Referee Nick Patrick On The nWo, What REALLY Happened At Starrcade 97, WCW Invasion, Taking Ref Bumps

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!

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On facing Chris Jericho:

“Oh man, that was a blast. They came to me and asked me if I wanted to do the match and I said yeah. 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 come up with all of that man. The only thing I come up with was him slamming me off the top at the end to set up a kick and the rest was him. And it was so fun. I wasn’t in shape either man. I tried to start working out a little bit, back then I smoked cigarettes, I’m and 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, he will have one hand tied behind his back, you gotta go a little bit. And I was taking the hip tosses and stuff, you know, but I always bail out of the rig and regroup, catch my wind. And he was gracious man, he let me get some heat on him. And it lets me do a couple of things to him to set him up to beat 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. And we went to all these different towns and it was fun. It was hey, but let’s stop here, where can we eat? We wanted a good bar. It was a lot of fun. So anyway, it was the last day of the tour. And we all kind of gotten 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 comes on. And we're all in there hammering getting drunk. And now these drivers of the cars they're like haha! They hadn’t seen it yet, right. And man, those that whole bar went wild man, they were laughing their butts off at me every time I'd make it one of them on faces or I do something. I made a lot of my mean faces that they popped for me, man. And at the end of it. They all gave me the round of applause at the end. And we all drank a beer to it. It was really a cool experience. 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 gonna be a big star. And then he did and still is.”

On the Invasion match vs. Earl Hebner:

"Oh, that was fun too. Earl is a good friend of mine. And it was funny, they got us together. And Earl had heat from doing the Montreal Screw Job. And they weren't sure who was going to really be the heel in this thing because they knew. First off when WWE bought us, they, all the WWE fans hated everybody from WCW. They hated us. Even if you were a babyface they hated you. So I already had heat from being the nWo thing. Plus, they hated me because I was WCW. So I said, they're gonna hate me. And I guarantee they're gonna take me as the heel. They 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 and I was a heel in WCW and I was on my way to read I bust out through the curtain with that mean mug face and looking at everybody, like I was challenging the whole dang world. Because to me, it really gets heat. Which if you see somebody and in your mind, you know like that I can whip this guy's ass. You know, and he's given you the mean mug and that gets heat to me, you know? And I did it. I walked up to that curtain and I walked to the top of the ramp and I looked at both sides of the arena with my face and man, they went off booing me. They already hated me because I was WCW and the nWo thing too. But doing that ignited it man, and so when I come back to the match, they went okay, that's okay.”

On being in the era of referees having names:

“Yeah, they kind of try to keep them off, I think they don’t want to pay them residuals for down the road. But I think that's why they do that. But I was very fortunate to come through the time I did. I started back into territory gauge, and made that transfer from where the big companies, you know, Vince gobbled up pretty much all the top guys and little territories all started dying off. And it turned out to have been two big companies battling against each other and the transfer from territory days and you know, with cable TV being so big and all sudden, you know, down in Georgia, Channel 17 was huge for Georgia Championship Wrestling and which turned into WCW eventually down the road. And we went from just being Georgia company to going, we had, we'd be in Georgia and Alabama, and you know, all of our locals, but 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, they realised Well, damn, we're being seen everywhere, wow. We thought we travelled a lot back then when we was just like every other week going to town. Little did we know what lies ahead of us.”

On nearly becoming a wrestler instead of a referee:

