Could a female referee be taken seriously?

[HBK-aholic]

I was watching TNA for the first time in months yesterday, and I saw there was a female referee for a diva's match. Now I have no idea what the story is behind that, whether it's a regular occurance or just a one off thing, but it got me thinking. In WWE, could this happen?

Referees rarely play a huge part in a match - unless they're purposely looking away to allow a chair shot, or if they get knocked out by the heel. Usually their job is to count to 3...and that's about it.

However, I doubt the WWE would ever hire a regular female referee especially for male matches. It's a possibility for divas, although I have a feeling she would just suddenly become part of the roster. It could maybe work to further an angle, but I don't think it'd ever be serious.

Opinions?

 

[Y 2 Jake]

No. Most of the wrestlers don't show respect towards the male refs, so they wouldn't show any to a female.

It'd also be too distracting. It'd be done just for the sake of it. Actually, this should be in the TNA section. I could then say ''no, but TNA will do it anyway''

I think it'd be the same as a special ref. But the purpose of a special ref, or should be, is that the feud is so intense or whatever, that only a special ref can keep control of the two wrestler. Wouldn't work.

 

[Londricks]

That was only a one time ting by the way. She doesn't wrestle anymore and if a feud is intense she referees and obviously it ends up with a finish involving the referee doing something or the heels attacking her and what not.

 

[justinsayne]

Nobody takes the male refs seriously, why the hell woul;d the take a female one seriously, the heels would likely treat the female refs the same way they do the males, and faces on the other hand might actually care more about the ref seeing as how faces seem to think they need to protect every women who comes anywhere near the ring, basically as Jake said it would be done just for the sake of it, and maybe to get more heat for the heel after he knocks the ref out

 

[TheDownwardSpiral]

There is a female ref in a local indy show that comes around my town and im not gonna lie,its amazing. shes really mean and sassy and doesnt take shit from anyone,and it really makes that match,no matter how terrible the wrestling is. the fans really get into it and the heels are always tryin to get on her.its very entertaining.

 

[AnthonyMango/NoFate007]

I could see some positives and some negatives coming out of it, so its a bit hard to call.

POSITIVES:

1) More heel heat, as Justin said. If you've got some pretty girl as the ref in a match and Mike Knox kicks her in the face, he'd definitely get booed a lot more than if he did it to Chioda.

2) Depending on the outfit and the woman's attractiveness, she could be a bit of eye candy for some people out there.

3) Equal opportunity, I'd be willing to give a female ref a chance, as opposed to jumping off my couch and going on a rant about how "she's a woman! why's she bossing a guy around!" and blah blah blah. I don't see a reason why a woman having that authoritative position would be a problem.

NEGATIVES:

1) That heel heat won't last long if Creative abuses it. Then everyone will just know that as soon as the woman referee comes out, the heel's going to do something to her. Plus, that's not sending the best message out for the PG audience, either.

2) Despite how eye candy is good now and then, its not really that necessary. Look, Maria's hot. I'd bang her in a moment's notice. But do I want to watch her wrestling a shitty match just because she's hot? Nope. So the same goes for a hot female ref. If she sucked at the job, no matter how hot she could be, I'd rather have Charles Robinson calling it. And if she's ugly, that eliminates that heel heat, because the villain always abducts the beautiful princess, not the hideous troll. Nobody would boo if you gave an RKO to a woman that looked like Balls Mahoney haha. Also, if you've got a hot referee wearing basically nothing, it's a distraction. Twelve year olds are going to be watching her instead of the match. Only way that that would be diverted is if she was refereeing a divas match.

3) There would no doubt be some people that actually would get pissed at the idea and show a very sexist side, complaining and saying "why should they take that crap from a woman?" Not exactly the best environment to be around, you know?


Basically, I think there's a possibility it could work, but it'd be better suited to have a female ref calling the women's division matches, and even then, you'd have to try it out a few times to see if it catches on in a positive way. If it works, you keep it, and if it doesn't, you don't simply continue beating the idea into the fans heads, trying to convince them otherwise - nor do you simply ignore the negative consequences and continue doing it just for the sake of doing it.

 

[OIL]

No. They'd just be eye candy. Let's be honest here, the wrestlers don't take the male ref's seriously, so why would they take the females seriously? Furthermore, they're just seen as eye candy in the WWE for the majority of them. So the audience would just watch the female, not the match. Providing she was attractive, of course.

