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The wrestling business is known for being one which sees fascinating individuals collecting together to put on a show to entertain fans. One of the roles in wrestling that often goes overlooked is that of the referee.
Referee Robert Odie Brown is one of the Independent performers who has made a name for himself as a referee. In the past 5 years and more, Odie Brown has taken the wrestling world by storm. He has been an extra in a WWE segment where Kevin Owens' car was famously destroyed by Braun Strowman, met and talked to the WWE Chairman himself, Vince McMahon.
I had the chance to catch up with him recently and asked him a few questions about his time as a referee and his WWE cameos.
However, let's begin at the absolute beginning.
Talking about how he began in wrestling, it was not quite the orthodox manner known to most professionals.
"I kind of came into wrestling almost by accident. I was at a show that a friend of mine was working on and there was no referee there and I kind of made a little joke to the promoter that “Oh, what happened, did you lose your referee?” He was a little frustrated so he balled up the referee’s shirt and threw it at me, and he was like “If you are so smart, go do it.” So I gave it a shot and I liked it."
He went on to admit that he had never seen himself as a referee when he was younger.
"No, not even once. When I was a little kid, I was interested in wrestling but I decided that it wasn’t really for me and I didn’t want to risk my body the way a lot of the guys do. So you know, I kind of just said goodbye to it. I figured, what the heck, I could at least give this a try and everybody enjoyed it and over time, they kept telling me that I was pretty good at it. Another California referee named Sparkey Ballard who told me about a school that I should check out so that I could get properly trained, so I did that. "
Odie Brown, much like most wrestling fans, grew up a fan and there were some wrestlers whom he idolized. He also mentioned how CM Punk helped him to get back into the business.
"I think my tastes have changed a lot since I was a kid. I think a lot of us really liked Jeff Hardy or Dudley Boyz. I was really, really obsessed with the Tag Team TLC and all six of the guys. Since I actually got involved, since I started watching as an adult, because like so many people I took a pretty long break, I got into wrestling because of CM Punk. He really kind of changed everything in wrestling at that time and made a lot of people take another look and go ‘Hey, this stuff is getting really good again. Maybe it’s worth watching.’ The documentary WWE made on him was a really big influence on me while going to school and learning to do everything properly."
Read on to know more!
Acting and WWE Referees who were his idols
Having a major in theater and acting, Odie Brown certainly felt that his acting credentials helped him when it came to wrestling.
"I think the acting was like the perfect foundation for me to build my referring career on and something that I still enjoy to this day and something I really want to get back to at some point. But wrestling is going particularly well right now and I am like ‘Alright, I’ll see you in a few years, acting.’"
He has set some huge goals for himself as well.
"I set very over-the-top goals for myself so that I achieve something big. When I first started referring, I was like, ‘Well, if you are not doing this to referee the main event at WrestleMania someday, then why bother doing this?’ So that’s my goal. As far as acting, I said the same thing, that if you are not trying to be the leading man on Broadway someday or win a Tony Award or win an Oscar at some point, then what’s the point? I try to be as successful as I possibly can. But I am not really someone taken by the ideas of fame. Being wealthy would be nice, but I just kind of want to be live comfortably. What I really want is my work to be good, satisfying and reach as many people as possible. That’s all."
Talking about his idol in the refereeing business, Mike Chioda is a name that stands out to Referee Odie Brown.
"Charles Robinson is amazing, there’s no taking away from him. He is a lot of people’s icon and one of mine as well. But I have really been gravitating towards Mike Chioda lately. I feel like he is kind of the unsung hero of WWE. They did a video package on him not too long ago, highlighting his career. A little while before that has been released, I started backtracking mentally doing a little bit of the math and if you really think about it, he has never been fired, he has never been seriously injured, and he has been with the company since before the first episode of Raw. So theoretically, the argument can be made that he appeared on more episodes of Monday night RAW than anybody else."
"He is definitely somebody I look up to and he is a kind, generous person. The first time I met him, he gave me his email address and said, if you have any question please don’t hesitate to ask."
"I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Jason Ayers. He is a SmackDown referee at the moment who has kind of been very influential to my career and has been generous with his time and information. He is a very good referee and a very close friend."
Zebra Talk - A group for referees and AEW
Referee Odie Brown has also done a lot for the referee community as a whole as he is the founder of the group Zebra Talk -- a one of its kind group for referees.
"Zebra talk is a private group that I started on Facebook, exclusively for referees. It is for anybody that is a referee, who was a referee or is trained to be one from any school level anywhere in the world. We have no exclusivity except for you have to be a referee. The purpose of it is to bring people together and create a network so that we can first and foremost we can know one another. The thing that really motivated me when I made it is that I didn’t know who most of my peers were around the country and around the world, so I just kind of wanted to have an idea who was out there. And in addition to that, it’s a great resource for people who are higher up in the food chain and have more experience to give advice to young people like myself who still have a lot to learn and need to have the answers to the tricky questions sometimes. I started it about two years ago with 25 people on the first night and by the second night there were 200 people and now two years later there are 700 people. The last time that I counted we were in 12 countries, 7 languages. I am very, very, very proud of it and very proud of the people who came together and created a community based around it. It was kind of an idea I had on a whim one night when I was hanging out on my bed and the next thing I know, it has gone live. It’s very optimistic and it is a place to grow together and help one another, serving your fellow men or women. "
He also talked about AEW and the promise that they have.
