Former WWE referee Mike Chioda has discussed sixteen-time champion of the world John Cena taking the rap for referees if he decided to go long in one of his countless main event matches.
Speaking on an edition of Monday Mailbag [available vis AdFreeShows.com] the veteran official was answering questions from fans. Chioda was asked if any WWE Superstars had ignored their cue to ‘go home’ and finish a match.
According to Chioda, that happened frequently:
“[That happened] all the time. As long as we went off the air – when they started doing the [WWE] Network it wasn’t such a tight situation when you had to hit your cue to get off there. When you did Raw, pay-per-views, stuff like that a lot of guys would be hot because if it was the match before the main event and they killed their time for the main event that would stink because you were going off air.”
“The Undertaker, John Cena – he was the best at hitting his times – but there were times they were like ‘We’re going extra’ so when they did go extra in the main events and if they went an extra five minutes or something like that it would cost the company, I think, something like fifty to a hundred thousand dollars for extra time. For taking that extra five to eight minutes and for you to not hit that time and cost the company fifty to a hundred thousand dollars or whatever it was. But I know it was minimum like fifty thousand.”
Mike Chioda then explained Cena, among others, would take the blame rather than leave the referees to get called out for going into overtime by management.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljKru1blQiQ
Chioda stated:
“If John Cena was like ‘Screw it’ or certain guys were like ‘We’re getting this in’ because they wanted to build up the match. They didn’t have much time because the matches prior to the main event went too long – they didn’t know how to hit their cues or their times. Sometimes I’d be like ‘Hey man, we’ve gotta go home, we gotta go back home now’ screaming ‘I’ll take the heat, I’ll take the heat.’ The ref would get heat but then guys like John Cena or certain other guys would take the heat for it, saying ‘Look don’t blame him because he told me, I heard him, he gave me the cues, I got the cues, and I thought we just needed a little more time.”
Credit: Monday Mailbag with Mike Chioda via AdFreeShows.com