Former WWE Official Explains Why Vince McMahon Banned Referee Names

Referees play an important role in the world of professional wrestling, and there was once a time period when the names of referees would be openly used on WWE programming.

However, Vince McMahon eventually made the decision to ban referee names from WWE TV, and Mike Chioda explained on Insight with Chris Van Vliet why Vince was motivated to make that decision.

“One day, some years ago, Vince had just heard somebody’s name, you know, in Gorilla [backstage area] and he heard this name, and he’s like, ‘Well, that’s not the talent’s name.’ He was like, ‘Who? Whose name is that?’ ‘Oh, that’s the referee.’ ‘Well, stop saying it. He doesn’t sell tickets.’ It’s true. I mean, referees comp tickets. We don’t sell tickets. You know, my comp list, I’m probably about 10,000 or 20,000 tickets comped in my career.”

Chioda also reflected on the way that things used to be when he said, “It was great. They said our names a lot, especially Jim Ross and [Jerry The] King Lawler and Michael Cole years ago. [They] used to say our names a lot, which I thought it was cool.”

Nowadays it appears that WWE has loosened their stance on referee names as the names of WWE officials are used on television from time to time.