REF WEEK: Best Of The Referees By Karl Wardlaw

BEST OF THE REFEREES

By Karl Wardlaw

As it’s the International Day of the Referee (12 October) I thought I’d focus on the referees. Much like managers did, the referee caught my attention because they were smaller compared to the wrestlers but yet you could tell that they played an important role in making wrestling successful. Here are the referees that have caught my eye down the years:

Joey Marella

He was the first referee that grabbed my attention. He was the adopted son of Gorilla Monsoon and sadly is no longer with us after dying in a car crash in 1994 after refereeing that night for the WWF. After reading WWF Magazine and seeing the date, I realised it was the night that Bob Backlund snapped and attacked Bret Hart when Backlund came back in the 90’s for what I thought was a great and enjoyable run for Backlund. He refereed the famous Hulk Hogan- Andre The Giant match at Wrestlemania 3, he had a lot of charisma as a referee and I thought he was really good.

Earl Hebner

For most of the 1990’s until well into the 2000’s Earl was the best referee in wrestling. Personally, I didn’t like what he did to Bret Hart by cooperating with the Montreal screwjob but I can understand why he felt that he had no option to do it. After reading Earl Hebner’s book it seemed like a shoddy reason for letting him go and even so after what he did for them in Montreal with the Screwjob. He carried on for a while afterwards becoming the senior referee in TNA but for me he seemed to struggle and I don’t know if it was age catching up with him or that he’d lost the desire but he didn’t seem the same official. There’s no denying thought that at his peak he was the best referee in the world.

Tommy Young

For me he’s the best referee of all time. It was his mannerisms, his reactions to what was happening in the ring and his interactions with the wrestlers even if Ric Flair taking bumps from his shoves stretched the bounds of credulity a touch. He was the best referee of the 1980’s, no question. A lot of the best matches of the NWA in that era and particularly the Ric Flair-Ricky Steamboat matches had him as the referee and those matches were greatly enhanced by him being there. It was sad that his career had to end due to a wrestler leaving his foot in the way after pushing him out of the way when trying to break the 2 wrestlers up caused him to fall and hurt his neck. He passed on his knowledge in the early days of Jim Cornette’s Smokey Mountain Wrestling promotion to Brian Hildebrand enabling Hildebrand to become a great referee in his own right. He had a very brief WWF run in the 90’s when he was the NWA’s referee as part of their invasion angle. It was good to see him and I think that angle could have worked if it had been promoted properly and Cornette was involved more in the booking of the angle.

Brian Hildebrand/Mark Curtis

Brian was a great referee who could wrestle really well but sadly was too small to be taken seriously as an effective wrestler and even more sadly left us too early due to cancer in his 30’s. In the early days of Smokey Mountain Wrestling, Jim Cornette had Tommy Young tutor him in the finer points of refereeing which improved an already good official. Hildebrand regularly refereed the SMW shows as the sole referee which shows you how good he was. He deserved his run as a referee in WCW and became one of the best referees in the business. He was a lot physically tougher than he looked too as one fan who tried to get in the ring on an episode of Nitro found out when Brian took him down, got a few blows in and held him there until security took him out of the ring. It’s worth looking up on YouTube.

Nick Patrick

He was the son of a great wrestler in Jody Hamilton that wrestled briefly himself mainly as enhancement talent for Mid Atlantic Wrestling but I believe got an injury before his career really got going. He was an excellent referee and the best of the WCW crew from the 1990’s up until the company’s closure and later went on to work for WWE. He had great facial expressions and reactions. He was unfairly released from his contract as WWE tended to do periodically where they would release talent that worked there without any rhyme or reason.

Mike Chioda

Chioda took over as WWE’s top referee after Earl Hebner was released. He was there for such a long time I believe over 30 years. He refereed many top matches over the years most notably the famous Hulk Hogan-The Rock match at Wrestlemania. Like Nick Patrick, he was released from his contract for no apparent reason. I can understand why he’s not gone permanently to AEW apart from a handful of special appearances as for me they act like the rules of a wrestling match don’t matter or referees have to blatantly ignore the rules in tag matches to allow all the double teaming that goes on. He would be by far the best referee on their roster if he did permanently join them.

There’s my take on the best referees in wrestling, let me know if you feel the same way or differently.