Confused by his conflicting instructions and unable to locate Bischoff for clarification, Patrick eventually decided to “split the difference” and go somewhere between a fast and slow count. To his surprise, when he returned to the back after the match, he wasn’t given a dressing down.

“I’m waiting for somebody to come and give me my pink slip,” he said. “Nobody said a damn thing to me! I got my bag and left the building. We never spoke about it again until I did the podcast with Eric Bischoff.”

When Van Vliet asked Patrick if he had ever spoken to Hogan, Sting, and Bischoff at the same time about the finish, prior to the match, Patrick was adamant that he had not. “We were never all together in the same room,” he said. “That never ever happened.”

In the end, Patrick believes the screwy finish to Hogan vs. Sting was only a small factor in what would amount to a disastrous match. There was a feeling among many, he says, that Sting “had not put enough” into making the match work, considering it was WCW’s highest-grossing event in history. Patrick maintains that it could have been “the biggest match in history” if not for factors beyond his control.

“It looked like none of us wanted to be there,” he said.