During his recent podcast, Chris Jericho shared his memories of working with Pat Patterson:
“He was my Yoda. I was Luke Skywalker. Literally envisioning me running through the forest with Pat strapped in a knapsack along my back. It wasn’t just for me, it was for so many guys of my generation. I was in the business nine years before I met him. I didn’t really understand what psychology was. I might have thought that I did, but I really didn’t until I met Pat. Pat taught me 90% of what I know of how to put together a wrestling match. The mindset comes directly from Pat Patterson.”
“Look at the modern era main-eventers. If you think who the greatest workers of the ‘90s and ‘00s are, it’s Shawn, it’s Bret, it’s Rock, if you put Jericho in there, thank you. You can put Kurt in there. Whoever is in there, Pat was our guy. If there was a match, Pat was usually the agent and that’s just the way it was because you were working on top and Pat was always with the top guys. The reason for that is we were all in the business for 10 years or 15 years. Nobody has to tell us how to put together the match, but what Pat could do, and why I loved working with him, is that he was like a great co-writer of a song. I would start with an idea. Then he would throw an idea in and we would reconfigure it and change it and change it until we both said that’s great. Lower level agents would get insulted if you said you didn’t like the idea and they would get mad. Pat never said that. He would always say, here is what I’m visualizing. Then, ok, let’s try this. He would never get mad if you didn’t like it. He would say, ok, what do you have? He would challenge you but he had the humbleness to never say, ‘I’m Pat Patterson, so my idea is the best so listen to me.’ He wasn’t that type of an agent and that’s why he was so much fun to work with.”
(quotes courtesy of WrestlingNews.co)
