Speaker 1: Now you're made event introducing ghosts are Wrestling with Freddy
Speaker 1: Jef died hand of Freddy Prince Junior.
Speaker 2: What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Wrestling with
Speaker 2: Freddy Jeff. Die is on location and unavailable, but we
Speaker 2: didn't leave you hanging because today we have a very
Speaker 2: special guest, and I'll start with this. One thing that
Speaker 2: every wrestling fan has caught themselves saying is while they're
Speaker 2: watching a match and they see something and they go,
Speaker 2: oh my god, how did you miss that call? Oh
Speaker 2: my god, how are you not in the right place?
Speaker 2: Oh my god? Turn around and look at what you're
Speaker 2: missing Right now, today we have brought a very special referee.
Speaker 2: We have brought mister Daniel Spencer. And just so you
Speaker 2: know a little history on the man and you understand
Speaker 2: his expert opinion and I'll soon be educated and he
Speaker 2: can choose to defend his profession if he so wishes.
Speaker 2: He is a senior official at OVW Ohio Valley Wrestling
Speaker 2: for those of you who don't know and just listen
Speaker 2: for fun since twenty nineteen, and in twenty twenty made
Speaker 2: his debut refereeing in Impact Wrestling, which is a part
Speaker 2: of the premier streaming network, so sign up for that
Speaker 2: and you can watch Impact there if you're a cable
Speaker 2: cutter like most of us. Mister Daniel Spencer, how are you, sir?
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: I'm great, Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Nice intro there. I couldn't do it better.
Speaker 2: Myself, so thanks man. I have met many a referee.
Speaker 2: I have had many a late night conversations with a referee,
Speaker 2: but when I worked in WWE, they were more interested
Speaker 2: in asking questions than answering questions. And I've never gotten
Speaker 2: to ask this question to a ref before. How the
Speaker 2: hell do you become a referee? And what made you
Speaker 2: say that's what I'm gonna do? You know, it's it's
Speaker 2: really I got a unique story. Growing up a wrestling fan.
Speaker 2: I always wanted to be a part of wrestling.
Speaker 3: Never really like thought about referee and I mean I
Speaker 3: had there was the goat referees right here, Charles Robinson's
Speaker 3: your earl Headner's and was like, those guys are cool,
Speaker 3: but it was never a thing. I always wanted to
Speaker 3: be a wrestler. At the time I was you know,
Speaker 3: I'm five foot eleven, so i'm I got too short.
Speaker 3: Now nowadays it doesn't matter, but you know, in the
Speaker 3: early two thousands, it was. It was a big deal.
Speaker 3: It was tough, and so yeah, it was tough. So
Speaker 3: I just kind of thought, well, maybe I'll be a
Speaker 3: writer and be creative and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 3: so I'll maybe go to that round in wrestling. But
Speaker 3: you know, life got away never really did. I started
Speaker 3: a podcast to talk about wrestling. I love for wrestling
Speaker 3: was I'm in I'm based in Louisvill, Kentucky, So growing
Speaker 3: up around OVW, I had a lot of friends at OVW,
Speaker 3: So i'd bring those guys on an interview and stuff
Speaker 3: like that, and somebody you brought on or doing benefit show,
Speaker 3: and I literally brought them on and was like talking
Speaker 3: about the benefit show and I jokingly said, hey, if
Speaker 3: you ever need a special guest referee, I'm your man,
Speaker 3: and they were like, yeah, yeah, sure, come on, and
Speaker 3: we got them recording. I thought it was just podcast banter,
Speaker 3: just having fun, and they were like, no, I'm serious,
Speaker 3: come on out. So I did and I got in
Speaker 3: the ring, and from the very beginning I loved it,
Speaker 3: and everybody there could like, you know, not the brag,
Speaker 3: but they were just shocked that it was my only
Speaker 3: that was my very first show because I knew I
Speaker 3: had the mechanics down. I kind of knew things. Not
Speaker 3: I wasn't perfect obviously, but I knew enough to I
Speaker 3: could do this further. And then more connections from there
Speaker 3: just snowballed into more and I started doing training, started
Speaker 3: you know, doing more shows, and before I know it,
Speaker 3: I'm didn't get get to go to OVW and start
Speaker 3: working learning TV and then from then got the now
Speaker 3: Impact wrestling. So it's it was a pretty fast jump,
Speaker 3: but pretty pretty cool. At the same time.
Speaker 2: You said training, is there a free school that you
Speaker 2: go to or do you just get in with a
Speaker 2: certain promotion and then learn the ropes within the promotion.
Speaker 3: It's you want to do your basic training when it
Speaker 3: comes to ref you know, wrestling type stuff. You know
Speaker 3: you're taking bumps and ropes and things like that. As
Speaker 3: far as I mean, there's not there should be a
Speaker 3: school referee. And I mean I've I have, you know,
Speaker 3: been seminars and been part of stuff to help train
Speaker 3: the referee sign because really in a wrestling school, unfortunately,
Speaker 3: they don't really teach referee and they just yeah, you
Speaker 3: just stand here or be here. You know, it's more
Speaker 3: of a get out the way or they should one
Speaker 3: hundred percent they should teach refereen And that's way. We
Speaker 3: do that a lot at OVW, at at the school
Speaker 3: there and and like I said, there's seminars and whatnot
Speaker 3: that I've been a part of where I've helped, you know, teach.
Speaker 3: But I think it's important for wrestlers to learn the
Speaker 3: art of referee in because you know, a lot of
Speaker 3: those wrestlers I've talked to that I've worked with, they're
Speaker 3: literally like when they when they learn something, they go,
Speaker 3: I never understood that the importance of you being in
Speaker 3: this position or you doing that, and it's it kind
Speaker 3: of opens up their eyes. So I really think there
Speaker 3: should be and we bring and like I said, we
Speaker 3: bring it in OVW. We make at certain a couple
Speaker 3: of weeks where it's like referee, You've got to kind
Speaker 3: of learn the importance of a referee because it's going
Speaker 3: to help them be a better wrestler, and then they
Speaker 3: want to be a referee. You know, some do transition
Speaker 3: over to a referee, and you know, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of former workers that are now referees too as well,
Speaker 3: so it happens.
Speaker 2: It's a very insightful thing. You said that all wrestlers
Speaker 2: should learn the art of refereeing. I've always found that
Speaker 2: every director who also went to acting class and learned
Speaker 2: the craft of that, whether they were any good at
Speaker 2: it or not, but learn to speak that language, they
Speaker 2: were always ten times the directors who didn't have that experience,
Speaker 2: every single time. So it's a great way just to
Speaker 2: sort of train your brain anyway. It's like when psychiatrists
Speaker 2: tell you to brush your teeth with your opposite hand, right,
Speaker 2: because it activates a different part of your brain, and
Speaker 2: that's why you feel like a three year old trying
Speaker 2: to find your mouth with a fork when you when
Speaker 2: you do it, when you brush with the opposite end.
Speaker 3: But when you.
Speaker 2: Take in it's like every man, what was that show,
Speaker 2: the Secret Boss show? I don't know what it was
Speaker 2: called Hidden Boss something where ye thank you undercover boss,
Speaker 2: much better titled than mine. You know, they would sort
Speaker 2: of see the other half of the business. And it's
Speaker 2: important for the foreman to know what every machine does
Speaker 2: on the on the on the construction site, and to
Speaker 2: know how to operate every machine that should be how
Speaker 2: they got to the foreman position because they had enough
Speaker 2: experience to.
Speaker 3: Do all that.
Speaker 2: When you add those extra tools to your belt, it
Speaker 2: only it only makes you better. And you're right as well.
Speaker 2: A lot of a lot of guys that wanted to
Speaker 2: be wrestlers and girls have transitioned into the referee world
Speaker 2: and they're all doing a good job except when they
Speaker 2: miss calls, which you know happens.
Speaker 3: It does happen. Unfortunately, we know we have two sets
Speaker 3: of oas. I wish there was other ways around it,
Speaker 3: but you know, we've that the industries evolved so much,
Speaker 3: but uh, we still got the one referee in the
Speaker 3: in the ring. And you know, there's no TV review
Speaker 3: unless it's important. Sometimes there are reviews, and you know,
Speaker 3: we get things overturned, but for the most part, you know,
Speaker 3: it's things happen and we miss stuff. I was gonna say,
Speaker 3: you know, well, people people that are I would say,
Speaker 3: like a you know he's not here today, but you know,
Speaker 3: like a Jeff Dive like he's a manager, right kind
Speaker 3: of kind of I don't see him as a wrestler,
Speaker 3: seem like a manager. He's one of those that likes
Speaker 3: to just get up on top of the apron. He're like, dude,
Speaker 3: what are you doing? You got to get down, And
Speaker 3: then something happens behind me, and I have no idea
Speaker 3: what's going on.
Speaker 2: So he could be a good distraction. He could be
Speaker 2: a good distraction. I'll get into some constructive criticism down
Speaker 2: the road. But a lot of my listeners just listen
Speaker 2: for fun and they're not educated on wrestling, and they
Speaker 2: tell me they learn a lot about it just through
Speaker 2: listening to this, whether they watch or not. I need
Speaker 2: you to break down and explain what a referee's responsibilities
Speaker 2: are as comfortably as you can in to people that
Speaker 2: have never because it's not like boxing or the UFC
Speaker 2: in any way, shape or form. You're not just observing
Speaker 2: and officiating. There is a next level of communication that
Speaker 2: has to exist that I want people to understand. So
Speaker 2: try and illustrate that for me if you could.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there there's a lot, I don't know what.
Speaker 3: The curtain's been pulled back so much in this industry now,
Speaker 3: so it's not I'm not really going to give away
Speaker 3: too much that kind of it's not out there and
Speaker 3: you know you've seen it and other stuff too as well.
Speaker 3: But one of the things that I mean, obviously number one,
Speaker 3: our job is always safety. It's safety for the for
Speaker 3: the talent and the ring, making sure there everything's good
Speaker 3: even when they take a big bump and they're selling.
Speaker 3: To make sure that the selling is is selling the
Speaker 3: right way. And it's not like opaving to stop this
Speaker 3: match and move on, you know where you know, twenty
Speaker 3: years ago, it was like they just continued. You know,
Speaker 3: we luckily enough to know so much about the concussions
Speaker 3: and different things when it comes to the body that
Speaker 3: we you know, we're able to kind of stop what
Speaker 3: we need to stop or you know, finish a match
Speaker 3: right away when we need to finish it. But but
Speaker 3: the other things too is that, especially when you're working
Speaker 3: with TV, we have IFBs, we have ear pieces in
Speaker 3: our ear and we're being communicated from you know, the
Speaker 3: agent in the back or the TV truck and different
Speaker 3: you know, people letting us know where things are time wise,
Speaker 3: what's going on if we you know, need to for
Speaker 3: in the camera shot things like that too as well.
Speaker 3: We've got to do and and you know Tom Cus
Speaker 3: yeah there might be TOMQ said as well. But the
Speaker 3: other thing too is that you know, you're communicating back
Speaker 3: and forth between the talent and the ring. I mean
Speaker 3: a lot of times you have to let people know
Speaker 3: what let them let each other know what's going on,
Speaker 3: you know, for the most part, and I'll just leave
Speaker 3: it at that. I won't go too much detailing, although again,
Speaker 3: curtain's been pulled back so much that people kind of understand. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but it's never a.
Speaker 2: Push bro, It's only what you're comfortable saying.
Speaker 3: It's a very important job, and you know it's we
Speaker 3: are not you know, the joke around is that we
Speaker 3: don't referees, don't celtic as. We cop tickets, right, so
Speaker 3: it's like never heard that. No, really, yeah, we don't
Speaker 3: sell them, we comp them. So there's you know, they're
Speaker 3: not and what that means is they're not there to
Speaker 3: see us. They're there to see the talent in the ring.
Speaker 3: So our job is to kind of be there when
Speaker 3: we need to be there, but be be the you know,
Speaker 3: be unseen woman need to be unseen, which is usually
Speaker 3: ninety percent of the time we need to be unseen.
Speaker 3: So that's that's kind of the other hard part of
Speaker 3: the job is not taking the glory from because it's
Speaker 3: not about us. It's about the talent in the ring,
Speaker 3: whether there's two or four or five, whatever, how many
Speaker 3: of them's in the ring.
Speaker 2: I knew a wrestler who will remain nameless, that had
Speaker 2: a hard time remembering spots and matches outside of the
Speaker 2: big ones. And so when he would build a match
Speaker 2: with his opponent, he would always ask that the referee
Speaker 2: for that match be there as well, so that he
Speaker 2: could communicate anything that he may have forgotten in the match.
Speaker 2: And this wrestler, I already said he so they'll know
Speaker 2: it's a but he depended on this referee so much
Speaker 2: and they had such an amazing relationship that it was
Speaker 2: like a shorthand with like hand signals, little things like
Speaker 2: that that would just cue him into everything that he
Speaker 2: may or may not have forgotten, Like they would just
Speaker 2: go He would go through those motions, whether the guy
Speaker 2: forgot or not. So it just looked like, you know,
Speaker 2: normal behavior. But that was how he remembered a lot
Speaker 2: of the important spots and matches. Because this was a
Speaker 2: guy that would get you know, big time promos and have,
Speaker 2: you know, to carry segments and things like that, and
Speaker 2: so he had so much crap going on in his
Speaker 2: head that he'd be like, yo, I just forget spots sometimes.
Speaker 2: And you know, if I'm with a guy that doesn't
Speaker 2: want to improv and we have specific things, I got
Speaker 2: to be there for him. Has anything like that ever
Speaker 2: happened with you where you have to help out with
Speaker 2: certain like you know, hey guys, let's get here, let's
Speaker 2: get there, those types of things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, quite often. Actually it's not a knock on the
Speaker 3: talent who it is, because you know, it's it's just
Speaker 3: it's it's so much remember and what's crazy about it.
Speaker 3: Here's like I've got to know four or five matches
Speaker 3: the whole night, so like I've literally got to got
Speaker 3: to help rememberize. I mean, if it's a bigger match,
Speaker 3: I usually I definitely know all the details, but I've
Speaker 3: got to like, okay, I've got to go over it's
Speaker 3: more than once because you know this is important. But
Speaker 3: now many times I've had to be in the ring
Speaker 3: and they say where they're at, where we at, and
Speaker 3: I have to let him know where they're at, you know,
Speaker 3: and and it's and and that just that's just you know,
Speaker 3: communicating the right way and you know, making sure because
Speaker 3: words case scenario if they're lost and they do something
Speaker 3: that can cause them to get injured too as well,
Speaker 3: because they thought something else was coming and something you know,
Speaker 3: something else came instead and knocked them sideways, you know.
Speaker 3: So it's very important. But yeah, it's very that's a
Speaker 3: very common. There's you know, one of the guys who
Speaker 3: was my mentor and and kind of took me to
Speaker 3: uh kind of a I call it another level in
Speaker 3: wrestling coach me was Brian Hebner, who is the son
Speaker 3: of you know, Earl Hebner. So Brian kind of took
Speaker 3: me under his tutelage for about eighteen months when he
Speaker 3: was back with Impact, and I learned so much about
Speaker 3: how to do that because he was he was like
Speaker 3: that for Kurt Angle. Kurt Angle, he says, I literally
Speaker 3: was I had to do all the Kurt Angle's matches
Speaker 3: because I literally helped him the entire time. And and
Speaker 3: he being instilled that with me, know your matches, know
Speaker 3: your be know, have a relationship with your with your talent,
Speaker 3: so that way you can, you know, communicate so well
Speaker 3: with them because they're gonna.
Speaker 2: He Kurt's one of the greatest to ever wrestle, one
Speaker 2: of the greatest ever wrestle and still to have that
Speaker 2: relationship with your referee is such a that's such an
Speaker 2: amazing thing. And I know the curtain has been pulled back,
Speaker 2: but I think that's one of the beautiful things about
Speaker 2: the business is the fact that as unsung as the
Speaker 2: referees are, as far as heroes, y'all are happy with that.
Speaker 2: You prefer that. I've heard you multiple times talk about
Speaker 2: not being seen or noticed and multiple times talk about
Speaker 2: wrestler safety, and that's what you sort of pulled every
Speaker 2: conversation back to. And I think that's the way all
Speaker 2: referees should be in all sports. By the way, all
Speaker 2: you referees out there that make it about you, that's
Speaker 2: some bs that happens in the NBA all the time.
Speaker 2: You need you need to have a seminar for them.
Speaker 2: All right, So more fun question, more fun question. And
Speaker 2: then maybe it's a two parter.
Speaker 3: Or maybe it's the same answer for book.
Speaker 2: What's the most nervous you've been for a match? And
Speaker 2: what was your first championship match?
Speaker 3: Who was in it? What was it?
Speaker 2: Were you nervous?
Speaker 3: Is it? Holy shit? Up?
Speaker 2: I don't want to screw up? Or you like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's my moment I'm gonna shine like I don't. I
Speaker 2: honestly want to know. It can be cocky. It's not
Speaker 2: cocky if you did it. My grandfather would always say,
Speaker 2: it ain't bragging if you did it. Freddy, all right,
Speaker 2: fair enough.
Speaker 3: I would say probably the most nervous I've ever been.
Speaker 3: Obviously that I guess you go back to that first
Speaker 3: show ever, but that's that was nothing in front of
Speaker 3: a one hundred people whatever. But the most numbers I've
Speaker 3: been was doing the semi main event for the Rick
Speaker 3: Flairs last match show. It was for the Impact Knockouts
Speaker 3: CHAMPIONSHI World Championship. It was Jordan Grace against Deanno Prazzo
Speaker 3: and oh Rachel Ailering. So it was it was that
Speaker 3: match and very nervous because it was Rick Fare's last
Speaker 3: match and over nine ten thousand people in the crowd
Speaker 3: and it was seen everywhere and it was pretty pretty amazing.
Speaker 3: But then Rachel also tweaked her knee in the middle
Speaker 3: of this match, like right when it started, so like
Speaker 3: there was the whole safety thing going on there, and
Speaker 3: I'm trying to communicate that to the back and also
Speaker 3: get them to get the other two to still wrestle
Speaker 3: it was it was it was Nerve. That was probably
Speaker 3: the most nervous I've been in the most recent years
Speaker 3: I can think of. As far as a first ever
Speaker 3: title match, it was actually OVW versus Impact, which is
Speaker 3: first one of my first relationship with Impact came in.
Speaker 3: It was in March of twenty nineteen, and it was
Speaker 3: it was Tony gun versus Emmy Callahan and it was
Speaker 3: like the OVW Championship because Sammy Callahan stole it from
Speaker 3: Tony Gunn who was the champion. And there was that
Speaker 3: and so that was probably my first memorable one that
Speaker 3: I and I'm looking back, I don't believe that any
Speaker 3: about any other one was I had any other ones
Speaker 3: that were bigger than that until I went to Impact
Speaker 3: and then did they a world type my first world
Speaker 3: title match with Eddie Edwards versus RVD and that was
Speaker 3: fun too as well. That was pretty memorable as well.
Speaker 2: So all right, Daniel Spencer, it's time it's time to
Speaker 2: introduce a brand new segment on Wrestling with Freddy the
Speaker 2: segment I like to call I got.
Speaker 3: Some sweet sound effects for this too.
Speaker 2: Ref court Dun dundun. Those were the sweet sound effects
Speaker 2: that was that was?
Speaker 3: That was impressive? All right? Man?
Speaker 2: So I started watching wrestling in the early eighties, and
Speaker 2: I'm forty seven years old now. I got a lot
Speaker 2: of ref gripes. Some are just some after talking to you,
Speaker 2: not so much, because you're right. There are a lot
Speaker 2: of things going on, however, and we won't be able
Speaker 2: to do it every week, although I'd love to have
Speaker 2: you on every week, but Jeff will get jealous once
Speaker 2: in a while. I would love to have you on
Speaker 2: the show, and we will address the week in wrestling,
Speaker 2: and I will bring up what I feel are the
Speaker 2: worst offenses that I have seen in that week of wrestling,
Speaker 2: and you will have an opportunity as the public defender
Speaker 2: in an episode of Law and Order, but a damn
Speaker 2: good one, an opportunity to defend the offense and get
Speaker 2: your man or woman a verdict of not guilty. What
Speaker 2: do you do? How do you feel about this?
