10 Best Wrestling Referees Ever

3. Tommy Young

Charles Robinson
WWE Network

If you grew up with the NWA and WCW instead of WWF, Tommy Young was your referee. Young started out as an in-ring competitor at the beginning of the 1970s in Michigan, but by 1975 he had made the transition to referee full-time for the NWA. 

Five years later he was the NWA's senior official, and if a world title fight was happening the chances are Tommy Young was in charge.

Unlike Jack Doan, who used all of his sliding power up in one (admittedly impressive) go, Young was known for his manner of sliding into pinfalls.

It added a sense of realism to proceedings, that the referee was doing all he could to get into the right position at the right time. He also had great facial mannerisms, selling the action extremely well.

Young would suffer a serious back injury in 1989 that seemingly ended his career for good. He did, however, make a brief return to the WWF in 1998 as part of the forgettable NWA storyline. 

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.