WWE Referee Mike Chioda with The Rock | Image Credits: IMAGO/PicturePerfect
Sportshadow got the opportunity to interact with former WWE referee, Mike Chioda, in the 14th episode of its Wrestleshadow podcast series.
After 30 years in WWE, former referee Mike Chioda reveals the biggest pros and cons of his profession, shares the secret to taking the perfect referee bump, names the wrestlers who were the best at kicking out at 2.9, and much more in this exclusive interview.
Here are the edited excerpts.
Mike Chioda officiates a match where the Rock and R-Truth are in action | Image Credits : IMAGO/PicturePerfect
The pros is longevity in this business. You could be a wrestler and have a five-year, ten-year good run and you could be done. The matches I have done must be over 15,000 matches including live events, including TVs.
You look back at all the matches - The Rock and (Hulk) Hogan at Wrestlemania 18, The Rock and Stone Cold at Wrestlemania 15, Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania 19, Stone Cold with Mike Tyson the enforcer against Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania 14, Triple H and Batista at Wrestlemania 21. I had no idea some of those matches would be iconic and legendary.
If you're not a big guy, if you're 5ft 8in, 5 ft 9in, you're limited into where you can go into that heavyweight championship (category).
There's no more 205 and there's really no more middleweight division. I say, "Hey! Make that transition to refereeing because you may not get to the top." I hate to say that to somebody, but guys do make that transition into refereeing.
The downsides is being away from your family. I was on the road 26, sometimes 28, days a month and we're driving the trucks all around the country.
We were doing 20 some shows a month. So there were no holidays really.
We used to work Christmas nights, Thanksgiving nights, all the big holidays in the United States. You come home for two days. You just pay bills, do laundry, and you're right back on the road.
Otherwise, there's a lot of pros to it. I've been all over the United States, all over Canada, 50 different countries. We've been to India before. We've been around all over the world to Qatar, to Saudi Arabia, to so many places. Australia, all over Europe, South Africa. So, definitely I have no regrets.
You're called upon one bump to take as a referee, you have to be there, man. And if it hurts, it hurts. But it makes the show look good. It makes it look real.
In Shane McMahon vs AJ Styles match at Wrestlemania, I said, "Hey, make sure you bring that kick and bring it. Make sure it looks good because if you miss it's gonna look stupid."
I received a bonus for The Rock and Stone Cold where I took the chair shot in the first 10 minutes and Stone Cold said, "Hey, I'm going to bring this chair." He goes, "Put your hand up." I said, "Nah, don't worry about it." I said, "Look, you if you open me up, you open me up. It's better for the show."
But, he hit me with that chair shot so hard if you watch it back. My head was ringing for three days. My neck was stiff for like two weeks. I heard ringing in my ears for like three days and I was dazed. I was concussed. And, I remember Jim Ross bonus me like $2,500 for that spot.
The plan was Randy (Orton) was a heel, but he was kind of a slick heel. The plan was, well, I'm going to slap the referee and get disqualified, so I don't have to lose this title, which I thought was a pretty cool storyline.
Randy has done that twice to me. It's really a heel way of getting heat. You slap to get your way out of the fight.
But it's a really shitty way to end the match, but that would get him more heat and it didn't put the heat on me because I disqualified the match.
The fans got it. You can't put your hands on the referee, especially slap. Now Vince could slap you and get away with anything.
Many times years ago, I worked without an ACL for quite a long time. I wore a brace. I had a knee surgery. I finally had some scopes and scopes over the years.
Eight years ago, I had to see one of the best doctors here in Alabama University and had to get a cadaver.
I had shoulder surgery about six years ago, rotator cuff, two tears of my biceps.
I did two 1-hour marathons back to back. Wind up taking a bump, tore some, and then I did another marathon. Then I tore my biceps, labrum, tear in the back of the shoulder. So I got a surgery again in Alabama.
I would have to say Shane McMahon and Kurt Angle at King of the Ring 2001. He was screaming in the earpiece, "Stop the effing match! Stop the effing match!"
And I couldn't do that to Shane. I never stopped the match. And he wasn't going through the glass.
He knew Kurt and Shane. And Kurt was doing anything to put him through the glass. And Shane went through one glass but he couldn't go through the other glass. The glass wouldn't break. It was supposed to be breakable glass. And it never did.
But then they actually just went right through it. Kurt just rammed him right through it again. That time Vince was hot. He was hot at me. He was hot at Shane.
There was Candice Michelle working with Beth Phoenix. Candice was tired. She was definitely 17 days on the road. I remember we came off a Europe tour.
