Crucially integral and highly unsung, referees play a pivotal part in the dance that is professional wrestling. Kayfabe News creator Colin Hunter has watched wrestling his entire life, but it wasn’t until he delved into the world of the stripes of the squared circle that he truly understood just how important the referee is to his favorite pastime.
“Wrestling is showbiz,” Hunter said of his upcoming documentary “The Ref Didn’t See It.” “To pick the job that is the unseen partner in the dance, It’s a unique kind of person that’s part of this subculture but not seeking the spotlight.”
Some of those referees, including the legendary Earl Hebner, Bill Alfonso, Emily Parker, Harry D, Ken Kensington and Cameron Adams, are being pulled into said spotlight in what Hunter surmises is the first documentary of its kind. The film also features appearances by wrestlers and wrestling personalities including Colt Cabana, Santino Marella, RJ City, Steve Maclin, Cody Deaner, Gregory Iron, Kevin Sullivan, Space Monkey and many more.
“What I didn’t anticipate was all the human stories that we would find,” Hunter said. “It’s not just all about wrestling and referring. It’s about people and unsung heroes. What I love about the ref is 99.9% of the time we’re not supposed to pay attention to them. This is that .01% of the time. This documentary is a chance to actually say they play a crucial role in wrestling in practically every match we see whether we realize it or not.”
Hunter has asked for fan support to help finish off the film with various perks for contributing, and he aims to release it next Spring.
Recently, Hunter talked all about how “The Ref Didn’t See It” came together, his gig with Kayfabe News and more in this Web Is Jericho exclusive.
Did it surprise you to discover that no one has ever really done a documentary on referees in professional wrestling? “There’s a Facebook group full of just wrestling referees, and they’re all interested in this idea, because it hasn’t been done before. The best referees are the ones that go invisible and unnoticed until that exact moment when they’re looking the wrong way and the crowd is screaming at them to turn around. It’s sort of the art of not being noticed until the right moment. But it’s amazing how much I’ve learned with how essential they are to the whole puzzle of wrestling.”
You also started refereeing yourself as part of a first-person experience for the documentary. What is the hardest part of being a referee? “There’s so much more to it than I realized, and I’ve watched wrestling my whole life. It’s a combination of knowing a lot of things in the back of your head and being able to react in the moment. Obviously you have to keep track of the rules, but even though wrestling is what it is as a performance, part of that performance is the referee taking it dead serious and enforcing those rules. That’s the message to the audience, that these are the rules that govern this strange universe. I also don’t think I anticipated the physical demands of it. You’re not getting thrown around or slammed, thank goodness. Sometimes you’re getting squished. But really for every movement the wrestlers are making, the ref has to keep moving to stay out of the way and to not block the audience or camera of seeing something vital — a facial expression or a choke or reaching the pocket for an illegal weapon. I have to be both omnipresent and invisible, and it’s a hard skill to learn.”
What’s the best advice you’ve received in terms of being in the ring? “Some wrestlers like to use the referee and include the referee in the planning and development of the match. And some of the best wrestlers don’t really plan much. They may share some thoughts with me or they may just say, ‘We’ll do it in the ring.’ The best advice I’ve got is, ‘Play it straight. Be a ref. Enforce the rules. If I don’t break by 5, disqualify me. If I don’t get my shoulder up before 3, ring the bell.’ So I have to take my job pretty seriously. And of course, there are times when I need to conveniently be looking the wrong way, which is one of the great tropes of wrestling.”
In modern wrestling, sometimes talent can bury the ref by ignoring the rules more than the standards of the past. Simple things like completely ignoring the 5-count or not tagging if it’s a tag match. How conscious of that are the wrestlers and refs that you’ve spoken to and worked with? “That’s another one of the tropes of wrestling referees. A lot of matches, the heel will treat the referee kind of like a crash test dummy. They’ll point the referee in that direction and do some cheating. The manager will come over and make a ruckus for 90 seconds sometimes, and the referee is stuck there yammering with them.”
