Mike Chioda spent years earning the trust of WWE wrestlers, and there was one thing he absolutely wasn’t willing to do for management — become the locker room snitch. The longtime referee says WWE officials sometimes wanted referees keeping tabs on talent, but Chioda wanted no part of creating that kind of heat for himself or the younger refs.
Speaking with David Otunga, Chioda recalled WWE officials including Mark Carrano and John Laurinaitis wanting referees to monitor when wrestlers arrived at shows. If somebody rolled in 30 minutes late, the refs were apparently expected to report it back to the office.
Chioda thought the whole idea was ridiculous. His argument was pretty simple: these were the same wrestlers he had to travel with nearly 300 days a year and trust inside the ring, so why the hell would he intentionally give them a reason to resent him?
“When the office comes to a referee and says, ‘I want you to stooge the boys out, what time they get in,’ when Mark Carrano and all that s*** used to enjoy, when Johnny Laurinaitis used to do all that s***, I used to go to Mark Carrano.
They didn’t come to me and tell me that because I was like, ‘You want the referees—the boys that put the money on the company’s table, the boys that put the money and the food on my table—you want me to stooge them out because they come in 30 minutes late?’
And you expect the boys to want to work with me overseas instead of cutting my hair or ribbing me and maybe doing something to me? You want me to get heat with the boys that I got to travel with 300 days a year, 280 days a year? That ain’t happening.”
And Chioda wasn’t only worried about protecting himself. He said he pushed back when younger referees were put in the same position because they would be the ones stuck dealing with pissed-off wrestlers afterwards.
“And I used to tell Carrano that back in the day. You’re putting these young guns like Bones and all these other guys—you want them to stooge, and then these boys are going to get heat? You want them to be the stooge? Come on, let’s go a different route on that.”
Then there was drug testing, which created another potentially awkward situation. Chioda said referees could be tasked with finding wrestlers who had been selected for a drug test and making sure they actually went through with it. That meant the referee suddenly became the person delivering some very unwanted news and, in certain situations, following the wrestler around afterwards.
“You want the referees to go get them for a drug test? The boys would be pissed to get away from me because if they’re doing something they shouldn’t be doing, the last thing you want is referees going, ‘Hey, you got to take a drug test,’ and then follow them around, ‘Hey, where you going?’”
For Chioda, the issue wasn’t simply about refusing an annoying backstage chore. Referees spend their careers trying to build enough trust that wrestlers are comfortable putting matches and sometimes their bodies in their hands, and he clearly wasn’t interested in throwing that relationship away just to tell management somebody showed up half an hour late.
Would you have blamed Mike Chioda for refusing to snitch on WWE wrestlers, or should referees have followed whatever instructions management gave them? Let us know what you think in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
