10 Awful WWE Clichés That Refuse To Go Away
3. "The Referee Is Down!"
Watch WWE programming for any length of time and you’ll start thinking that wrestling referees are the most incompetent human beings in the world. They’re constantly lambasted and emasculated by bullish heel wrestlers, and though they occasionally stand up for themselves, they’re painted as timid, weak characters.
That’s fine to a certain degree: nobody’s suggesting that the little guy in a striped shirt should be fighting with an overly-aggressive, 300lb pro-wrestler. They should, however, come with a certain degree of credibility, because without it, their role is meaningless outside of counting 1, 2, 3.
The most grating aspect of WWE’s referees is their complete lack of spacial awareness, however. Officials constantly find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they’re regularly knocked down as a result. It has become one of WWE’s most overused tactics when creating controversial match finishes, and there’s no excuse for it.
You don’t see MMA referees getting caught by wayward left hooks or mistimed takedown attempts, so why are WWE’s officials so dopey? It’s just another tired cliché that makes no sense in the real world, sadly.