AEW superstar Chris Jericho spoke about the legacy of Pat Patterson on the latest edition of his Talk Is Jericho podcast, where the Demo God recalled a time in WWE that Patterson convinced him to put-over Heath Slater, a move that Jericho was initially unhappy about. See how it played out below.
We were doing something where I had to work with Heath Slater and Vince wanted me to put him over. I usually don’t (care), but I flipped out and was like, ‘What? This guy is like a nothing. Why do you want me to put him over?’ Whatever the reason was. I went straight looking for Pat and was like, ‘Can you believe what [Vince] wants me to do? He wants me to put over Heath Slater. Can you believe that? What should I do?’ Pat goes, ‘Do it!’ He was basically telling me that, ‘everyone knows you’re going to beat this guy, but you’re a heel. If he beats you, you can flip out and you’ll get way more over by losing and have much more of a bone to pick and meat to chew on for a promo. No one is going to remember if this guy beats you next week. They don’t know what his name is and they still don’t. This gets you more over as a heel to lose to this opening match jobber.’ If Vince could’ve described it that way, it wouldn’t have been a problem, but Vince did not speak like Pat. Pat could speak wrestler-talk.
You can listen to the full Talk Is Jericho here. (H/T and transcribed by Fightful)