“I did wrestle. I started off as a referee and in 1984 I became a wrestler. I wrestled 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 Crockett bought it back from Jim Barnett. I was there when Barnett still had it. And they shot an angle with me and Bob Roop, I was gonna become a wrestler there right before Crockett bought it, and then Crockett came so I didn't really want to go back to being a ref or you know, especially up there for them. If I wanted to go up there, I wanted to work and try to make money and not be a ref and they kind of expected a lot of the refs to come run and tell and stuff, you know, and that was never my gig. So I ended up working independent and my dad was down and wrestling in Pensacola territory, which was Continental Wrestling. And Johnny Rich was down there. They had a group of babyfaces called The Rat Patrol. It was Johnny, Scotty, Scott Armstrong, Steve Armstrong, I think Tonga kid was there at first, but he had already phased out by time I'd come along. Well, anyway, Johnny was at a party with Tommy and Vic beef broke out, and Johnny was like trying to cover Tommy’s back and somebody stabbed him several times. And he was out for a while. He was hurt man, you could have killed him. But you know, he was lucky to not hit any major organs. You know, he was some flesh wounds, 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. I had just stopped working for Georgia Championship Wrestling because Crocketts had taken it over. And I was working a little indies, Gunkel Enterprises, was running some indie shows and I was working for her trying to get that little thing going. My dad threw my name in, and he said, Hey, Nick's available if you need somebody to fill that spot, and they say oh, call him you know, so in two weeks, I was down in working in Pensacola territory, which was so cool, man. It was it was it was awesome. You lived down in Pensacola. And a lot of my friends lived in Gulf Breeze 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 Muscle Shoals you know, and then you might spend a night. But mostly, for the most part the trips are 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, and it was such a cool life. And you made decent money and you learn how to work. That was the thing you know, you work with different guys that were really good at their craft, and you made money doing it. You know, a lot of guys were starved to death trying to learn their craft, you know, but there were a couple of territories that were fortunate enough to get in there. You can learn and still make money and still you know still do pretty good. I mean, you know, I was underneath wrestler there and I made more as a referee in Georgia Championship Wrestling because it was hot. I was travelling. I made more as a referee than a lot of guys did working underneath and 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 was underneath guy. So I was tickled, you know, and I got to stay with my dad, you know, because we'd always work different territories. We was together in WCW for a long time, but during the territory days, when I started refereeing, I was in Georgia Championship Wrestling until I started skipping around to a couple of territories where they all got gobbled up and I got hurt. But Stan would pop down in Pensacola, and that was a really fun time he had changed his gimmick, my dad was known, as he was the assassin. And he was wrestling as the flame down there at that time and, 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, and man it was big money for him. And they rekindled a feud on both of them with different gimmicks down in Pensacola. And remember me, as The Rat Patrol, me and the Armstrong boys, we were watching the matches one time and we were going out there we were the young guys, and we was young and hungry and going out there working hard, Bam, Bam is still throwing 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, they’re gonna do it, and then back off and it was intense. You could just feel electricity in the room and we all look at each other like, holy crap, we're going out there, bam, bam, bam, doing all this stuff. You know, look at him. They've just put in almost 12 minutes, they hadn’t really locked up yet. It was a pretty good learning moment right there. But you can only do that when you're over. You know, when you're young and hungry. You got to work young and hungry. That's the only way you're ever gonna get over. If you think you're over and you're not, then not is what you'll always be.”

What the fans might not see in a match:

“How mainly in live television production, there's a lot that we are involved in that people don't realise because they, we got the earpiece on where people are talking to us and we keep time and if there's a message being delivered, we do that. And you have to do it without being picked up on you know, without the cameras. So, you know, I mean, you'll see I'm talking but you never know what they'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 motion a 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. You got to because there's eight microphones around so you almost got to tuck your teeth in, talk low, almost mumble you gotta be in close enough where you got that eye contact with, you know, I used to what I grabbed her by the wrist and squeeze it and as soon as they looked up at me I knew I had their attention. I'd mumble that whatever I need to say to him, you know, and keep moving.”

When it felt like WCW was changing:

“It wasn't a particular TV, it was a timeframe. And it wasn't exactly when the guy first come in. No, 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, and could get people fired if they disagreed with him. And after watching and listening to him, I grew up in the business man. It's my life. It's not a hobby to me, it's even to this day with the company that I'm building, I take care of my family. I got my elderly mother and I got an autistic son I take care of him. 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, 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 so carried away starting telling stories and my mind goes to so many different places when he asked me, but as far as a different particular match, no I didn't. I didn't feel a particular match but the particular era a few a few months in, so, maybe six months into Russo coming in I feel, man, if we keep going down this road, it ain't coming back out. And it was right, you know.”

