During a recent appearance on the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast, former WCW and WWE referee Nick Patrick reflected on his career as well as the infamous finish to Hulk Hogan vs. Sting at WCW Starrcade 1997.
The main event WCW World Heavyweight Championship match between Hogan and Sting was officiated by Patrick who was known for favoring the nWo. Hogan performed a big boot, and pinned Sting after a leg drop.
However, Bret Hart claimed Patrick counted the pinfall fast, and restarted the match with himself as the referee. Sting performed a Stinger Splash and applied the Scorpion Deathlock to win the title.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his match with 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 an idiot, right? But I smoked cigarettes and stuff back then man and I had man I had to go out there I got going 13 minutes live with a kid like Jericho, we 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 his referee vs. referee match against Earl Hebner at Invasion: “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, all the WWE fans hated everybody from WCW. They hate 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 the WCW Starrcade 1997 Sting vs. Hollywood Hogan finish: “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 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 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 and 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 also, so about an hour or so later than that, Sting comes up to me and says, Hey, did you know about that count? 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 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.”
On his thoughts on the worst wrestling 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 are 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.”
