In the backstage area, a frustrated JBL greeted the young man, shook his hand, and asked him if everything was okay. To his credit, Carl shook JBL’s hand, said everything was fine, and thanked him for the match. I will give him credit for not bitching about the solid chops and forearm shots he took. Now that was not the funny part I was talking about but it leads to the next evening in Ottawa when Carl would face none other than the notorious ribber, Owen Hart.
The WWF officials decided to have Carl wrestle Owen mainly because they felt Owen would take it easy on the kid. The only instructions the agents gave Owen was not to let the youngster run the ropes. In other words, do not throw him into the ropes or run a spot that required Carl to bounce off the ropes because he didn’t know how. Owen agreed and went on his way to get ready. Once again I had the great fortune of refereeing. After I got the finish from Owen, it was time for the match.
I called for the bell and right away I could tell that the prankster had something up his sleeve. They locked up and Owen told Carl to grab a headlock. Carl did what he was told. It looked a bit awkward but he applied a headlock. So far so good, or so I thought. Then I leaned in to hear what the next spot was. I almost burst out laughing when I heard Owen say, “Okay, I’ll shoot you off and then criss-cross spot.”
For those who are unfamiliar with that term, it refers to a spot in a match where one wrestler runs back and forth bouncing off the ropes while his opponent does the same thing, only the other way. So one guy runs north-south in the ring while the other one runs east-west. It was one of the funniest things I had ever seen in the ring. As Carl would run towards the ropes, he would come to a near stop, turn around, lean against the ropes, and start running at the other ropes. It made him look absolutely horrible. Owen in the meantime was running the ropes like he was in slow motion, then running backwards, moving as if he were running on the moon. It was hilarious and I roared with laughter. The rest of the match was very simple and ended mercifully when Owen finally finished the match with the Sharpshooter. Owen did it again: he made the entire locker room laugh.
Another superstar who could get me to burst out laughing was David “Fit” Finlay. Fit was not only one of the toughest men I have ever met but one of the best in-ring performers I have ever had the pleasure to work with. He has to be one of the most underrated wrestlers ever. He did like to have his fun as well. He had a great sense of humour outside the ring but his antics inside the ring had me laughing on more than one occasion. Usually, those laughs involved the shillelagh Fit carried with him to the ring. No one was safe and Finlay knew how to discreetly cause minor pain whenever he wanted. He could also leave lasting marks, as some of our very own security people found out the hard way.
One instance that stands out in my mind concerns Todd Harris, who was one of the WWE’s security personnel. Todd was a really good guy and loved to have fun with the fans. Part of what made him good at his job was that he knew how to defuse situations with his good-natured attitude. One thing Todd learned very quickly was that you never turn your back on Finlay, especially when he has a shillelagh in his hand. This one evening, I was standing in the ring with Finlay and his shillelagh waiting for his opponent, Kane. As Kane entered the ring, he looked right at Finlay and then turned his attention to something behind Finlay. It was Todd comforting a female fan who was pretending to be afraid of the Big Red Monster, Kane.
Fit turned around to see Todd’s head buried in this girl’s ample cleavage. Fit looked at me, looked back at Kane, and said, “Watch this!” In a flash, Fit slid under the bottom rope, walked over to Todd, and promptly tapped him on the top of the head. By tapped I mean it was a good knock on the noggin. Todd screamed like a little girl as he tried to run away from what became an onslaught of shillelagh shots. Before jumping out of the ring to try to save poor Todd, I turned and saw Kane with his hand covering his face. You could clearly see from how his shoulders were heaving up and down that he couldn’t control his laughter. Once again I burst out laughing as I went to save Todd. I eventually convinced (wink, wink) Fit to re-enter the ring. I slid under the bottom rope into the ring and froze. There I was, on my hands and knees right at Finlay’s feet, looking directly into the shillelagh. Finlay looked down at me and said, “You are so lucky we have a match or this would really hurt.”
That’s when he tapped me on my follicly challenged head. It hurt but it was nothing compared to the beating our security guy took. For the rest of the tour Chimel, who was a frequent target of Fit’s shillelagh, and I joked that the WWE needed to hire extra security for their regular security.
Todd was not the only security guy to get pummelled by the dreaded shillelagh; Jimmy Noonan felt the wrath of Finlay after he directed some derogatory comments at the Fighting Irishman. We were on a tour of Spain when, after a match, Noonan made a comment to Finlay about not being fast enough to get him with the shillelagh. Once he uttered the words “old man,” Fit chased Noonan up into the arena seats. We couldn’t see from our vantage point what happened but when Noonan returned backstage, he had several noticeable lumps on his clean-shaven head. Again we were laughing our asses off. Noonan claimed he would never doubt any of the boys’ claims again. Those were just a few of Finlay’s many hilarious encounters. He provided so many happy moments for not just me but for everyone. I miss Fit. Not only was he an agent and my superior, he was a friend and a real stand-up guy. His advice and guidance helped me so much; I will always remember that. The wrestling business needs more Fit Finlays as far as I’m concerned.