On the downfall of WCW:

“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 is, to me, my opinion of why it went down. Especially that Starrcade, that's the most talked about [topic]. Man that was 20, some 25 years ago, and they're still talking about it. You know, there's people anytime that people want to know about that, man, that was, as crazy as that was and is as odd and as horrible as it felt while I was doing it because, if you've heard the story, then you know what I'm talking about. I'll tell you the story if you want to hear it. Okay, well, here's the story. I showed up before the biggest pay-per-view and gross in wrestling history, money wise. And I knew I had to main event. And 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, I was a little 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 don'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 a conversation. I’d say hello, we shake hands. And that was it. Well, he come up and met me soon as I got there. 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 playing, 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 123 count, you know, not a fast count. And that was when Hogan covers Sting. So anyway, I'm there and an hour or so goes by, you know, you're there all day long. And, and back then Hogan went over his stuff, he had his own locker room. And nobody went in there except, you know, except from who he was working with and who he invited in there. A security guy would go somebody would take him in there. You know, I was one of those guys, you know. And that was cool because I was good enough. I knew what you know, just tell me what you want me to do before we walk out the screen through the curtain and I'm good to go. You know, and they knew that. But anyway, Eric told me how he wanted it to go. So I'm like, okay, so Hulk comes up to me first. A couple hours in, you know, while we're there, he knows Hey, Nick I'm not about that count, man. Nice and slow man. 123. Okay, that's normal. I can't do it slow. That'd be ridiculous as what we're doing, there's heat in that. But I also so about an hour or so later than that. A Sting comes up to me and says, Hey, did you know about that account? Rapid Fire baby. Okay, so now I got one guy that's the franchise, Hulk Hogan, the other guy that's the other franchise Sting Yeah, both both telling me the same finish. But the complete opposite. Whether you count faster, whether you count slow completely changes the complexion of the finish, you know.”

Is Nick Patrick surprised that Sting is still wrestling?

“Yeah. Because I talked to him, man, I don't know how long ago it was like as time goes by, maybe six, eight years ago and he had a neck problem. And he told me that if he took the wrong bump, you know, the doctor told him he’ll be paralysed. Next thing I know he's back in the ring wrestling again and 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, Dean Malenko come back. He had a big chat scar down his neck. There's been a couple of guys that had that neck surgery, from Daniel Bryan, you know, different guys have had the major neck surgery and told that they're finished, Edge, and here they come and 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 gonna let you know they're there, even though you've rehabbed them. I'll tell you right now I'm, I'm 62 years old, I've had five surgeries and then there's days I feel good because I train and I work out with my son. And there's other days when I hadn't done anything wrong when I felt like somebody just beat my butt. Oh, God. I tell, some people say you gotta get back in the ring. I said, No. I got bad knees, bad back, bad wrist, bad neck and a bad attitude. I am not getting back into rings.”

What’s the hardest move to take?

“Powerbombs. Because even when, you got to make sure you land flat, and even if you land flat, you're landing hard, you know, and it's gonna knock the wind out of me a little bit. That to me was that was the hardest bump, you know, the most impactful bump. There's different bumps, 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 onto some guys out on the floor. It's a little more of a degree of difficulty, but I had big Scott Norton and a couple of big guys down there to catch me. So I felt fairly comfortable with it, you know. And it looked pretty cool, too. I ended up making the cover of WCW magazine at that time, but I remember I was scared. As he threw me, my left hand caught that top rope and the rest of it looked like I was parachute diving. And they caught that, and that ended up being on the cover of the magazine. And I thought it was, that was a pretty cool shot. But that was the more degree of difficulty. But the Powerbomb just, man. Especially if you take it like from somebody like Kevin Nash, you know. And if he wanted to put some oomph into it, man, it had been hard for you. You know, he was always good though he would, he gets you up ahead, he gets you where you can lay out and land flat. You know, he protects you.”

What is Nick Patrick grateful for:

“The support I get from my family and friends, that God gave me opportunity and I was able to experience all the things that I did.”