Backstage Details On Vince McMahon Being ‘F**king Hot’ About Ronda Rousey WrestleMania Botch

Former WWE referee Mike Chioda has spoken about the backstage fallout involving Vince McMahon to the end of WrestleMania 35.

The finish of the main event saw Becky Lynch pin Ronda Rousey with a roll-up, but referee Rod Zapata had counted the pin despite Rousey’s shoulders being quite clearly off the canvas.

This was obviously the planned finish, which is why he counted it, but logic says he shouldn’t have since her shoulders weren’t down.

Speaking on his Monday Mailbag on AdFreeShows, Chioda, who was there at the time, said:

“Rod Zapata was the referee for that match and got a lot of heat for it, a lot of heat for that match for counting. He shouldn’t have counted. I think he panicked. He could have said, ‘Hey, get that shoulder down more. Get that shoulder down’. Sometimes if you start a count and it’s almost not touching, and if you’re telling them as you’re counting, they can make the adjustment and get it tighter. He should have never counted. He got a lot of heat for that.

“I remember there was so much heat that you almost thought he was going to lose his job at that point. That was something that you just have to work as a referee. If you don’t see something down, you can’t count it the way the camera angles are. Vince was f**king hot. Laurinaitis was hot. Rightfully so. You have to man up to your mistakes. That’s why it’s hard to be a referee. You know that’s the finish, and he was saying something about how he didn’t think Ronda or someone couldn’t make the adjustment.

“I remember we said to him, ‘Why didn’t you just tell them to get the shoulder down as you’re counting?’ He tried to protect himself and said, ‘I don’t think she could have made the adjustment’. Those were his return words, and I think he got himself a little more heat after that. That goes back to where you have to protect yourself as a referee because it’s going to make you look bad for counting the shoulders that are not down. It makes you look like s**t, and that’s where you bury yourself if you don’t make the adjustment.”

Luckily, Lynch was so over that it didn’t really take away from the reaction to her huge win, but the fact it’s still a topic of conversation to this day goes to show it’s not something that everybody has been able to put out of their minds completely.

Chioda was released by WWE last year, and has worked as a referee for AEW a couple of times since then.

Quote via WrestlingNews.co

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