She went up to the top. I didn't really see her because I was looking at Beth Phoenix when Beth goes to hit the ropes and make her fall from the top rope. I didn't see her really hit the mat as hard as she did.
She looked hurt. So I said, "Let's finish the match." And then Beth Phoenix grabbed her by the hair and pulled her out and then covered her.
And I didn't know she was going to grab her by her hair because I'm thinking if she took that kind of a bump, it might be a concussion or a neck problem.
I thought she was just going to cover her. Vince was hot at me for that too. He said that I should have stopped the match but I didn't see the actual bump when she came down.
When Droz got hurt in the ring. He got paralyzed in the ring. When Owen Hart passed away that night. When Cena got hurt, they did glue him up. They glued a big gash up. It was bleeding so much. He was losing a lot of blood. I remember we paused the match and we glued him up.
There was definitely a match between Cena and Umaga where he choked out Umaga with the rope, broke it off the ring. He actually did choke him out. Sometimes guys would want to work through that injury, finish the match and they didn't want you to pick up the X sign.
Shawn Michaels was the best at it. That's the one who used to always tell me, "I want it this close." And that's why every time a referee, like when I used to go down, they'd be like, "All right, here we go. One, two, kick, kick."
We would be on the same page because sometimes wrestlers have their eyes closed or are selling. You never know if they get a little concussion from a big move off the top.
Shawn used to be like, "Not today!" Razor Ramon was fantastic at it. Seth Rollins years later. There's not too many guys that are so good at that 2.9.
John Cena was pretty good at it. For false finishes, he was pretty good at it. I'd have to say Eddie Guerrero was really good. Eddie Guerrero is really good at kicking out really close. Loved doing his matches. Fantastic worker.
For me, a referee could have been bumped at that spot and those are things that should be planned about. It didn't have to be a big bump.
I didn't like the tape spot. Punk tapes his tape off. He throws it at Roman. And the referee, instead of kicking the tape out, he takes the tape like it's a chair, or like a title in the ring, and he brings it all the way around to the ropes, and then Punk nutshots him.
And the referee turns around and his hand is still up his nuts. Referee's seen that, too. And I went, "Oh my!"
Then they go into the steps. He's in the ropes tied up upside down, when you're not even supposed to be hitting anybody, throwing a punch when they're in the ropes.
You're supposed to be breaking it on the count of five. That's where the referee in the rehearsals, they have all week to rehearse that. They must go over maybe three or four times.
When I'm in rehearsals and I say, "Oh, I don't want to see that and I don't want to see this." I come up with a spot where it takes me out for a little bit. I get elbowed in the face for a minute. I'm selling.
That's why I think they should protect wrestling a little bit more. Old school Michael Hayes wouldn't do that.
I took the chair from The Rock and I slide in. We practiced that once or twice. The timing had to be perfect because I didn't want to see him hitting Hogan with the belt that he wore. I didn't want to see that. And there was a couple other things I didn't want to see.
So that's why you knock a referee out to protect what's going on because it wasn't a no DQ match. That's why I had to be out for those couple of spots.
WWE Referee Mike Chioda is not happy with John Cena's retirement tour booking | Image Credits : IMAGO/Zuma Press Wire
Brock retires, gets beat by Oba. Oba's got all this steam. Few months later, now Brock comes back, faces Oba, and then Brock beats him. He takes all that steam from him.
Now you're in Minneapolis. Now you know Brock's got to lose because if Oba loses again, where's his steam? Completely gone.
John Cena when he came back. It's like, here you go. Here's the 17th title. We'll hand it to you on a platter. You beat Dom. You get the IC title.
My thing is like they handed Cena everything on the platter and then the way he tapped out with Gunther. It was almost like a shitty way of saying, "Screw you fans!" and smiling like tapping out.
No fight, fight, fight, fight. And I've done a ton of John Cena matches. Everyone was a fight, fight.
When we were in a hold with Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit and Brock Lesnar, there was always a fight, a fight. And, the way Cena tapped out, I jumped off my couch and I was like, "What is going on? Like why?"
Gunther beats Goldberg. Then Gunther beats AJ Styles, but then Gunther loses to Cody and, they take Gunther's steam away again. So, I really have no idea which way the company is going.
Tony Khan is a very nice guy. He's very passionate about the business. He's very passionate about his workers. He employs a ton of people. People that are even sick and unhealthy, going through issues.
JR, Dean Malenko, and some other guys that are getting older out there. He sticks with them. He stays with them. WWE, if they've seen you had a health issue or something else like that, they let you go. They didn't care. Business is business.
But Tony Khan is a very nice guy.