The former WWE referee Rita Chatterton recently made some bold revelations regarding WWE Hall of Famer Pat Patterson. The former accused that Patterson told multiple female performers to break her leg during her debut match in the company.
Rita Chatterton opens up on the incident
Chatterton was the first female referee to be employed by WWE, and she admitted to having dealt with a awful experience even before she began officially working for the promotion. Despite Pat Patterson being against the idea of having a female referee, Rita Chatterton was given a chance to officiate the match after she threatened to sue the company:
The WWE Hall of Famer wanted to teach Chatterton a lesson and urged the performers to get physical with the referee. However, the stars that featured in the bout ended up helping Rita, as she revealed on the Cheap Heat Productions podcast:
“I ended up doing my very first match, a women’s tag team match, and I found a few months later that Pat Patterson told the women to break my legs and make sure I never wanted to get into the ring again,” revealed Chatterton. “Luckily, the women, instead of doing anything to hurt me, they helped me. That’s how I got started! It was a crazy world, and things were so much different back then. But luckily, the women knew that you had to work ten times as hard for the quarter of the recognition that the men got at the time. So, instead of doing anything to hurt me, they actually helped me.”
During the same interview, she stated that the former Intercontinental Champion initially didn’t buy into her claims that she was in attendance to officiate a match and proceeded to examine her refereeing license:
“I’m leaning against my car, and Pat Patterson comes walking over, and he says, ‘Who are you here with?’ Well, I’m here with myself, I said. He said, ‘This is for the wrestlers; you can’t do that here.’ Well, I’m your referee for tonight, and he started laughing at me,” Rita continued. “He said, ‘Sweetheart, you’ve got to do better than that. I’ve been around for 30 years; you’re no referee. I was like, ‘Well, do you want to see my license?’ He is like, ‘Yeah.'” continued Chatterton.
He also made quite an astonishing comment before walking away in rage, as Rita stated below:
“So I went to my car, I get my license and handed him my license. He looks at my license, he looks at me, and he looks back at the license, and he looks at me, and he is just shaking his head, and he literally throws the license at me and says, ‘Who in their right f**king mind would give a female a referee’s license?’ And he stormed away,” added the former referee.
