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Accepted by Pat Patterson

Chapter 3: Straight Out of Montréal

When I first started to get paid for wrestling, promoters occasionally paid me by check. Because I was still very young and had no bank account, my dad cashed my checks for me. And, of course, those checks sometimes bounced. He would go crazy, telling me I should quit “that goddamn wrestling” and that people were taking advantage of me. He forced me to get a “real” job.

Well, I soon discovered I wasn’t cut out for traditional employment.

My first job was at a shoe factory. I would pile up boxes of shoes in the warehouse. I stuck it out for six or seven months, before I got pissed at everyone and told them to go to hell.

My dad was mad. “Tabarnak, tu peux pas garder une job.” Goddamn it, you can’t keep a job. He berated me, and I had nothing to say in my defense. I just hated working there.

After that, I went to work in a cookie factory. I lasted a month this time. I needed freedom. My boss was a crazy woman and we had a terrible relationship from the get-go. Cookies weren’t for me either.

I wanted to do what I wanted to do — I couldn’t work in that type of environment where each minute is counted, where no one laughs, and where people blame you to save their own asses. If I hadn’t found wrestling, I might have become a thief or something equally socially unacceptable, just so I could escape and have some fun.

Still, I was a good son and kept looking for the proverbial “real” job. I made at least twenty applications to a cigarette factory called Macdonald, which is still standing in Montréal today. If they hired you, it was for life, and you’d get a great retirement plan. We lived right next door. I went in almost every day to apply. The receptionist would say, “Sir, you just came yesterday.”

“I know, but I really need to get a job here.”

I don’t know if I would have lasted longer than at the other two factories, but at the time it was the job to get because you would be set for life. That being said, I am so glad they never called me back. It was good work, with a good retirement plan, but I would have worked there for thirty-five years and never have made it to where I am today.

Instead, I kept training to become a professional wrestler. And I was learning the business. Sylvio Samson had me help him promote shows on Saturdays; we put posters in every shop window in the city. Sometimes shop owners wanted tickets in exchange, but most of the time they let us do it for free. The first time I saw my name on one of those posters, it got me really excited about my future: Combat préliminaire: Pat Patterson vs. Cyclone Samson.

I always told my family when I was competing, but they never came to see me. I wished they had been there just like they were when my brother was playing hockey. The first time my parents saw me in the ring was many years later in San Francisco. It was quite the shock for them as I picked them up in a Cadillac and brought them to my big house. My mother kept crying in the car because she had never before even sat in a Caddie. And she could not believe my place was actually my house. I was headlining the Cow Palace, the Montréal Forum of San Francisco, at the time . . . But there I go again, getting ahead of myself.

My dad and I kept arguing about me getting a real job. Men didn’t show affection back then, not even fathers and sons. I had nothing in common with him anyway. We never found anything to bond over on any level. The reality was the family was just too big and everyone just wanted to get the hell out as soon as possible. Everyone was always invading everyone else’s space when we were together at home. Dad was strict and I hated all the rules. And I was always looking for affection — that was not his strong point.

The reality, too, was that on a personal level I still really didn’t know who I was. I’d tried going dancing with girls like any other boy, but I knew almost from the start that it wasn’t for me. I never knew why, but girls just weren’t doing it for me, even if I found them cute. I had a friend in my class who was gay. At the time, he knew where the gay tavern was, so we started going there Friday nights. When the waiter spotted us, he told us we were too young, but then he told us to be quiet and sit in the corner. I don’t know why he didn’t kick us out, maybe because he wanted to help. It was quite the sight — everyone in there was cruising me. I was a good-looking young man. After going a few times, I finally met a guy my age — I must’ve been sixteen, closer to seventeen — at this tavern. As they say, he was very good-looking, too. We started talking and one thing led to another.

He brought me to his place because his parents were out of town. It was incredible, and I felt so good afterward. There was tenderness and affection. We were just two people, together, sharing their feelings. It was a strange sentiment. In fact, I couldn’t think straight anymore.

I got back home around 1 a.m.; I had missed my curfew, so every door was locked and I had to ring the doorbell to get in. I knew I would wake up everybody but I didn’t care. My dad was doubly pissed — because I wasn’t home on time and now I’d woken him up — and my mom tried to play peacemaker. While I wasn’t completely drunk, I was still floating on the alcohol I’d had plus the incredible evening I’d experienced. That’s when, with the alcohol helping me muster my courage, I completely opened up.

