Every Wrestling Secret WWE Tries (And Fails) To Hide
6. The Referee "X" Gesture
From the grip of hands to the crossing of them, the referee's responsibility remains to the health of the performer rather than the story of the match when the worst occurs.
Again something that cameras are supposed to miss and live crowd fans often ignore or simply miss, the "X" gesture thrown up by referees lets everybody from other wrestlers to commentators to those backstage that somebody is hurt and things need to happen to address that.
Legitimate injuries can often snap everybody back to reality in the moment, but the idea of this symbol is to try and achieve the opposite. With everybody empowered by the knowledge, there's often opportunity to think of something on the fly to aid in the pressing matter of somebody's health and wellbeing.
Over the last couple of decades, it's become known enough that WWE have occasionally been able to fold it into the work, but that's best kept rare. And anyway, in the era of headsets and wired-up refs, it's perhaps not quite as vital as it used to be, even if it remains as pretty admirable dark arts disguise from wrestling's roots.