Former WWE referee Jimmy Korderas talked about the evolution of the “WWF refs on strike” angle in 1999 when he took some fan questions this week on AdFreeshows.com. Here is what he had to say:
“September 5th, 1999, I got married. I obviously spoke to the office and J.R. I said, ‘Is it possible to take some time off for my honeymoon?’, and he gave me two weeks off. He said, ‘Take your time and go enjoy it.’ J.R. is awesome. I have nothing but love for J.R. He said, ‘Go out and do your thing.’
“So I’m on my honeymoon, and for these two weeks, I don’t know what’s going on in wrestling because if I want to stay married, I’m not going to be watching wrestling during my honeymoon. So the honeymoon is over and we come back. All of a sudden, people start filling me in on what’s going on with the regular referees doing the striking, the picketing outside, and (Downtown) Bruno, Tom Prichard, and (Brooklyn) Brawler doing the refereeing as scab referees. Everybody was saying, ‘Hey Jimmy, welcome back.’, and ‘Now you’re on strike’, and stuff like that. Hunter walks in and he used to call me Corduroy. He said, ‘Hey Corduroy, welcome back. How was the honeymoon?’ I said, ‘It was awesome.’ He said, ‘It’s too bad you’re on strike now.’ As a joke, because I’m full of bad jokes, I said, ‘But Hunter, I can’t go on strike because I just got married and I can’t afford to go on strike.’ He said, ‘Come with me.’ He said, ‘Hey J.R. listen to this. Jimmy just got back from his honeymoon and he said he can’t go on strike because he just got married and he can’t afford it.’ J.R. said, ‘Oh’, and one of the regular referees became a scab referee, and that’s how it snowballed into me breaking the picket line and becoming the only regular referee. It wasn’t like it was planned to be that. It started as an off-handed joke or comment that turned into an angle.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription
