The Patriot Talks His Bret Hart Feud, Shawn Michaels and WCW

Del Wilkes was known as “The Patriot” during his run in the 90s in professional wrestling with WWE and WCW. In promotion of a Kickstarter for a documentary based around his life, Wilkes spoke with “The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling” podcast about his career. Below are some of the highlights.

On his feud with Bret Hart:

“My health issues brought the feud with Bret to an end. I had just major serious injuries. I had totally blown out my right knee, which has since been replaced twice. I literally couldn’t work without the help of a big knee brace that I had to wear and that brace limited what I could do in the ring and my movement. I had torn my triceps, it was literally ripped off the bone and rolled up the back of my arm and these injuries were creating big problems for me. Unfortunately it brought an end to my career and to that angle we had going on. I was just physically unable to continue to perform.”

Wilkes spoke of the issues Shawn Michaels created with Hart in the WWF locker room:

“It was obvious things were heating up. The relationship between some of the guys and specifically Bret and Shawn (Michaels) and people were taking sides. There was Bret, Owen, Davey Boy and those guys and then you had Hunter, Shawn and that faction and Bret was very vocal to me about his displeasure with the way things were going. We spent a good bit of time talking to each other and talking about things we wanted to do in matches down the road that we were going to have and he really didn’t mind sharing with me his displeasure with the way things were in the company and his relationship with Shawn.”

He also talked about his run in WCW:

“It may not have been the best timing for me to be there but I went in initially to work as a singles wrestler. But then the booking committee had the idea of putting me with (Marcus) Bagwell and teaming us up and making us Stars and Stripe, which I was fine with because tag teams were still an important part of the business back then. The Nasty Boys, Paul Orndorf and Paul Roma, Harlem Heat were all there at the time so we had tremendous tag team matches and those tag team belts still meant something. But what I think hurt most was the timing of everything and I happened to be there when they decided to bring in (Hulk) Hogan from the WWF, they brought in (Randy) Savage from the WWF and (Brutus) Beefcake and it focused all of the attention on those guys and it seemed like everybody else didn’t matter as much.”

More from the interview can be heard here.

Editor’s Note

The unsung heroes of the 90s. Got to love them.

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