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The Patriot Talks About Abrupt End To His Feud With Bret Hart

In a recent interview with Two Man Power Trip, The Patriot talked about his time in WCW, the abrupt end this feud with WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart back in the ’90s, independent circuit & more. Below are the highlights:

Time 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.”

The abrupt end of his feud with Bret Hart in the WWF back in the ’90s:

“My health issues brought the feud with Bret to an end. I had 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.”

The pulse of the locker room in 1997:

“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.”

The imitations of The Patriot character on the Independent circuit:

“For a long time there was this rumor that I had sold the gimmick to (Tom) Brandi. I in no way, shape or form did that. I think he took it upon himself to use that character. Recently, I posted on Facebook that I had been receiving messages from fans who were saying how nice it was to meet me at a wrestling event and enjoyed watching me work. I haven’t been in a ring in 13/14 years. I have worked one time since 2000. If you see someone in a ring working that is evidence enough that it’s not Del Wilkes because I don’t do that and I can’t do that I am actually unable to do that now. Tom isn’t the only one, he’s probably the most known but there are several guys out there that are running around pretending to be The Patriot and when you put the mask on your face you hide your identity. The things that chaps me the most about it is fans have told me they were suspicious about the person they saw wrestle so they asked outright, Are you Del Wilkes? The response they get back is Yeah, I’m Del. They sell my pictures, Tom did a shoot interview and the cover of it is a picture of me, not of him. That’s just bad. There isn’t a lot I can do but if you are going to pretend to be me and dress up like me is one thing, but to outright lie and sell pictures of me and not of you, that just takes it to another level and it’s really pathetic.”


        
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