Today's generation only knew him as a comedy relief character during the WWE's "Attitude Era". Older fans knew about a French-Canadian emigre who made his first inroads in the US with the late Ray Stevens as 1/2 of the original Blond Bombers, winning the NWA & AWA tag titles before he came to the then World Wrestling Federation in 1979.
At that point, Pat Patterson, managed by the Grand Wizard (Ernie Roth), earned his first singles title in beating a fellow future Hall of Famer in Ted DiBiase. Vince McMahon & Bruno Sammartino describe the action.....
The promotion then created the Intercontinental title, and invented a fictional tournament in Brazil, where Patterson won the title. He'd soon lose the North American title, and would drop the IC title to Ken Patera in 1980.
After his initial retirement in 1984, Patterson moved into the broadcast booth, working with McMahon for a few months. However, he was caught up in the controversial scandal involving a lesser known announcer, Murray Hodgson, among others, and was let go in 1992. At that point, Patterson, who had also created the Royal Rumble, launched in 1988, was now working backstage as one of McMahon's chief lieutenants, and was brought back as a comedy character in 1997.
His fighting days long over, Patterson came out on the series finale of the WWE Network series, Legends House, in 2014, even though most in the business knew about his being gay all along.
Earlier this morning, it got out that Patterson had passed away at 79 after a bout with cancer. WWE will do a tribute to him tonight at the earliest at the start of NXT, and AEW likely will do the same on Dynamite.
Rest in peace.
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