Cyclone Samson was my very first opponent. His dad, Sylvio, was instrumental in getting my career started.
Photo courtesy of Sylvain Samson and family.
But, again, I didn’t stay there long. I went back again to Sylvio Samson and pled the case that he should give his son and me a chance to work together on one of his shows. He finally relented and gave us the opener in Saint Jérôme, a town just outside Montréal. I gave everything I had to Cyclone that night as he was drop-kicking me to the moon. The old man went apeshit about how good we were. I made his son shine and look like the world champion. After that, Cyclone and I wrestled everywhere together. He was winning every night, but I couldn’t care less. The older wrestlers saw what I was doing and they liked me right away. Bear in mind I was only seventeen. Then I started to get paired up with more experienced talent; they wanted to wrestle with me because of all those bumps I was taking.
When I started in the business, I was 190 pounds and around 5 foot 10. Let me tell you, I drank a lot protein shakes, trying to get bigger. (I was not a big fan of the gym.) I was ready to do anything I needed to in order to succeed in the business. Nothing would stop me.
While working for promoter Sylvio Samson, we went everywhere in the province of Québec. That’s when Maurice “Mad Dog” Vachon first noticed me and started to take an interest.
“Toé, tu vas faire un bon lutteur!” You’re going to be a good wrestler, he said to me one day. He wasn’t telling everyone, but he kept encouraging me. And no matter what, he was still scaring the hell out of me. I saw him once in the dressing room with one of his friends, who was the shits as a wrestler, and the guy was driving Maurice crazy. He kept badgering Mad Dog about their plans for the night, and Maurice kept on asking to be left alone. Maurice got mad and just beat the crap out of him right there and then in the dressing room. I didn’t want to be anywhere near Mad Dog Vachon — that’s how scared I was.
I also worked for Claude Desharnais, who would promote towns for Sylvio that were farther away from Montréal. If the town was near the end of the known world, you could be sure Desharnais was promoting there. We were making five dollars a night at best. We had nothing left when we came back from those godforsaken trips. The expenses on the road ate away at any profit. One time, there were seven of us in a car — two in the front, three in the back, and two little people as well. At least I was learning how to wrestle and gaining valuable experience while having fun. I entertained myself on those long trips, since I was getting broke traveling. I loved playing ribs as far back as I can remember. In Montréal, we would light the dressing room’s trashcan on fire during the main event and then leave. When my friends would come back after their match, there was so much smoke, they almost could not get in. We used to pull shit like that all the time. Today, in WWE, we can’t do that as it stirs up way too much trouble way too quickly.
* * *
While I was working for Desharnais and Samson, and even for my first match in 1958 at the Loisirs, I was always billed under the name of Pat Patterson. Could you imagine me coming to the ring as “Pierre Clermont”? That just doesn’t work. The Smith Brothers were a couple of guys who wrestled for Samson doing a lumberjack gimmick. One of them was Pat Smith. I liked that name Pat, but I just couldn’t find the right name to go with it. So I looked at the back of a dictionary, the proper nouns section, closed my eyes, and opened it randomly. First thing I saw when I opened my eyes was Patterson. I never looked back, and no promoter ever tried to change my name.
I made my fame under that name and back then, nothing was difficult about using a different name. No one asked questions — not even getting a driver’s license was a problem.
Around 2009, I finally got around to changing my name legally. Everyone always called me Pat Patterson; even my own family had made the switch. Thank God, because they used to call me Pierrot, little Pierre. Pierrot had been gone for so long, it was about time they stopped calling me that. Pierre Clermont never really existed. In a sense, I think I was always Pat Patterson, you know what I mean?
At any rate, I went to see a lawyer to become an American citizen. I already had a green card after years of working in the United States. But even though I had been living in the country for most of my life, and I was already paying my taxes to Uncle Sam, if anything happened, I could still be kicked out and then I would not be able to work for WWE anymore. I felt I needed to become a citizen. It all went very smoothly and I became a U.S. citizen. Now that that was done, I could legally change my name.
It was not quite like regular court. There were about ten or fifteen of us with our lawyers, waiting for our turn. The judge didn’t take the proceedings lightly. If something was wrong with the paperwork, people were dismissed for the day. I was the last one for the day and I was a little scared when my turn came. I didn’t want to have to start all over again and wait for another court appointment. I can still hear the judge asking me, “Why do you want to change your name? It’s a nice name, Pierre Clermont.”
I told him, “Well, it’s not a great name for wrestling, Your Honor. I have been using Pat Patterson since I was a teenage kid.”
