Referee Brian Hebner welcomed Impact Wrestling’s Josh Alexander as his guest on “Refin’ It Up.” Hebner also gave his thoughts on some of the things happening in different companies, including the officiating in WWE and AEW.
On referee Jessika Carr not calling Gunther tapping out at Extreme Rules:
“I’ve done my homework. It was a clear tap. A clear as hell tap. I don’t want to hear somebody telling me that he was trying to grab the rope twice and missed it. I mean, give me a fu**ing break. It was a tap. He legitimately tapped. I watched it over, and over, and over again. I’ve talked to four MMA guys in the business, and I don’t mean your big top stars. I’m talking about guys that are in MMA or have been in MMA. That was a legit, qualified tap. Now, where I feel bad for the referee, who I know and I’m not bashing her, because this is a tough spot, that wasn’t the plan finish which threw her way off and I get it, but if it’s a tap like that, you have to call the match. You got to bring legitimacy to this mistake, and that’s what it was. It was a mistake because she tried to wave it off. If this was something that was done a certain way, and if it was no big deal and all that, then why was she waving it off? She was waving it off because it was an obvious tap and she knew it and she had to override it by saying, ‘No, it wasn’t. No, it wasn’t.’ Well if it wasn’t a tap, you shouldn’t have reacted. You should have just carried on and kept going through the match the way you should have. That’s not what she did. That’s not what she did at all. So hindsight 20/20, if I was in the ring and that were to happen, listen, I’m not perfect and I’m not saying what I would have or wouldn’t do because I don’t know, but I just know that that wasn’t the finish and that threw her way off and she was probably scared to make that call. You know, that’s understandable and I’m not bashing her. But what I am saying is just like they told me, ‘If someone doesn’t get out, you count the fu**er out. If they don’t break the count and they’re only outside, you count them the fu*k out.’ They started giving bonuses for things that we would do if the guys didn’t abide by the rules. That was just a blatant, bad, bad moment, and I hope they correct it, call it, do something.”
“Then we have the AEW Dynamite main event. I don’t even know what to say to that one. That was just bad timing, bad spacing, bad everything. Just horrible. Inexplicable. It was just fu**ing bad. It was just fu**ing bad. If it was the boys, then they buried the ref. If it was her, she was in the wrong spot. There were more bodies out there that needed to be and you can use everybody in the world. There were so many ways around that sh*t.”
“Here’s another thing that pisses me off and this ties into together. Stop ignoring us as fans and us as people who see this sh*t happen. Don’t act like it didn’t happen and insult our intelligence. We see the sh*t happen in the fu**ing ring. Don’t act like it just didn’t happen to you because you’re booking it. No, it did happen. We saw it. It doesn’t make sense and it looks stupid. Now explain to me why the fu*k this happened. That’s what pisses me off. I can’t go to work and pump gas and spill gasoline on your car and act like I didn’t do it. You know what I mean? I want to be explained to and told to as not only a fan, but as a person in the business or that’s been there before. I want to know why we’re not addressing this. Don’t act like there’s not an elephant in the room. There is there’s two of them, two big fu**ing fat elephants that happened this week. So tell me why, or tell me and explain to me storyline wise, how to get out of this. You got all the brains in the world around it. So figure this out. Let me know why this happened. You can’t just sit there and look at a finish right in front of you and it not be explained and it’s just okay. It doesn’t happen and it doesn’t work for me, and I know it doesn’t work for a lot of other people. Figure the fu**ing sh*t out. Let us know what happened. Don’t chicken sh*t out of it. Tell us why and how it happened.”
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If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Refin’ It Up with Brian Hebner with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
