Mike Chioda On The Wrestlers He Was Scared Of Being In The Ring With
Former long-time WWE referee Mike Chioda has shared the ring with many of wrestling’s all-time legends, now he has opened up about those that made him think twice about entering the ring with them.
Chioda’s WWE tenure began in 1989 and last almost 31 years until he was released along with a slew of other talents in April 2015. Since then Mike Chioda has appeared in All Elite Wrestling, debuting by officiating the TNT Title match between Scorpio Sky and Cody Rhodes in August 2020. His last appearance to date with AEW was in the TNT Title match where Darby Allin captured the belt from Rhodes at the Full Gear pay-per-view.
Chioda has also launched his own show as part of the AdFreeShows.com family. ‘Monday Mailbag with Mike Chioda’ sees the veteran official answer questions sent in by fans. One such question asked if Chioda had ever been legitimately afraid of any wrestler he shared a ring with.
Chioda considered this for a moment and then responded:
“I would have to say yeah. Sid Vicious, people like Brock Lesnar sometimes. Now he’s a great worker, I’m not taking anything away from Brock or anything like that but you sometimes didn’t know what Brock was gonna do. Sometimes you didn’t know if he was gonna turn around and grab you and F5 you or do something, and he said just be ready for anything sometimes. You know, I loved working with Brock, loved it.”
“But yeah, there’s probably a couple of wrestlers – André [The Giant] I remember when I used to work his matches in the very, very beginning before he was just about at the end of his wrestling career. He never spoke to you, he just looked at you and you just did what he said to do. It was kinda nervous because there was no communication with the referee and André in there. André just expected the referee to do his job and that was it.”
“George ‘The Animal’ Steele, I wasn’t scared of him but that was another guy that’d never talk to you in the ring, he would just ‘ahhh [sticks tongue out] with his green tongue. […] I’d probably say maybe just a couple of guys I mean, you just didn’t know what they were gonna do sometimes in the ring. I remember that Sid Vicious would lose control, a couple of times he lost control in there and you’re just sitting there going ‘holy shoot.’ I remember I got a photo with Sid Vicious and he’s standing there and I’m on the side of him just looking at him like ‘What are you gonna do next?’ I had the look of like, a mark or just somebody green or I was just frightened of him.”
Mike Chioda also revealed that he is set to make a return to the ring in Puerto Rico as he joins a new promotion started by the legendary Colon family.
Credit: Mailbag Monday via AdFreeShows.com