On the latest episode of My World, Jeff Jarrett was asked about referees checking on injured wrestlers mid-match, and explained that what looks like a modern safety measure started as something else entirely. You can check out his comments below:
On the storytelling version:
“It’s situational. Back in the day, when a wrestler’s hurt — let’s just say they do the leapfrog spot, and the talent comes down, and it’s a heel, and he feigns that, oh my gosh, I blew my knee out. So if a talent is really hurt, quote unquote, the realism is the ref steps in and says, wait a minute, can you continue? If you can’t, the match needs to be stopped, and the opponent wins by stoppage. So it’s storytelling.”
On why a fan might not buy it:
“He closes by saying it never made sense to him. I’m probably going to put that on the talent — that they didn’t deliver the story well enough for you to understand, or for it to make sense.”
On how it works now:
“Nowadays, when you have concussions in real situations, the referee has to — we’ve got an earpiece in — he has to throw up an X. He sometimes has to stop the match at least for a second. I’ve been told if there is a head injury, no matter what the circumstances are, or how much TV time, or what you are or aren’t supposed to be doing, you have to stop the match, because there’s a doctor at ringside, and you better stop it. So it’s storytelling, and sometimes it is a real health care situation.”
On where the hand squeeze actually came from:
“Oh, Conrad, I mean, Moondogs matches. Whether it’s Frank or Paul or whatever the referees were. And this sounds like I’m such an old timer, old school — but sometimes you take the right chair shot and you’re down selling. And if you sell right, the referee may or may not have seen exactly how it went down. They run over and kind of grab you. And a lot of times it’s, hey man, you all right? And instead of the talent saying yeah, I’m fine — if the talent squeezes back, that’s kind of an old school working thing.”
On what it really is:
“It’s non-verbal communication. So in a lot of ways, Conrad, that’s been around forever. Non-verbal communication. Squeezing of the hand is non-verbal.”
On when the protocol era started:
“I call it the beginning of the concussion protocol era, which had to have been mid-2000s. I can remember even Vince would get really upset. Hey, you’re not going to lose your spot, you’re hurt, you’ve got to take time off. Like Kevin one time had more than a stone bruise in his heel, but he was in a crazy amount of pain. And Kevin was like, nope, shoot me up, I’m going to work the next two tours, and then we’ll get him to a pay-per-view and figure something out.”
On what he thinks actually changed it:
“The drug testing was going on out of the steroid era, but then everything went back crazy. When WWE went public, I think that also changed a lot of the liability set of circumstances. Vince is going, okay, I still have all the stock, but I have to think about not just advertisers — and they were having to rebuild the advertiser base off the Attitude Era — but also stockholders. So I’m going to say the 2000s is when the concussion conversation really started to come into play. I know you mentioned Benoit. I think it’s a lot of factors.”