As funny as some things were, there were other cases where you didn’t laugh. Sometimes what you were witnessing made you cringe. One such time was during the infamous tag-team match between the Johnny Grunge and Rocco Rock collective known as Public Enemy against JBL and Faarooq (Ron Simmons), the APA. Public Enemy was new to the WWF, having just arrived from ECW. Their gimmick was that they put their opponents through tables. In this match with the APA, I honestly do not recall what the planned finish was, but it didn’t go as scheduled; that I do know for sure. What I remember most from the match was that right from the beginning, JBL and Faarooq walked to the ring with a look of utter disdain on their faces. As soon as they hit the ring, they tore into Public Enemy as if those guys owed them money. It was not a wrestling match, it was a brutal beating. In fact, it was the most brutal beating I have ever personally witnessed.
The APA not only punched, kicked, and clotheslined the living shit out of these guys, they hit Public Enemy with chairs, tables, ring steps — even the timekeeper’s table was used as a weapon. I was like a deer in the headlights. I could not believe the punishment they were dishing out. After JBL hit one of those guys with one of the most vicious chair shots I have ever seen, Gerald Brisco yelled into my earpiece, “Jimmy, are you going to ring the bell anytime soon and end this thing?” That’s when I called for the bell to end the match but that didn’t stop the pounding the APA was administering. There was no way I was getting in the way of JBL or Faarooq. Obviously something had set these two off and Public Enemy paid the price for it.
The only version I heard about what caused the annihilation was told to me by JBL. As he explained it, the two teams had worked the finish for the match and everything seemed fine. While I was standing in the ring waiting for the teams to come down, as JBL tells it, just as Public Enemy’s music began, they turned to JBL and said they didn’t like the finish and were changing it, then went through the curtain towards the ring. A stunned JBL looked over at Faarooq, who asked what PE had said. JBL repeated what he had heard and Faarooq just said, “So they don’t want to do the finish, huh? Well okay, we’ll change the finish for them” or something along those lines. A furious APA marched to the ring and unleashed their assault. The bottom line is, two guys got their asses handed to them and after the match they walked into the Gorilla Position, shook the APA’s hands, thanked them for the match, and left. I’m not here to judge whether or not what happened was justifi
ed. That decision is left to those involved. I’m just telling you what happened from my viewpoint. It was another memorable moment for this kid from Canada, but not the last one for sure.
There was another Royal Rumble memory that stands out for me personally. The date was Sunday, January 30, 2005, the place Fresno, California’s Save Mart Center. The ending of the Royal Rumble match was memorable for many reasons. The first reason was because of the controversial ending. The final two men left in the ring were Raw’s Batista and SmackDown’s John Cena. At this time in their careers, they were both very popular fan favourites. They were arguably the two most popular superstars on their respective brands. As these two beasts battled to eliminate each other, something unexpected happened. Batista had Cena in a position to Batista Bomb him over the top rope to the outside. Cena hung onto Big Dave and they both tumbled over the top rope to the floor, landing simultaneously. For the record, this was not the planned finish for the match. In fact, Batista was supposed to hang onto the top rope and only Cena was to be eliminated. This unexpected turn began a chain of events that could not have worked out any better if you had planned the whole thing.
Let me explain. Batista and John Cena crashed to the floor at virtually the same time. Jack Doan, being the ranking Raw official at ringside, immediately signalled that Cena hit the ground first and Batista was indeed your winner. Batista was slated to win all along so Jack just raised his hand. Fellow SmackDown ref Charles Robinson was not convinced that Cena had landed first and was not comfortable about going along with Jack’s decision. As Charles and I were discussing what we should do, we heard in our earpieces that on the replay, which they had reviewed several times in the back, it was inconclusive as to who hit the ground first. Someone said in our earpieces for one of the SmackDown refs to raise Cena’s hand. Charles was closer to where they landed than I was so I assumed he would go ahead and raise his hand. But “Little Naitch” kind of hesitated and looked at me, which I took as him wanting me to raise Cena’s hand. Only thing was, John wasn’t aware of what we were doing and instinctively jumped back into the ring and raised his arms triumphantly in the air. I followed him in the ring and raised his hand, signalling that Cena was the winner of the 2005 Royal Rumble. Jack raised Batista’s arm again, which led to a battle of the arm raising. All this was what you might call “impromptu” as all of us refs continued debating over who we thought had won: Raw refs calling Batista the winner while the SmackDown refs sided with Cena.
While we continued our disagreement, we could hear again in our earpieces that they were frantically looking for Eric Bischoff and Teddy Long, the Raw and SmackDown general managers respectively, to come out to help settle the situation. I guess they thought the competing general managers would make for good TV. Since they were not found in a timely fashion, the Chairman himself burst out from the Gorilla Position and stormed his way to the ring. As Vince McMahon got closer to the ring, his pace quickened and he dove under the bottom rope to get in the ring. One little problem though, as Mr. McMahon entered the ring, he hit his knees on the metal portion of the ring and when he attempted to stand up, he tore both his quadriceps muscles and fell backwards on the seat of his pants, where he remained for several minutes, all the while telling us how he wanted us to proceed.
