Mike Chioda Wishes He Could Train AEW Referees

Long-time WWE senior referee Mike Chioda has had his say about AEW’s refeering, and he, like many other aficionados, is rather disappointed.

After being released by WWE last year, Chioda even refereed a couple of AEW matches, but that hasn’t stopped him from calling out the problems with the officiating.

Speaking on the Such Good Shoot podcast, Mike Chioda said:

“AEW’s rules with the refs, I can’t – it’s hard for me to watch it. I want to go back to referees because, you know, I watch it. I watch the show. And it’s just hard to watch as a referee when they’re just acknowledging the tag in, but not acknowledging the five count out of the corner, or the five count off the ropes, and not even acknowledging the 10 counts pretty much. It’s basically count a false finish or count the finish.

“(In WWE) we made it where you had rules. The only thing I didn’t like is when Vince cut our f**king names off, and he heard some referee’s name years ago just being announced on commentary and he said, ‘Who the f**k is this guy?’. They said, ‘It’s the referee Vince’. ‘Well why the f**k am I hearing a referee’s f**king name Goddamnit. I don’t wanna hear any more f**king referee’s names’, and I’m like, ‘What?’.

“They’re building Aubrey (Edwards) and doing a great job and she’s Chris Jericho’s referee, and I wish I was in AEW right now training these guys. I know I can help.

“Cody wanted me (in AEW) and there was a lot of guys that pushing for me like Taz, Jim Ross… a ton of guys. Tony Khan’s not high on referees, bro. I mean, he didn’t want me there to train them, and Cody wanted me to do a lot of their pay-per-views, but they axed me after like three shows. That was it.”

AEW’s referee core is made up of Aubrey Edwards, Paul Turner, Bryce Remsburg, Rick Knox, Mike Posey, and Frank Gastineau.

Edwards has said previously that there was actually an official AEW rulebook being worked on that would be available to buy, but there hasn’t been much said on that front for a while now.

Quote via Cultaholic

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• Aubrey Edwards
• Referees
• Mike CHioda
• AEW

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