JJ Dillion On Vince McMahon’s Mindset During Steroid Trial, How He and Pat Patterson Dealt With Vince

JJ Dillon recently looked back on his time in WWE, including the era of 1990s when Vince McMcMahon was on trial on steroid-related charges, in a recent interview. Dillon appeared on Stories with Brisco and Bradshaw and discussed working with Pat Patterson and more; you can check out some highlights below per Wrestling Inc:

On how he and Pat Patterson dealt with Vince McMahon creatively: “We would go over to [Vince’s] house [to meet]. It was a great learning experience. I’ve got so much respect for Pat Patterson, because Pat had done it all. . . Pat had the innate ability to understand what Vince liked and didn’t like. There are certain things that Vince didn’t like, so you learned what he didn’t like. And the things he did like, you would feed to him by the shovelfuls. And the things you might [have] thought was good and had potential, it was never brought up because Vince didn’t like it and he’d shut the conversation down.

“I don’t want to say we manipulated Vince, we just knew what he liked and gave it to him in as many different ways [as possible]. We were smart enough to know, ‘Well, maybe this is something we like personally’, but know [Vince] doesn’t. So, don’t fight the battle, because you’re not going to win, and you know he’s [not going] to like it no matter how good you think it is.”

On learning from Patterson: “I learned so much from being around Pat. Pat, to me, was the one. I worked with a lot of great minds in the business. But to me, Pat was the best of them all.”

On Vince’s thoughts during the steroid trial: “Vince was convinced that when the government invests that much in going after somebody, that they’re going to get their pound of flesh. He was convinced they were going to get him on something, and that he was going to do some time. He really was.”

On if he and Jerry Jarrett were really going to take over WWF if Vince was convicted: “Yeah. It was seven days a week thing. I’d be in the office all week. . . and Friday afternoon [Pat] would say to Vince, ‘Well what are you doing tomorrow?’ And Vince would say, ‘If you don’t have anything to do then give me a call.’ Well, Saturday morning Pat would call Vince, and [Vince] would say, ‘Why don’t you come over to the house?’ [Patterson and Vince would meet] and brainstorm, because they were booking three towns a night and doing three TVs. So, Pat said to Vince that he wanted to include me, and that’s how that started.”