Speaker 3: I like that idea. Yeah, I'm gaining for that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Listen, there's historical events with with Earl, obviously that I'm
Speaker 2: sure he hates having to relive every day of his life,
Speaker 2: but it's it's the most famous one, and then it's
Speaker 2: not even his fault. That's the that's the worst part
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: El Earl made a lot of money off of that
Speaker 3: years later, so I think he's okay with he did Yes,
Speaker 3: good for around. There's still t shirts that they say, damn,
Speaker 3: damn right, I did it. They're just they're just white,
Speaker 3: you know, they do not stripes. Yeah, they say damn right,
Speaker 3: I did it. And it's uh, it's he made a
Speaker 3: lot of money off those, and it was it's pretty
Speaker 3: he'll tell you.
Speaker 2: He go.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Now granted he you know, he realized later he
Speaker 3: might as well just own it, right, I mean, so yeah.
Speaker 2: Good for him, man, good for you never know how
Speaker 2: something like that's going to hit somebody, because you know,
Speaker 2: it was every every arena he was in every show,
Speaker 2: you would hear people you screwed. Oh yeah, yeah. He
Speaker 2: can't go to Canada. Still, that's like Brian Bosworth level stuff.
Speaker 2: Do you remember the Brian Bosworth, the NFL player, Like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: they would he would go to He got drafted by
Speaker 2: the Seattle Seahawks and he made all these shirts in
Speaker 2: that said like kill Brian Bosworth and sold them in
Speaker 2: Denver to Denver fans, and like every city he would
Speaker 2: go to. He was so outspoken. People hated him so much.
Speaker 2: It was like MJF. When MJF was like all full
Speaker 2: heel before he was the Brochaco and people hated him
Speaker 2: in every city they would go to there and nobody
Speaker 2: knew he was the owner of them. Nobody knew he
Speaker 2: was the guy who designed the shirts. There was just
Speaker 2: a booth that would sell like you know, fuck you,
Speaker 2: Brian Bosworth, like all this shit, and he was just
Speaker 2: reaping in all the money from it.
Speaker 3: And that's what Haurle did. Man, he flipped it up.
Speaker 3: I love that. Wow, that's that's that's pretty amazing. That's
Speaker 3: pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: We oh, yeah, man, we have to get you a
Speaker 2: screwjob so that you can flip it and make shirts
Speaker 2: and say you're damn You're damn right.
Speaker 3: I cheated. Well, I mean, you know, if it works
Speaker 3: out career wise, financially wise, sure, but.
Speaker 2: We'll see otherwise. Yeah, otherwise, my man Daniel Spencer calls
Speaker 2: it down the middle.
Speaker 3: People.
Speaker 2: All right, So let me give you an example, all right.
Speaker 2: And I'm not going to name this referee because this
Speaker 2: is not an official referee court, all right, So we'll
Speaker 2: give him that piece. Now, people, want to look up
Speaker 2: this referee and do their own research. That's fine, and
Speaker 2: the only information I'll give is it was on August
Speaker 2: fourteenth Cody versus Finn, So now people should be able
Speaker 2: to figure that out. We will get into this very
Speaker 2: case in our episode of Thursdays on Sanctioned. You'll have
Speaker 2: to tune in later and wait for that. I would
Speaker 2: like to thank all of our listeners for today's for
Speaker 2: your attention. Today, I like to thank our guest Daniel Spencer.
Speaker 2: He's going to be with us on Unsanctioned Thursdays on
Speaker 2: behalf of the Great Jackpot. Jeff Die who too bad? Jeff,
Speaker 2: you don't get to be a wrestler, Daniel says, you'd
Speaker 2: be a better manager.
Speaker 3: Ha ha.
Speaker 2: I'm Freddie Brienz Junior and this was wrestling with Freddy.
Speaker 2: This has been a production of Iheart'smichael Toura podcast Network.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.