Pat Patterson Speaks The Truth

[Like Watching Paint Dry]

Pat Patterson is a true giant in the wrestling industry, a man who helped to plan out and pioneer so much of the content that made the WWE a successful company over the past two decades plus. His contributions can not be overstated.

One can only hope Pat's saying what so many of us already know (and so many with-in are afraid to say) will somehow open up Vince's eyes as to the real main problem in his company.

Major props to the legend for telling it like it is!

www.1wrestling.com/news/newsline.asp?news=20012

"Pat Patterson, a long time friend and confidant of Vince McMahon, may be on the way out of WWE after becoming imbroiled in a behind the scenes situation that saw him speaking out against the continued strong push being received by Triple H on the "RAW brand".

Patterson recently told Vince McMahon he believed Triple H was pushed too strongly as the center of the RAW universe and that relying too heavily on Triple H is one of the problems that has caused ratings and house show drops in recent months.

A WWE source tells us Patterson has given his notice to Vince McMahon and plans to retire after 46 years in the wrestling business."

McMahon is known to surround himself with "yes men" who will tell him what they think he wants to hear. Patterson isn't a "yes man" and speaking his mind about the Triple H situation sparked tension that apparently has prompted Patterson's decision to retire."

[Werner Mueck]

Good for Pat Patterson!

[Graymar]

Wrestling Observer is reporting Patterson's depature talks are taking place.

Graymar

[JimSteel]

After a presence in the news for the controversy involving blaming HHH for the recent lack of interest in WWE RAW, Pat Patterson has officially resigned from WWE. Sources date his resignation back to October 5th.

The longtime WWE employee will remain with the company until Taboo Tuesday, where he will give his final farewell and leave the promotion

[Like Watching Paint Dry]

Below is some more background on the Paterson retirement situation. Only the loss of Vince himself would be more monumental to the company than this:

www.pwinsider.com/ViewArticle.asp?id=5806&p=1

"As Dave Scherer noted, PWInsider.com has confirmed that Pat Patterson has given his notice to World Wrestling Entertainment and is scheduled to finish up with the company on 10/19 at Taboo Tuesday.

The reason for Patterson's decision to depart the company is said to be a huge difference of opinion with Vince McMahon over the creative direction of the company, in particular the push of McMahon's son-in-law, Triple H. Patterson explained his opinions on the matter to McMahon after attending several Raw house shows on the road (as detailed below) which ended up leading to Patterson giving notice that he was leaving the company.

Dave Scherer reported the following on 10/7 in regards to Patterson's status with the company:

"As we reported a few weeks ago, Pat Patterson went on the road at the house shows to get a bead on what is going on with the product so that he could make changes and report back to Vince McMahon. Patterson is one of McMahon’s most trusted advisors. There has been a lot of talk that Patterson has pointed out to McMahon that part of the problem with the Raw brand is that Triple H is on top right now and dominates too much of the shows, at the expense of the other characters. As the story goes, the feeling is that if more characters and storylines were developed and able to get over, the product would be stronger. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of this since HHH is a pretty powerful person in WWE."

On 10/8, Scherer followed up with this report: "As a follow up on yesterday's story concerning Pat Patterson being very vocal about feeling that WWE needs to pull back on HHH's push, there are a number of people within WWE who feel that this issue could escalate, possibly to the point where Patterson would leave WWE. In essence, Patterson reportedly feels that HHH is over-pushed and as top guy has not "made" any new talent, other than Chris Benoit, into top guys. And even with Benoit, looking at how he has been pushed since losing the title, you can even make a case that he was important while he was champion, but much less so now. Then there is the one-month title reign of Randy Orton to consider, which many WWE people have told me they felt was “HHH cutting out Orton’s legs from under him”. Whether it ends up being that way or not time will tell, but Jess McGrath and Mike Johnson made an interesting point on this subject on this week's Elite Radio when they said that since HHH is now "office" and part of the McMahon family, he should push himself just under the top slot and be something of a safety net if a guy they are pushing at the top gets hurt or holds WWE up for money. It's possible Patterson feels the same way, and frankly that makes perfect sense to me. H does not need to be pushed as the top guy and certainly doesn’t need to dominate Raw the way he does. As the major financial indicators have shown, Raw business is definitely slumping right now and even when he wasn't the champion earlier this year, HHH was still the most focal point of the show (not to mention very influential in the booking process), so he definitely shares some of the blame for Raw’s current state and according to sources close to the situation, Patterson is the only one in the company willing to stand up and say that."

The loss of Patterson, who is said to be going into retirement, is a major one for the promotion. Patterson is considered one of the greatest creative minds in the history of the business when it comes to creating finishes for big matches and also created the WWE's greatest gimmick match ever, The Royal Rumble."

