10 Things You Might Have Forgotten About WrestleMania I

Pretty much every promotional video that the WWE produce on WrestleMania I retrospectives include the clip of Muhammad Ali walking down the aisle in the blue shirt and black bow tie synonymous of the pre-Attitude era WWE referee’s uniform to officiate the tag team main event between Hogan & Mr T v Piper & Orndorff. What’s often not portrayed in those promotional videos is how Ali did not actually referee the match and neither did any of the referees on the existing WWE roster at that time – that honour fell to legendary worker and backstage savant/stooge Pat Patterson.

Few people have gained the level of trust from Vince McMahon that Pat Patterson has wielded over the years and his position at the first WrestleMania cements that. Knowing Muhammad Ali would be much more effective in an enforcer role to interject into the match at key exciting moments, Vince would’ve needed someone at the centre of the action that he had complete and utter trust in to deliver.

It’s often overlooked how crucial the referee’s role is in the art of producing a wrestling show for pay per view or television – they need to have an innate understanding of the ebbs and flows of the sport to help assist the workers to deliver the best performance in an environment constricted by tight time deadlines which a non-wrestler just would not have the knowledge how to do. Patterson was clearly trusted as one of the greater minds in the industry over the years to help Hogan, Piper, Orndorff and the inexperienced Mr T deliver a main event worthy of such a massive commercial endeavour that had such a colossal resonance across the industry that reaches through to the present day.