Former Referee Exposed To Hepatitis In WWE – “Nobody Said A Word To Me”
Former WWE referee Nick Patrick details being told he was exposed to hepatitis while working for the company.
Nick Patrick spent decades in the world of professional wrestling, and speaking on the latest episode of AdFreeShows’ Monday Mailbag, he detailed his participation in a Hell in a Cell bout between Randy Orton and The Undertaker in 2005.
“When I was in WWE, there was a match with Undertaker and Randy Orton and Bob Orton Sr. was managing Randy at the time. It was Hell in a Cell so everybody got juice, you know me, everybody. That’s the one where Undertaker zapped me and I took a big bump out of the cage and I was bleeding. So everybody’s bleeding.”
“So I get to the back and when I get to Gorilla position. There’s always Vince and Stephanie and everybody’s right there and you look at them and see if you get their approval or disapproval. Well, I walked through and they would never look at me. There was this big conversation going on, so I’m like, okay, well, let’s get out of her because they don’t like it.”\
Continuing, Nick Patrick spoke about being told not to shower immediately after the bout despite wanting to clean himself off. Though he didn’t reveal who had the disease, he said ringside officials were aware that one of the men had contracted hepatitis.
“I went back to get showered. The team doctor that was there, his name was Dr. Rios, he goes, ‘Don’t get it in there.’ Orton Sr. got in the shower, and man, I was ready to get this blood off me because I have my blood on me. I have other people’s blood on me. It’s nasty. I wanted to get this sh*t off me. He said, ‘Don’t get in the shower. Don’t get in the shower.’
“I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ So it ended up that one of the guys ended up having hepatitis. When the doctor saw everybody in the ring bleeding, he grabbed everybody in the Gorilla position and went off. ‘He can’t be doing it. They can’t be doing that.’ So I came back and they didn’t tell me a damn thing and this is right before Christmas vacation. Nobody said a word to me. I got cleaned up and I’m thinking well, hell, they’re unhappy. Let me get the hell on home for Christmas vacation.”
“They Knew That Moment, That Night” – Nick Patrick On WWE Officials Failing To Inform Him Of Possible Hepatitis Exposure
According to Patrick, it wasn’t until after his Christmas vacation that John Laurinaitis informed him of his possible hepatitis exposure despite
“I got home from Christmas vacation. I go back out on the road after two weeks that I was home. I flew in. I was going somewhere in Pennsylvania. I had to fly into Philly and rent a car and drive. I was gonna meet Teddy Long or somebody on the road anyway. I went by myself.
“My phone rings. It’s John Laurinaitis. John goes, ‘Ah, Nick, I need a favor from you. You at that match, you have possibly been exposed to hepatitis.’ I don’t know anything really about it. I’m not a doctor. I don’t know if it’s something that I can transfer to my family or what. All I know is now that you have exposed me to it because I found out later that they knew that moment that night that it happened and they didn’t say a damn thing to me.
“I went home and spent two weeks with my family. Now I’m back out on the road and I’m by myself. Laurinaitis asked me to gather the boys and asked them which ones were comfortable working with me and which ones weren’t and I popped. I said, ‘That’s not my F’n responsibility and I’m not one that exposed myself.’ That was the first time I blew up at the office.
“A couple other things that ended up happening, and honestly, WWE is the first company that I’ve ever worked for that I had to go and hire a lawyer because of a couple of two or three different things that happen to protect myself and my family and my interests.”
Patrick did clarify that he was tested for hepatitis but did not contract the disease.
h/t WrestlingNews.co
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