribe. And I would assume if you're listening to this, that you enjoy these interviews. So why not subscribe so you will never miss one? And please subscribe or follow the show wherever you listen to this podcast as well right now. I'll leave you with a quote from Michael Altasurer, and it's such a great quote. The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot. Be great and be grateful, my friends, we will see you on the next one for some more insight. The Hammer Alley podcast, an 80s flashback

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Ever heard of then? To Rock Bottom. Dude, I was born in 1987. I can't believe he's doing this. Hammer Alley. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.