Once we got our instruction, we all cleared out of the ring, except for Big Dave and John of course. Even Vincent Kennedy McMahon left the ring and slowly made his way backstage, not wanting any help. We had no idea how severe the boss’s injury was at the time because he managed to make it to the back on his own. I can only imagine how much pain he was masking. The boss does not ever want to show any weaknesses and on this night he did not. Meanwhile, back in the ring, John Cena and Batista went into overtime. They had a very brief exchange before Batista finally eliminated Cena to become the 2005 Royal Rumble winner and go on to WrestleMania 21 to face Triple H for the world championship. As for John Cena, he didn’t do too badly for himself either as he went on to win the WWE title from JBL, also at WrestleMania 21.
When playing this match back, I can’t help but remember how calm we all were under such extenuating circumstances. Not once did I or any of the other refs feel like we didn’t have the matter under control. Sometimes things happen for a reason. The spontaneity made for good drama. That pretty much says it all. To this day, not many people know exactly what happened that night. Now you all know why this is my all-time favourite Royal Rumble moment. So much happened in such a small time frame that, like I said before, this could not have come off any better even if we had planned it that way. Whenever I talk to people about that match and finish, they all say the same thing. They all thought it played out as planned and never realized that we flew by the seat of our pants that night. A job well done by all.
Dark matches were always a good source of entertainment, not only for the fans but for the boys as well. For those who don’t know what dark matches are, when the WWE holds a televised event or taping, they have matches that are just for the live audience. They are not aired on TV. Now the pre-show type of dark match generally features non-contracted talent and is essentially a tryout match for these guys who are trying to get signed by the company. Most of the time, we would alternate who would referee these dark matches and no one complained. Then something happened that changed that attitude in a hurry.
It all started innocently enough when Gerald Brisco asked the referee in the ring to do jumping jacks. The dark match had not started yet and the ref (I believe it was Brian Hebner) just looked towards the camera with this confused look. Gerald repeated his demand and the ref performed the jumping jacks. We all heard him and rushed to the Gorilla Position to watch Brian in action. It was pretty funny but that was not the end of it. During the match, Gerald told the ref to do a cartwheel. Again the ref looked puzzled but Gerald said to him that if he didn’t do a cartwheel, not to come back to Gorilla. Right there in the middle of the dark match, the referee did a cartwheel. We all laughed our butts off. It was the worst thing we could have done, especially in front of Gerald, because he made absolutely sure that we all had an opportunity to perform a cartwheel for him. This went on for quite a while. All of us had no choice but to do what we were told.
Then a new player entered the fray. It was my turn and I was refereeing a dark match fully expecting to hear Brisco telling me to do something out of the ordinary. Then I heard a familiar voice tell me to do a forward roll. It wasn’t Gerald but the voice was unmistakable. It seemed that Stone Cold Steve Austin had caught wind of what was happening during the dark matches and decided he wanted in on the action. Not wanting to upset the Rattlesnake, I did a forward roll. Then he told me to do a baseball slide into the three count. The guys hit their finish and I slid in to count like I was stealing second base. He must have left the microphone on in the back because I could hear everybody in Gorilla laughing.
Every week it was the same routine. One of us refs would work the dark match and the others would gather at Gorilla to watch and laugh. Stone Cold became a regular, joining us when he could, providing he wasn’t doing a pre-tape or something but he was there more often than not. Then one week it all came to a crashing halt. Vince McMahon stormed up to the Gorilla Position and angrily asked Brisco, “What the hell are my referees doing out there? I look at the monitor in my office and the ref does a cartwheel — this stops now!”
With that, the era of dark match cartwheels, jumping jacks, forward rolls, etc. was over. It was fun while it lasted but it was not the only time that the WWE made a referee the butt of a joke. I fell victim to the shenanigans. It all had to do with the annual Thanksgiving Day–themed show and an inflatable pool full of gravy. That’s right, I said gravy.
Thanksgiving Day marks an important time of the year. For those living in the United States of America, Thanksgiving means that there are certain traditions you can count on. Giving thanks for all we have, gathering with family and friends, turkey dinner with all the fixings,
the Macy’s parade, and, of course, all-day football. In the WWE, it is no different. They have their own annual customs that the WWE universe has come to expect.
The crew and stage hands will usually dress as pilgrims. There is a large banquet table set up somewhere with an enormous feast placed on it which could probably feed the entire WWE roster. Okay, maybe only 25% of the roster but it is still a lot of food. With all that food you just know that it is inevitable that a food fight will occur. No one is immune from being splattered with flying turkey, cranberry sauce, biscuits, and mashed potatoes. Oh yes, I almost forgot about the gravy!
The date, November 22, 2001; the place, the Crown Coliseum in Fayetteville, North Carolina. I was assigned a match that I had never participated in before. I was scheduled to officiate the women’s title match between the champion Trish Stratus and Stacy Keibler. I had refereed many ladies’ matches before so at first I didn’t think anything of it. Then they informed me that this match would be the first ever gravy bowl match. What the heck is a gravy bowl match? I thought. As it was explained to me, the participants would begin the match at the previously mentioned banquet table. It would start off as a food fight and spill into a large inflatable pool filled with gravy, where the match would finish.
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