[gamtime247]

Losing Patterson will definately hurt an already reeling product IMO. Patterson pretty much made the Warrior-Hogan match at WM6 all you have to do is look at the second encounter in WCW to know that. I never knew he came up with the Rumble which is a huge aspect of the WWE product. Out of all my non-wrestling friends the only event they'll ever come over and all pitch in to watch is the Rumble. They ask me in June "When is the next Royal Rumble?" and these are fans that don't even care about Wrestlemania.

[chrismystery]

Pat Patterson...Well I despise Triple H and anyone that can speak about this problem from the inside should be applauded.

I watched the first Royal Rumble, which was free on USA and I think Duggan won it. I was hooked ever since. Someone let me know if my memory is correct. The Royal Rumble is so awesome that my favorite GWF Pay per View is and always will be the Rigel Rumble.

[Mike M]

I watched the first Rumble on USA as well and I remember Duggan winning it as well.

[Graymar]

Does anyone know when the Royal Rumble winner began to get the automatic Wrestlemania title shot?

Obviously Duggan didn't and the second winner John Studd didn't.

Graymar

[gamtime247]

I know Yokozuna won it to earn his title shot against the Hitman at WM9 which I think was '93 eliminated Savage to win it. Flair won the year before for the title, and I think Hogan won back to backs before that including the first of those when he actually was world champ.

[Big Bri]

Royal Rumble Winners:

1988: Hacksaw Jim Duggan (eliminated One Man Gang)
1989: Big John Studd (eliminated Ted DiBiase, who "bought" #30, LOL!)
1990: Hulk Hogan (as WWF World Champion)
1991: Hulk Hogan (Ultimate Warrior lost the WWF World Title to Sgt. Slaughter on the same night)
1992: Ric Flair (won the WWF World Title)
1993: Yokozuna (eliminated Randy Savage and WAS the first to receive the automatic title shot at WM)
1994: Bret Hart & Lex Luger (a tie and a complete slap in the face to all wrestling fans, IMO. This led to even more crap at WMX...I'll stop there)
1995: Shawn Michaels (this was they year they had a man enter every one minute instead of every two minutes. Another piece of crap.)
1996: Shawn Michaels (back to two minute entries, didn't he start out as the #1 entrant, or was that in 1995?)
1997: Steve Austin (I think? Didn't this lead to the "Final Four" In Your House between Austin, Hart, Vader, & Taker, or was it Sid? I know the title flip-flopped a few times in this period, maybe someone could give a definite answer on this one)
1998: Steve Austin
1999: Vince McMahon (another piece of crap, although it was pretty funny)
2000: The Rock and Big Show (tie, ahhhhh, yet another piece of crap)
2001: I forget, someone please fill in, The Rock maybe?
2002: Triple H (right after the big comeback, like he WASN'T going to win?)
2003: Brock Lesnar
2004: Chris Benoit (started out as #1)

That's the best I could do. Thank you Pat Patterson!!!

[Graymar]

2001 was Austin

Graymar

[Like Watching Paint Dry]

Dave Meltzer did another excellent write up on Pat Patterson, his career and the recent fall out backstage.

Courtesy of the Wrestling Observer:

"Pat Patterson, 64, gave notice and told Vince McMahon on 10/5 that he was retiring from the industry, with his last day of work being the Taboo Tuesday PPV. While this is hardly the first time Patterson has said he was leaving the company, only to return, the situation is very much different. His first resignation, forced by McMahon in 1992, came at the height of a homosexual sex scandal involving WWF executive Terry Garvin and head of the ring crew, Mel Phillips. As part of an out-of-court settlement with Tom Cole, who claimed he and other underage boys had been abused while working on the ring crew and that he was fired after turning down Garvin's sexual advances, which had already turned into the biggest media black eye in company history, McMahon promised Cole that Patterson, Garvin, and Phillips would never work for the company again. However, Patterson's name was left out of the settlement, and while it was going on, McMahon claimed Patterson was an innocent victim of circumstances.

Those in the company insist Patterson never really left, and the resignation was only for the public, but either way, a few months later, he was officially introduced to everyone as being back. At other points Patterson had talked of retiring to his home in Florida and had even done so. But Patterson has lived his entire life for and around wrestling, and knows little else. He grew up as a huge wrestling fan in Montreal, worked full-time as a wrestler since starting as a teenager, and became one of the greatest workers of the 60s and 70s, before ending his active career and being McMahon's top booking confidante during the 80s. In his other retirements, he got bored playing golf and quickly returned to the only world he'd ever really lived in.

In recent months, and moreso in recent weeks, Patterson had become vocal about the direction of the product to everyone. A few weeks back, he confided to long-time friend Nick Bockwinkel that he was ready to quit, so it was not a shock, nor a decision made in haste. Internally, because Patterson was there from a major architect during the big run in the 80s, as Vice President of Talent Relations, filling roles similar to those of both Stephanie McMahon and John Laurinaitis in today's company, this represented something big. Also, Patterson was one of the few people in the company who would vocally disagree with McMahon, because he was one of the few people it was believed McMahon would never fire. He's confided to people that he thinks the company is being run into the ground, and even though he was a big part of a lot of the toilet humor and cartoon aspects that categorized the 80s, he now has been asking "Why are we doing this stupid Hollywood crap?"

