Mike Chioda says WWE sometimes bring people back to bury them: “If they want to get you, they have to hire you back to get you if that makes sense”
Mike Chioda answered some more fan questions on “Monday Mailbag” on AdFreeShows.com. You can listen to a massive collection of weekly podcasts at AdFreeShows.com without commercial interruption.
Here are some highlights from Chioda’s recent podcast:
Mike Chioda was asked his thoughts on matches being called in the ring like in the past compared to the spots being planned in advance and if he preferred one style over the other: “Not really. Calling it in the ring was definitely a lot easier, but these days, especially for TV tapings when you are on live TV, it’s hard to call spots in the ring constantly because it will look like they are having a complete conversation. Back in the day, even talent with long hair made it easy to call spots underneath your hair, but it’s a little hard these days with all the cameras on you. You have to preplan a lot of stuff. Matches back then, they did talk about a lot of things, but they called a lot of things in the ring. I preferred it either way. It was a lot easier back then, but I find it easier in today’s world the way they go out and setting up their match and setting up their spots. Sometimes they have a problem taking certain spots out if they have to hurry up and go home and hit their cues before the end of the PPV or RAW or SmackDown. Certain talents sometimes have a hard time if you have A, B, C and D cut out, it’s hard to cut out C to get to D. There are talents that can adjust to that and they do it right.”
Chioda was asked if there was a high profile match that the talent asked him to be their ref and if it meant a lot to him that they asked for him specifically: “Yes, Rock vs Hogan was huge to me. There are quite a few matches. Rock vs Cena. Shane vs Kurt. Shane vs Undertaker. Randy vs Edge. Even after I was released, Randy texted me and said he and Edge wanted me to do this match. This was a month after I was released. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do it. I was in Texas and I couldn’t have made it back in time to do this match. There were too many things I would need to do. I would have to do a physical and get cleared again. They wanted me back in Tampa and it only gave me two days to get this done and it wouldn’t have worked out, but Randy and Edge wanted me to do that match. I thought the company released me a few months ago, but the talent still wants me to do their matches.”
Chioda was asked if coming off the heels of Kenny Omega appearing on Impact and WWE then saying they are open to working with others if he thinks WWE will do so, and if so, will it work out: “I think they will at some point. I think like he said, they are open for business. Why not expand to another league and have more competition? I think that’s a great idea for businesses to work together. But, there’s going to be some kind of difficulty with certain talents. Their company is not going to want their talent to do the job for this guy unless he is going to pay it back to him. I just can’t see certain companies say ok, you are going to come in here and your top guy is going to beat my top guy. Then, if there are no paybacks down the road, or no storyline for the future for next month or next week, that’s going to be a hard thing to do. You’re going to get conflicting egos and conflicting everything. Hopefully, they will get it together and work things out because more competition and more talent that faces other talent that never faced each other before would be great to see. When it comes to the top guys, I guarantee you there is going to be some issues there.”
Chioda was asked how it is decided who WWE brings back and who they don’t when the talent left on bad terms: “Sometimes it’s a money thing. It’s not even who does the job, I think it’s all about the money. I’ve known guys who were in the company and they may have done something wrong years ago or did the company wrong. If they want to get you, they have to hire you back to get you if that makes sense. Once they hire you back, then they can get you. Now they can do what they want with you. Do they want to job you out every week? Do they want you to look stupid? I’ve heard things go down. Unfortunately, sometimes you see somebody that buried the company every which way and talk s**t about the company. You think to yourself, that guy will never be back. People who say I’ll never be back, I tell them never say never in this business. If there’s money to be made five years down the road with this guy again, Vince will hire him back. He will make the money and then decide what to do with him after that.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit “Mailbag Monday with Mike Chioda on AdFreeShows.com” with a h/t to PWrestling.com for the transcription.