Nick Patrick: Best American Wrestler, 1996

This weekend I decided to throw on WCW World War 3 1996. My excuse? It was the only PPV that Roadblock ever appeared on. Also, Tony Rumble was on a PPV for some reason. Felt like something I needed to see. What I didn't expect, was that I would be seeing a performance that would change my life. Apparently, Nick Patrick was the best worker in WCW in 1996. Did you know that? I sure as hell didn't know that, before this past weekend. Has everybody else known this and decided to not tell me? I'm always the last to know. But if you're out there, and you didn't realize what an incredible worker 1996 Nick Patrick was, if nobody told you yet, here I am, telling you. Now you know, and now your life like mine own life can be forever changed.

Nick Patrick vs. Chris Jericho Pt. 1            Nick Patrick vs. Chris Jericho Pt. 2

Goddamn this match rules. This makes me so pissed that we didn't get a run of Nick Patrick as a worker during this era WCW. He's like a god tier Danny McBride character in this match, just a magnificent stooge who genuinely looked like a better worker here than most of the active roster (and WCW had an impressive as hell roster). This match is brilliant. Jericho has one arm tied behind his back, Patrick is wearing his neck brace, and they work a fantastic match not only based around Jericho with one good arm, but Patrick doing mean offense to a guy with one arm while also convincingly taking a beating from that same man. Both guys' offense looks really good in this, Jericho pulling out a really impressive performance with use of only one arm, breaking out with a cool corner kick combo, a big leaping shoulderblock, actually some pretty impressive stuff with your body balance thrown off.

But Nick Patrick is the real marvel here. He works like a classic Memphis worker, throwing nice submarine angle uppercut right hands and quick, excellently worked left jabs. He has as many doofus stooge faces as John Tatum, and any wrestler who tips the Tatum Scales for me is going to immediately be a guy who I champion. Patrick is also somehow not only a great bumper, he's able to take great bumps while conveying a guy who isn't someone who should be taking bumps.

I remember seeing an interview with Martin Landau talking about his wonderful performance in Ed Wood. He talked about how seriously he took the role of Bela Lugosi, how he thought Lugosi was a true legend whom he wanted to honor, so much so that he thought out each aspect of the character in detailed fashion. And he talked about the crazy method depths he went to properly capture Bela, down to the fact that he didn't just want to do an accurate Romania accent, he wanted to do an accent of a Romanian man who was insecure about his accent so tried to cover his accent. Nick Patrick seems to understand his role in this match as well as Landau knew what tone to use to play Lugosi. Nick Patrick brawled like Windham and stooged like Tatum, and that's a wrestler I'm going to want to watch.

Patrick uses the World War 3 setting really well, brawling to the floor, hitting a cool ring post bump into a ring post joining two rings, setting up a spot where Jericho missed a punch and decked the joined ring posts (Jericho played into all these transition spots great); Patrick found cool ways to take this match into a couple rings and show off to several sides of the arena. That's an AMAZING skill. Patrick throws a ton of great punches throughout, great quick jabs and body shots, and then to show you how much of a rebel badass he is Nick Patrick does the Curt Hennig rolling neck snap! Patrick even takes a back drop bump, with Jericho setting it up impressively for a guy with one arm. Patrick had a full range of theatrical stooge bumps: drop to your knees and faceplant, googly eyes into faceplant, arms above his head slow fall, dropping fast to his butt, a guy who seemed like he could have come up with a dozen comedy spots at any point.

This match was an absolute blast, I can't believe it isn't some kind of cult favorite. It's really great. Patrick is a legend and there's no sign that he'd even worked a match in the prior decade, and then he turns in this incredible performance?? I would have this super high on a 1996 MOTY List, as ridiculous as that sounds. If two guys put this match together in 2019 I would have it high on a 2019 MOTY List. This was not just a superior gimmick match, but a superior pro wrestling match. And I have no idea how it was possible.

At this point Nick Patrick hadn't been an active worker for over a decade. It's not like he was working indies on the side while reffing in WCW. Why did this match happen? And, why weren't there more of them? When they booked this match NOBODY could have predicted it would be this great. So that means that somebody booked this match, got a result FAR BETTER than they ever could have hoped for, and then decided to not ever capitalize on it by having Patrick wrestle again. There are 50 guys on this roster I'd want to see opposite Patrick after seeing him here, and we got to see zero of those matches. I need to know everything that went into this. I need to see training footage of Patrick at the Power Plant. I need to know what other wrestlers thought of it. I need to know what Patrick's motivations were. His performance is so great that there has to be ONE PERSON in the back whose face he wanted to rub right in the shit. Somebody in WCW put down Nick Patrick somehow, and Nick Patrick was going to get to walk up to that person with as much smugness as he wanted, and ask him "How about that?" We need to find Nick Patrick, we need some answers, and I need some closure. Everything about Nick Patrick in this match - from his sleeveless ref shirt right down to every single mannerism - was an absolute pro wrestling clinic. It's been hiding right in plain sight for over 20 years, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt:

Nick Patrick was the Best American Pro Wrestler of 1996