WRESTLING MELEE RECALLED





It goes back a few years but many of our readers will have a pretty good recollection of a night that started with a wrestling show at Watertown High School and ended up with a melee in Waukesha that put two professional wrestlers under arrest.

We had pretty much forgotten about that incident until a few weeks ago when the Waukesha Freeman carried a large front page story about it and where some of the participants are today.

The story began back on April 5, 1984, when an all-star wrestling card was brought to the Watertown High School gym. Seems to us it was a fund-raiser for one of the local sports groups, possibly the Watertown High School Athletic Booster Club.

There were some pretty big wrestling names from that era on the card. Our readers will remember some of the names: "Rock & Roll Buck Zumhofe," Ken Patera, Mr. Saito, "The Fabulous Ones," "The Crusher" and Jessie "The Body" Ventura, among others.

Well, the matches wound up as expected, wrestlers thrown everywhere and mayhem abounded.

With the match over, the fans left the high school gym and headed for home. The wrestlers headed for home as well. But, two of them, Ken Patera and Masanori Saito headed for Waukesha where they were to spend the night before flying from Waukesha to Stevens Point for another wrestling show.

The trouble began just before midnight, probably an hour or so after they had left Watertown. Patera and Saito, both former Olympic weighlifting contenders, headed to a McDonald's Restaurant on Moorland Boulevard. They became angry when the restaurant wouldn't serve them because it was closing.


Patera threw a 30 pound rock, about the size of a bowling ball, through the restaurant's window, causing about $500 in damages. Patera, who called himself a world-class shot-putter, later denied he threw the rock.

They then left and headed for their hotel. It didn't take long for officers to come rapping at the hotel room door. It was opened by Saito who denied Patera was in the room. Patera then burst from the room or an adjoining room, and attacked a 120-pound female officer. Saito then charged the other officer on the call, a male, and the fight was on. More officers were called to the scene and finally peace was restored but not before the two wrestlers worked on the police much the same as they worked on opponents in the ring.

The two wrestlers faced numerous charges and the trial was a real circus. A number of wrestling stars were called as character witnesses for Patera and Saito. Among them were former world heavyweight wrestling champion Nick Bockwinkel, longtime professional wrestler Vern Gagne and announcer "Mean" Gene Okerlund.

After seven days of testimony and seven hours of deliberations, both professional wrestlers were found guilty of battery to police officers. Both were given two year prison sentences and six years of probation. They were out of prison by the end of 1986.

Patera, now 60 and living in Minneapolis, was interviewed for the Freeman story but had no positive comments. He was quoted as saying, "What kind of sh** are you trying to start. I'm not in the mood to talk about being railroaded by a sleaze-ball judge and district attorney and a bunch of old jurors who took my professional career and turned it to sh**. They screwed up my life - you get it? They are a bunch of scumbags."

Saito reportedly went back to Japan where he continued his wrestling career.

The female officer, Jacalyn Hibbard, was hospitalized. She returned to the force but resigned a few months later. She declined to comment for the article. Her partner was John Dillan. He said it was years before a single day passed where no one asked him about the incident. He became a detective for the department until resigning in 1999 to take a position as a negotiator for the Wisconsin Professional Police Association.

It's been a long time since that incident that was tied to Watertown, and clearly all of the wounds have not healed.

Wrestling was a big business back then but it's even bigger now. Today it's seen regularly on television and Vince McMahon, the head of pro wrestling, has made it into a publicly traded stock company.

We remember back in the days when Turner Hall was the venue to watch wrestling on Friday nights. Back in the 1960s regulars at Turner Hall would be names like Angelo Poffo, Paul Bunyon, the Lisowski Brothers, the Volkhoffs, Dick the Bruiser and others. We also remember "Bouncin' Bess," the most loyal spectator ever. But those days were pretty tame compared to the melee in Waukesha that happened just an hour or so after the Watertown performance ended.

We're sure that if Mr. Saito and Ken Patera could go back to that night, things would have turned out much different.

credit - wdtimes.com

I'm not sure what to think of the date of the occurance, but Patera was still actively wrestling for the WWF until at least May of 1985 (he wrestled the MSG show that month and beat Tony Atlas).

Still an interesting article, and proves how stupid Ken Patera is.

Trial probably was still going on till May 1985 and then they served a year.

Also, I don't know how many of you saw Ken Patera's Straight Shootin I heard he pretty much went complete dick on Gabe. There's suppost to be some point where he takes Gabe's notes and when he tries to ask him something he mutters "Don't interrupt me, cocksucker" under his breath. So it's nice to know that his insanity is still fully blown.....

Glad to know that the reports of Ken Patera still being a dickhead aren't false.