Every Wednesday and Saturday is Wrestling Reality with Justin LaBar audio podcast presented by TicketKingOnline.com.
Wednesday is top headlines and stories in WWE. On Saturday, a guest joins me for casual conversation and stories. This past Saturday I was joined by Marty Elias. He’s a former WWE ref, current Lucha Underground ref and working on the Netflix series GLOW.
Here’s some excerpts of the interview with Marty Elias (transcribed by @PeterBahi):
On His Appearance on Glow:
It was great. I’m actually the wrestling ring technician for the show, so I’m in charge of the wrestling rings; I actually help with the props and safety of the gals, and making sure everything is done right and accordingly for the actresses, so I actually helped Chavo train some of the girls. He used me as a stunt double, and I’d get in and take bumps and the girls would see that and mimic it. The Producers, Liz [Flahive] and Carly [Mensch] knew my background and they asked if I would like to be a Referee on the show, and I said that I absolutely would love to do it. That was how I got involved with that.
On Whether GLOW Represented Pro Wrestling the Best Of Every Show Portraying Wrestling:
I absolutely think they did. To give them all the credit in the world because they did their homework. Liz and Carly did their homework as well as Jenji [Kohan]. With Chavo Guerrero being there as one of their Coordinators, and bringing the wrestling people that they did, they were very open to learn and to ask the right questions because they wanted to get it right. They didn’t want to just have this show that is based on GLOW and Pro Wrestling, they wanted to get the details right; get the moves—as a matter of fact, there was some of the moves where the girls would come in and say, ‘Hey, I’ve seen that move done on Monday Night Raw.’ Chavo would respond, ‘ Well, that wasn’t done in 1985, this was done in 1985,’ so there was a learning curve with them. They got it right and they explained it; a lot of what the girls had gone through, that was the story they were telling it in the 10 episodes, which is why I believe they knocked it out of the park and why the show is so successful so far.
On how involved he was in the planning for the classic Undertaker vs Shawn Michaels WM 25 match:
We actually met 3 days prior to the event. We sat down and they laid out their match. I was specifically told by Undertaker that if he didn’t beat the count after the dive, to shoot count him out. That’s the only instruction I got.
Do you think there would have been heat on you for counting him out?:
Oh, I’m sure. Here’s the thing, when he dove he landed on his head and got a concussion. He was literally coo coo. We didn’t make eye contact until 8 and a half or 9 when I was making that count. IT cam really close to me counting him out and he was loopy. It really was that close, that was a shoot.
How he got to be the ref for that match, how far ahead ref’s find out their WrestleMania match assignments, working on Lucha Underground and more can be found in the full 30 minute interview below.
