Patterson and Brisco ran into the legendary James Brown.
Joining John Bradshaw Layfield and Gerald Brisco on their Stories with Brisco and Bradshaw show was Thunderbolt Patterson.
Brisco and Patterson spent time on the road together as a tag team and as the conversation rolled on, they told the story of when legendary musician James Brown offered them spots on his jet so they could get to their next show. While making their way from North Carolina to Richmond, Patterson and Brisco were pulled over by police officers. Patterson had just purchased a brand new Cadillac. The police asked Patterson for his registration, but the car was fresh off the lot and had paper tags.
The police assumed the car was stolen and they arrested both Patterson and Brisco. John Ringley, a booker in North Carolina got them out of that situation. He drove Brisco and Patterson to the airport and while they were there, James Brown flew in on his jet. Brisco stated that Brown was aware of who Patterson was and he offered up his jet to them so they could get to their show in Richmond and James’ pilot would come back to Raleigh, North Carolina to get him after his show in the city.
Brisco and Patterson already had a plane waiting for them courtesy of John Ringley. Brisco jokingly said not getting on Brown’s plane was the biggest mistake they ever made.
Patterson: You remember the night that they took us to jail?
Brisco: Thunderbolt had just bought this brand new black on black El Dorado Cadillac and of course, we were running late to Richmond and of course, as the story goes, always in wrestling… We got stopped somewhere around where was it? Winston-Salem or Greensboro? Raleigh. We got pulled over there. They asked Thunderbolt for his registration. Of course, we had no registration. We just left the dealership and so all he had was a paper tag on it and they called — they didn’t know what to do so they took the car, told Thunderbolt and I, ‘You’re going to jail. We gotcha.’ You got a Black man and an Indian guy in there, we stole that car so they took us to jail.
Patterson: John Ringley come got us.
Brisco: John Ringley took us out there. We were gonna fly. That’s when James Brown comes flying in, right?
Patterson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brisco: James Brown, he landed that white Learjet. Remember Bolt? We watched that white Learjet. ‘Who in the hell? There’s only one person I know in the world who’s got a white Learjet and that’s James Brown.’
Patterson: We was sitting in the airport when he came in. Yeah.
Brisco: And he saw Thunderbolt sitting over there and the guy ran into him trying to come over there to meet Thunderbolt… And offered to fly us on his plane up to Virginia but John Ringley already had an airplane coming so we turned him down and biggest mistake we ever made… He was doing a gig in Raleigh and he was gonna do his gig and have the pilot fly us to Richmond and come back and pick him up and go to his next gig. Right Bolt?
Patterson is 82 years of age and stated that he’s willing to travel to do signings and conventions. Brisco and JBL added that if there are inquiries for Patterson, they can be contacted to relay the message.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Stories with Brisco and Bradshaw with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
