John Bradshaw Layfield reveals whether or not WWE referees get a pay raise for taking bumps in matches.
Ref bumps have arguably become one of the most overused tropes in professional wrestling over the last 30 years. Not only do referees frequently get knocked down while calling a wrestling match, but wrestlers who are guest referees somehow lose their power to recover quickly once they put on the referee shirt.
Names like Earl Hebner, Tim White, Charles Robinson, and Mike Chioda have all had famous moments taking bumps in the middle of matches or having to run down to become the secondary referee after an official gets knocked down.
Recently, during a Q&A episode of Something to Wrestle, JBL was asked if referees get paid extra for matches where they bump. While he can't speak to the exact formula of today's referees, he does confirm that referees used to get paid extra when the action called for them to get more physical than normal.
"They used to. I don't know if they do or not. I'm sure it's baked into their contract now, whatever it is, but they used to, yeah. They used to give them extra money for bumping, for juicing, for all kinds of things."
Elsewhere in this podcast, Bradshaw gave his thoughts on John Cena's potential last opponent. Learn more here.
He also broke down Vince McMahon's formula for paying talent during his day. Learn more at this link.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a H/T and link back to Fightful for the transcription.