“I need to tell you something: I think I’m in love.”

My mother was happy for me, telling me how good that was. Then I added that it was another boy who made me feel this way. More than likely it was the buzz speaking for me, but I felt too good to keep it a secret.

My dad was like, “Quoi?” What? “Don’t tell me you have become a tapette?”

I defended myself the best I could. “I’m not a tapette.”

“I won’t have a tapette in my home; you’re going to have to move out.”

My mother started to cry. “Gérard, you can’t do that to our son.”

He snapped: “I can’t have a tapette in my house. What will everyone say?”

This was the turning point. I’d wanted to leave home for the circus but hadn’t had the guts. I knew I had to get the hell out and the sooner the better. My mom ended up winning that argument and I was allowed to stay a little longer, but I had learned that Dad was not ready to share this with me. Things would get smoother as the years went by, but I was in New York before we truly spoke about that night again.

I was working at the shoe factory around that time and I gave all the money I made to my mother. She would give me back a little money, and with that I would go to the tavern. I had found a place where I could be myself, where people understood me, where we would talk until closing time.

Fast-forward a few years to the end of 1960: I was still working for Samson outside the city. The Boston promoter Tony Santos came to Montréal to check out the talent and he brought some people to his territory. One night, I got hold of him on his way out of the matches at Paul Sauvé Arena, on the corner of Beaubien and Pie-IX.

“Me. Talk to you. Want to wrestle for you in Boston. Give me start.”

To which he answered, “Argh, take my card!”

When I think about it now, he was trying to blow me off, but I took that as a yes. There was no stopping me; my mind was made up. I found an old suitcase in the garbage and put everything I owned in there. My mom could not believe I was leaving, but I was. When I finally left, my dad told me he didn’t want me coming back, knocking on his door ever again, and I never did. I promised myself not to. Strangely, that made him mad, even though he was the one who said it in the first place.

I wished I could have spared my mom from all the shit she went through when I left home. I borrowed twenty bucks (a lot of money at the time) from my sister Claudette and left for Boston on a Greyhound bus. I was nineteen years old, had no plan, and barely any money. What was I thinking? I guess it’s a good thing I wasn’t thinking too much, because today I’m glad I left. Little did I know, I was going to meet my soul mate and embark upon a career that, more than fifty years later, I still love.

Chapter 10: New York! New York!

As I’ve said, I craved a new challenge. Mike LeBell, the Los Angeles promoter, was good friends with Vince McMahon Sr. He suggested I contact Vince. I called and when Vince explained his plan for me I told him I would be there . . . tomorrow.

“No, no,” he said. “I don’t want any heat. Just wait. I will give you a date when I’ve talked it over with Verne.”

I had met Vince Sr. for the first time a few years earlier in Las Vegas. Roy Shire was never a member of the National Wrestling Alliance but, as a courtesy, every year he was invited to attend their annual general meeting. They were hoping he would change his mind and join them. At very least, it kept relationships good for everyone. One year, Roy brought me with him. But because having a top talent sitting with all those promoters in “important” meetings was awkward, I ended up befriending Vince’s wife, Juanita.

I was all dressed up and waiting for the last meeting of the day to end when I finally said, “We’re not going to wait on them forever. Let’s go to the bar and have some cocktails.”

The promoters’ wives all thought it was a fabulous idea. So we went to the bar and had a blast. I guess I was charming, and I was definitely making them laugh. I don’t know why, but I was always very popular with the ladies. Juanita never got involved with the wrestling business, but I was the exception to the rule. She spoke the world of me to Vince Sr.

When he decided to bring me in a few years later, he planned for me to wrestle Bob Backlund for the World Heavyweight Championship. That was a new and exciting platform: to be in the main event on the grandest stage of them all. Guys who were my size didn’t usually come to New York to challenge for the championship. As I said, I was not contacted directly. Back then, they were very cautious about things like that. That’s something that would change when Vince Jr. took over — but that’s a story for later.

When I first showed up in New York, Vince Sr. asked his right-hand man, Arnold Skaaland, to take care of me and show me around his territory. When André the Giant was on the same card,