The first openly gay wrestler Pat Patterson who went on to hold the WWE Intercontinental Champion title in 1979 and become a member of the WWE Hall of Fame, has just died aged 79.
When he first started wrestling in Montreal, Canada in 1958 he was “Pretty Boy” Pat Patterson, wearing a beret, red lipstick and sunglasses. But it wasn’t until 2014 that Patterson came out as gay in 2014, after losing his partner of 40 years. He had been in the closet for over 50 years
Patterson may not have gotten the respect he deserved from the LGBTQ community, but wrestlers everywhere love him Stephanie McMahon wrote: “I’m deeply grateful to have grown up with WWE Hall of Famer, the first-ever Intercontinental Champion, the father of the #RoyalRumble and the first openly gay wrestler of his generation.
The Rock paying tribute to Patterson, wrote “I’ll see you down the road” and talked about how instrumental Patterson was to getting him a job in WWE:
“A (WWE) hall of famer, TRUE trailblazer and one of the most brilliantly creative wrestling minds the industry has ever known. He was also responsible for calling Vince McMahon when I was training to become a pro wrestler (my $7 bucks days) and said, ‘Vince you gotta see this kid work in the ring’.
“Vince flew me to RAW a few weeks later and I had my first match EVER in Corpus Christie, Texas.
“The rest is history and years later, here I am writing this post.”