 

[PlayTheGame]

I think the negatives might outway the positives if this were to happen. I really cant see it ever happening, either. I really cant put my finger on why, but I just think it would probably be because they would simply turn into eye candy, as many have already mentioned. I also think (and im sorry if this comes off as sexist, because thats not my intention) that if a woman did become a ref then the whole notion of the referee being generic and unimportant will be thrown out the window. I think it will put too much attention on referees in general.

However, if it were to happen, I think female refs should be saved for female matches only. This could possibly work. However, my only fear with that is that if the female ref was not a very good ref (which could be a possibility, but definitely not a sure bet) then it could potentially make a diva match even worser than it already is (and, again, I'm not trying to be sexist, I'm just stating my honest opinion).

 

[klunderbunker]

Why not? What can a male referee do that a female referee can't? Put a female referee in a standard referee uniform and not one that is tied off and has her stomach showing or massive cleveage and it could work. however there's one huge condition: she's a referee, and nothing more. Not some model that is trained to wrestle but got hired because of her looks. I'm assuming most referees aren't trained wrestlers and they shouldn't be. The refs shouldn't be the focus of the match, but if you put a normal looking woman into a match, then I'd have no issue with it.

 

[Shorty]

The previous post is why there won't be any women ref's in the WWE. Too many guys think like that, that watch the WWE.

Personally as long as they didn't make a big deal about the ref being female, and she stayed strictly a ref and nothing more (that includes wardrobe and storylines) then I think it would work just fine.

The same stuff would happen of heels putting the ref in front of them or distracting them. Arguing. The ref looking away. Even if they pulled the heel smacking the ref to be DQ, it wouldn't matter it was a woman. They've already did that a bunch of times before, most recently with Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels wife. It wouldn't be "OMG HE HIT A WOMAN OMG!" because we've already seen it before. Plus they wouldn't make a big deal out of it like they do the men, it wouldn't matter.

If the WWE and some fans didn't make a big deal out of it, it would work just fine. I don't think the before mentioned can do it though, so it's not going to happen. Too bad for girls.

 

[AnthonyMango/NoFate007]

Just to clarify, Shorty's "previous post" reference isn't KB's one, it was spam.

Something else I didn't mention or think of before: If the WWE were to have a woman as a referee, they'd have to make sure that (along with the other women that are employed in on-air and active roles) that pregnancy wouldn't get in the way somehow. You clearly can't have a pregnant woman as a referee. Its too dangerous. So all that time away from the job would spell disaster. Granted, that's not something that immediately and assuredly comes with hiring a woman in such a role, as some women just never really plan on having kids or anything, but still, not everyone's plans work out the same. Say a woman is employed as a referee and has no intentions on having children, but unbeknownst to her, she actually does get pregnant. Then out of the blue, she takes a bad bump and loses the kid. WWE could have a big problem on their hands.

Something else to think about.

 

[HBK-aholic]

Just to clarify, Shorty's "previous post" reference isn't KB's one, it was spam.

Something else I didn't mention or think of before: If the WWE were to have a woman as a referee, they'd have to make sure that (along with the other women that are employed in on-air and active roles) that pregnancy wouldn't get in the way somehow. You clearly can't have a pregnant woman as a referee. Its too dangerous. So all that time away from the job would spell disaster. Granted, that's not something that immediately and assuredly comes with hiring a woman in such a role, as some women just never really plan on having kids or anything, but still, not everyone's plans work out the same. Say a woman is employed as a referee and has no intentions on having children, but unbeknownst to her, she actually does get pregnant. Then out of the blue, she takes a bad bump and loses the kid. WWE could have a big problem on their hands.

Something else to think about.

While this is a good point, I don't think this argument could be used by the WWE. Simply because, you could use the same argument for WWE not having female wrestlers either - if they were pregnant and fought in a match, something could happen to the unborn baby. If it was written in their contracts that in the even of pregnancy they weren't allowed to continue, the WWE would be covering their backs at least.

 

[tsull2121]

Actually.. the WWF already HAD a female referee YEARS ago.. in the 80's I believe..... she was around for a few years then left. And even before they had LIlian Garcia as ring announcer... also back in the 80's they had Mike McGuirk (a female) as their ring announcer alternating between her and Howard Finkle.

 

[RVDgurl]

Interesting topic and I often remarked that it would be cool to see some female referees in the business. Would it work? Maybe. I think it would depend on how she was portrayed. If a female ref is put out there and plays the part of a referee instead of a Diva, then I see no reason why it wouldn't work. On the other hand, if a female was dressed in a skimpy ref outfit with boobs flying everywhere, then there is no way that would be taken seriously.

Referees are supposed to be invisible during a match. If the WWE sent a female referee to the ring who was dressed just like any of the male refs, some people may not even notice.