Former WWE and WCW referee Nick Patrick has spoken about Bret Hart being “hurt” by the botched finish to the infamous Starrcade 1997 pay-per-view event.
Going into the show, the biggest story at the time was the main event feud between World Champion Hollywood Hogan and Sting, who had not wrestled for a year.
The show also marked the WCW debut of Bret Hart, mere weeks after his WWF exit following the Montreal Screwjob.
The plan for the main event was for Sting to lose due to a fast count by Patrick (the nWo’s personal referee) and for Hart, still angry over the Screwjob, to force the match to be restarted.
Instead, Patrick counted a normal count that saw Hogan win the match fair and square, making the irate Hitman seem ridiculous by demanding the match begin again.
On AdFreeShows, Patrick recalled the finish to what was WCW’s biggest event of the year. He said,
“It felt like it didn’t flow. It just felt off. Watching it back, they got a really good flow and had a decent match.
“The only person that got hurt out of it was Bret Hart because I made the normal count.”
According to Patrick, he thinks it would’ve been better if everyone was “on the same page.”
Once the match was restarted, Sting won, and became the new WCW World Heavyweight Champion, but was stripped of the title shortly after.
Eric Bischoff recently spoke about Starrcade 1997 in an A&E documentary and claimed that Hogan used creative control to make the ending more to his liking.