Another person very close to the situation said, "He's been beyond vocal about HHH, HHH's power over the Raw show, and HHH's burying of opponents... He's said it loud enough to make sure everyone hears." He expressed concern because of the belief HHH, in his role, should be making new stars, and the only person someone could argue he's really tried to make over the past two years was Randy Orton, and to a degree, Chris Benoit. He was heavily involved in the screwing up of Bill Goldberg and got Scott Steiner, who was on fire, off on the wrong foot, by working matches that exposed their weaknesses (although Steiner wasn't going to make it long-term regardless of what HHH did, nor would Goldberg, although they left millions on the table by screwing him up). He buried in meetings an admittedly overrated Rob Van Dam (although fans had not caught on to this yet and Van Dam had enormous potential at the time) when he was on fire. Benoit got the monster push this year largely because HHH needed a new strong opponent after Shawn Michaels ran his course, and Benoit's role on Raw diminished greatly when he wasn't working with HHH, even though he held the title belt. There was never a period, no matter if Benoit or Goldberg held the belt, where the show wasn't booked around HHH, and HHH was then portrayed as bigger than the belt. Even though HHH did do a great job in making Shelton Benjamin earlier this year by putting him over in a great match, the follow-up, were HHH made it seem unimportant, translated to the audience believing it was unimportant, and Benjamin didn't get the elevation from it that was expected.

HHH also pulled Edge from Smackdown, with the idea of making him a new opponent, but when Edge didn't get over like expected in his program with Kane, they rushed the Randy Orton face turn, and even though they've done everything to get Orton over, thus far it's been a disappointment. Patterson's concern, when sent on the road to study problems with the Raw product, were that HHH was over, but not enough other people overall were, and blamed it on them not getting adequate exposure to be viewed as stars with the one man dominating. The argument is that for the most part, the McMahon family company has always been built around a singular star, but during most of the history, that singular star can be argued was doing better business. The other side is that while popularity has declined, it's still a far stronger business model overall than at any time except during the 1998-2000 era. One source claimed that McMahon's reaction to Patterson leaving is that he lost his passion for wrestling after the death of long-time life-partner Louie Dondero (for those of you completely in the dark, Patterson is openly gay), but that happened many years ago.

There was an incident some time back, when a lot of the controversy over HHH being a detriment first came out internally, that the agents decided to go together to McMahon and express their real viewpoint. However, at the meeting, Stephanie was there, and everyone involved change their tune, realizing whoever said anything would be the one hung out to dry immediately. It's eerily similar to the brokers who would tell Fritz Von Erich about his son's drug problems, and wind up being the ones fired for doing so.

Within the company, Patterson is acknowledged as the best finish man in the industry, even by others who are pretty strong in that regard themselves. Still, most of the recent finishes have lacked creativity with the over reliance on ref bumps, which is a key to a lot of Patterson finishes, and the belt shot and face kick out spot. Patterson also not only created, but usually had a strong hand in the layout of the annual Royal Rumble, the company's No. 2 event of the year, a lot of which was taken because the heyday of his wrestling career was in Northern California, working for Roy Shire, who was a genius in both promotion and layout of the annual January Battle Royal, which the Rumble was an offshoot of."

[kaz]

Holy crap! Patterson's gay? Not that it really matters, to each their own, but wow. You learn something new every day. Regardless, he'll be missed and is yet another casuality of the Mac-Man Helmsely era. Maybe we'll get lucky and HHH will blow his quad out again. Ahhh.... Those were the days.

[Like Watching Paint Dry]

Last night at Taboo Tuesday was officially the end of an era. Props to Vince for giving Pat Patterson a public show of respect on the way out!

www.pwtorch.com/artman/publish/article_10480.shtml

"After the PPV ended, Vince McMahon came down to clap for Randy Orton. He then took the mic and thanked us all for coming. He said he wanted to take time to recognize someone who was spending his last day with the company and has helped the product so much but got little recognition. He called Pat Patterson out.

Pat was teary eyed before he got to the ring. Pat hugged him upon entering the ring. Vince was very complementary and said he put up with a lot of bullsh-- but always made the right decision for the company. Vince told Patterson he loved him and they hugged in the ring. Good applause and some chants for Patterson.

Vinny left the ring and fans chanted for Pat to sing. Vince then ordered him to sing "My Way." He sang and then Shane and Stephanie came out. Pat then walked up the ramp for the final time lip synching the version of "My Way" that was playing over the P.A. system."

[chrismystery]

Ahhhh....It brings a tear to my eye.

Wait...Taboo Tuesday was yesterday?

Oh well.