“Did you ever wrestle Dick the Bruiser and Pat O’Connor?” he asked.
I said, “Yeah, I did.”
“I used to love those guys.”
So the judge, who had been scaring me all day, started to talk wrestling with me. It was unbelievable. At the end, he said, “No more Pierre Clermont.”
He stamped everything and he sent me on my way to get all of my paperwork done in the building across the street. Fifteen minutes later, everything was done.
Pierre Clermont was gone for good.
STRAIGHT OUT OF MONTRÉAL
“My friend, I’ll say it clear, I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain”
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 b
ecome 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.
Boston here I come, with my suitcase straight out of a garbage can.
BOSTON, MY LOVE
“I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried”
In the early 1960s, everything was so much easier. Immigration to the United States was not a big problem. The big problem was that my English was limited. Actually, it was terrible.
At the border, all I had was that business card and a letter from a wrestling promoter, and I attempted to explain that I was going to work for this man Tony Santos in Boston. Three hours later, customs was finally able to get in touch with him, and he said I was coming to wrestle for him. I was lucky he said so. Once they had that confirmation, I was allowed to enter the country and work here. Imagine trying that today!
I was dropped at the Greyhound bus stop in Boston with my five-word English vocabulary and barely any money left in my pocket. There was a little man called Bobo who was waiting for me there — he was a wrestler, too. I was three hours late, but he was there waiting for me as per Santos’s request.
This guy told me we were going to walk to the apartment complex where all the wrestlers stayed. It still stands there today at 72 Westland Avenue, right around the corner from the Boston Symphony Hall on Massachusetts Avenue. I was tired and wished we could take a cab, but neither of us had any money, so we walked. It was an incredibly long walk, close to an hour. Thank God I had a lot of practice from Montréal.
In a Boston restaurant like this I would slowly learn English.
When we arrived, I was introduced to the landlord, Ralph, whom I proceeded to torture mercilessly with my pranks for the next year or so. It was a six-floor building, with maybe three to five rooms on each side of a giant staircase and a shared bathroom. It cost ten dollars a week for a room furnished with a bed, a table, and a small black-and-white television. Some of the other non-wrestling tenants were old people who would pass out drunk on the stairs on a regular basis. It was quite the place — not exactly the Ritz. (Today that property is probably worth millions.) Still I had fun. We all talked to each other from room to room. It was a big change from my family’s place in Montréal: I didn’t share my space with ten other people. Living all by myself, I
felt like I was on top of the world. I even had hot water. All in all, it was a big improvement for me.
I had so much fun living in that place, enjoying my new life and freedom while playing pranks on the people who had the misfortune of renting a room near me.
My English was, as I’ve said, terrible. I made all the classic mistakes French people make when learning English. We just take the French word and try to say it in English. So I would say gouvernement instead of government, only I added an English pronunciation. I probably don’t have to tell you, but everyone was always laughing at my attempts to speak English. But living with so many different people helped. They asked me often enough to repeat myself. The more I talked to people, the more functional English I learned. What really helped was television, especially The Price Is Right. I learned the best I could like that, so if you don’t like my English, blame TV.
My first week in Boston, I ate the same thing every day: hamburger steak. Why? Simply because I had no idea what anything else on the menu was. One time, the special was pork chops and I knew I liked chop de porc frais, so I was about to try it because the names were so similar. When they asked me if I wanted “gravy,” I was sure I was not going to like the meal.
“Just hamburger steak,” I said.
My friend ordered the pork chops with gravy. When I saw what they brought him, I knew I would be ordering it soon.
And so I added “pork chop” and a few more words along my way and started to expand my knowledge of English.
When it came time to wrestle, I had no problem. I had learned enough wrestling lingo in Montréal to keep up in any ring. They had a gym with a nice ring at the wrestling office, located in the old Boston arena on St. Botolph, now the Matthews Arena, a ten-minute walk from my place. They even kept the wrestling bear there. I wrestled it once and that was enough for me — it was much scarier than any human opponent. On my first day at the office, I met Golden Boy Dupree. He was thirty-five and gay, as I later found out. Santos wanted me to wrestle with him, so he could see how good I was. I passed that test with flying colors: Golden Boy was very happy and Santos told me not to worry, that I was booked. Three or four days later, he drove Golden Boy and me to wrestle on a show in Buffalo. It’s a seven-hour drive from Boston to Buffalo. In Montréal, I did a few long trips but never one that long. Since my English was so shitty, I had no idea I was in for such a long ride and the conversation was almost nonexistent.
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