10 Fascinating WWE WrestleMania 17 Facts

2. Referee Mike Chioda Played Dead For More Than Ten Minutes

The first Texas Wrestlemania main event.
WWE.com

Instead of a celebrity match, Triple H did indeed wrestle The Undertaker in a brawl that wasn't allowed to be mentioned in the run-up to either their WrestleMania 27 or WrestleMania 28 match. Overall, the fight was rather enjoyable, and marked off many boxes on the Attitude Era checklist, including the ones that read "fight into the crowd", "blade", "break a table", and "hit the referee".

The last one proved a tad farcical. Veteran official Mike Chioda was assaulted by Undertaker for rendering a slow count during an earlier pinfall attempt by "The Dead Man". The assault culminated with Undertaker dropping an elbow across Chioda's back. That elbow drop was enough to render Chioda motionless for a whopping 10 minutes and 10 seconds (thank you WWE Network time-stamps for taking out the guesswork).

I've seen referees get hit with steamrollers, and they're usually up within five minutes or so. What the hell's inside Undertaker's elbow, tungsten?

Contributor
Contributor

Justin has been a wrestling fan since 1989, and has been writing about it since 2009. Since 2014, Justin has been a features writer and interviewer for Fighting Spirit Magazine. Justin also writes for History of Wrestling, and is a contributing author to James Dixon's Titan series.