“My favorite thing though of any wrestling show I’ve been involved with, is they all start with a talent meeting where the promoter goes over the matches and talks about what’s gonna happen. My favorite promoters include in that meeting, ‘Hey guys, don’t make the ref look stupid.’ If the referee looks stupid, what point is there in outsmarting them? If you’re outsmarting an idiot, that makes you slightly smarter than an idiot. The best matches for me that I’ve been involved in is when something has happened that I don’t see, but I genuinely don’t see it because I’ve been distracted by something believable. And unfortunately the opposite is also true where the heel will grab me by the back of the head and say, ‘Hey look over there?’ ‘At what? The ring post?’ The best wrestlers know how to use the referee. And sometimes that means just relying on the referee to hit every beat of the match and be in the right place, but often it’s more complicit than that. And they’ll work with the referee to build the match.”
I know you touch on the “Montreal Screwjob” in the film, but what other matches come to mind when the referee was in integral part of what happened in the ring? “My favorite also involves Earl Hebner, and it involves his twin brother, Dave. They were revealed to be the pocket of Ted DiBiase (Hulk Hogan vs. Andre The Giant, February 1988). It was one of my early memories of wrestling, and I was like, ‘This can’t be happening. That referee is the same as that referee.’ And of course the commentators played it up with the plastic surgery angle. Honestly when I watch wrestling now, everyone’s eyes are usually trained to watch the wrestlers. Now, I’m kind of fascinated with what is the referee doing — what’s coming into his ear piece, and what thing did he just whisper to the wrestler. And I really try to understand the physics of being in the ring.”
What’s the most surprising thing you learned about referees by either officiating a match yourself or through filming the doc? “Just how integral the ref is to a good match. My favorite compliment I got came after a recent match. Afterwards, I reached out to the heel and asked, ‘Any tips or pointers for how I did?’ He said, ‘I barely even noticed you, and that’s the best compliment I can give.’ So I took that to mean a lot. It’s not that you have to just stay out of the way. If you’re counting too slow or too fast, they’re gonna notice you. If you’re up in their face too much, they’re gonna notice you. I’m the representative to the audience of what the rules are, so if I’m not conveying that correctly, it hinders the wrestlers from telling their stories.”
Let’s talk a little about Kayfabe News, which for anyone reading out there that doesn’t know, is a fictitious wrestling news site (KayFabeNews.com) with funny and clever stories in the vein of The Onion. How often do people mistake your headlines and stories for being real? “For every post there’s 1-2 people that are like, ‘Wait a second.’ There are some stories that just sort of crossover and go viral because people think they are real. One that stands out most was when Hulk Hogan won his lawsuit against Gawker, and suddenly he had all this money. So I wrote, ‘Hogan buys WWE.’ Which was just plausible enough that it could’ve been true, especially if you’re not really paying attention to wrestling and all you know is that Hulk Hogan guy is suing Gawker. That one caused some laughs in the wrestling community online, and it sort of blossomed out into the real news cycle and was getting traction from people around the globe and had to be de-bunked. I like how sometimes people will write me and say they found factual error in one of my stories. Anytime someone says they found a mistake, I say, ‘Thank you so much. Please go through the rest of the site and let me know if you find any others!’”
Have you ever gotten heat from a wrestler for something you’ve written? “Occasionally. The one that always made me chuckle was Paul Bearer. And I wrote a headline, ‘Paul Bearer suddenly realizes his name is a pun.’ And I thought it was funny. And a lot of people said, ‘Oh my god, I didn’t even realize it until just now.’ His response was, ‘Get a life.’ Coming from the guy playing the mortician character, I found that ironic. Generally they get the joke, and usually I’m poking fun at the characters they play on TV and not the person playing the character. I try not to cross that line, especially if it’s being critical. More of them have played along than given me heat. A favorite one recently was ‘Seth Rollins’ parents reveal that his middle name isn’t ‘Freakin’, it’s Todd.’ After that Seth Rollins he tweeted his name, ‘Seth Todd Rollins.’ That’s to me was a little acknowledgment that it was a good joke.”
For more information on “The Ref Didn’t See It” or to donate click here.
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