"A lot of people are very positive about AEW now. I have a lot of friends who work there. It seems like they really take care of their employees and their intentions are to be very worker-friendly as well as to be very audience-friendly. It would be silly to turn down any offer from them if it came across by my table but my goal, even if I do end up working with them, would always be working on the WWE main roster."
Continue to know about his appearances in WWE and the time that he met with Vince McMahon.
Being an extra in WWE and meeting Vince McMahon
Referee Odie Brown mentioned how he got a job as an extra in WWE. He was in the segment where Kevin Owens' car was decimated by Braun Strowman.
"It was a really memorable experience. We were in San Diego, California. It was a very out of nowhere decision that they made. They kind of came up and asked us a question and I responded first and they were like alright, cool, come on, you are going to be the valet, sounds good? It was very surreal. Vince McMahon was actually directing the thing himself. I walked up to the top of the ramp after I got my valet outfit on. He was standing there directing traffic and telling everyone where to stand and all of a sudden, before I knew it, I was taking directions from Vince McMahon. I was like, wow, what happened to my life, how did I get here. It was a very eye-opening experience, the kind that makes you realize how close you are to your goals. I got to have a very brief but nice one-on-one conversation with him while everybody else was running around doing their thing."
During this time, he had a one-on-one with the WWE Chairman, Vince McMahon.
"He was teasing me. In the scene, the only thing I really say is ‘I don’t have your keys, he does!’ He comes up to me… he is giving everybody directions and they have to talk among themselves. He just walks up, made his way back two feet away from me from the other side of the podium and says, ‘You know your line?’ I was like, yes sir. He said, ‘Alright, don’t mess up. You’re gonna be on my TV. Can you handle that?’ I said, yes sir. I’ll handle it. He then said, ‘alright let me hear it.’ He then just kind of made me run through the line a couple of times and told me how he wanted me to say it and that’s it. It was pretty incredible to watch him make effective decisions as quickly as he did because somebody that was organizing the scene before, they wanted to do the whole scene with four different cameras and the guy had just kind of made the whole thing a little bit complicated, so Vince was like No, no, no, no, we are gonna use one camera and we’re gonna do this, this, this and this. He just made it all so much simpler and it made so much more sense all in the matter of just ten seconds. Guy knows what he is doing obviously (laughs)."
He also talked about the other times he went in as an extra and the fascinating meetings he had with legends and performers.
"I’m more than happy to go in as an extra anytime they call me. I believe that was my third time doing it, and I’ve gone in a total of four times now. Any more times that I get to go, I’d be more than happy to. I never really did anything that was as recognizable as that. But maybe about a year before that, I was kind of a guy standing in a hallway when Sami Zayn was walking by. The next night on SmackDown was the same thing with either Kevin Owens or Finn Balor. I think the fourth time I went I was not even used for anything, which is fine because sometimes they don’t need to."
"You are in catering for the majority of the day, just waiting to see if you are going to be used for anything. I spent a large part of the day with the referees and I got to pick their brains. The Cruiserweights are there throughout the majority of the day for RAW and SmackDown, I spent a lot of the time with them. Then whoever comes through catering throughout the day. I got to overhear Arn Anderson picking apart Tag Team Wrestling at one point. On one RAW, I was sitting down at a table and Jerry ‘The King’ came and sat down. He talked to us about Andy Kauffman and the anniversary that had gone by. Just little interactions that you would not even expect to have. I had a really nice conversation with the IIconics too, a year or so back. "
Being a wrestling referee can be incredibly funny, and he talked about a few of the incidents which made it difficult for him to hold in his laughter. He was there when Home Alone's Macauley Culkin made a wrestling appearance.
"There are a lot of hysterical moments throughout the course of my career, mostly just trying to keep a straight face while the silly people around me are doing things. I did just referee Orange Cassidy and Joey Ryan not too long ago, which is, if you haven’t seen it, is one of the funniest matches. I was there when Macaulay Culkin was at BAR Wrestling and had to save Christmas from Swoggle. That was a very big highlight as far as my moments. Suede Thompson is a wrestler from Las Vegas. He wrestles for us at Championship Wrestling regularly. He has been around a long time and has a great sense of humor as well."
"So there was this one point where he was wrestling maybe Luchasaurus. He comes up behind him like a cartoon, tip-toeing behind him. I tell him to get back in the ring. He reaches out and scratches the guy down the back. I yell, “Hey you! No nails! Bad!” and he turns around looking at me with his claws up, and just says, ‘meow’! I laughed so hard, it was pretty great."
He brought up what made it so difficult to be a referee and the side of refereeing that fans don't know about as well.
"You see it a lot with referees who don’t really know where they are meant to be or maybe they can’t necessarily keep up with what’s going on or any number of reasons. People are bumping into each other and they are not in time for the pinfalls or just not picking up on a heel cheating. A match has to flow almost perfectly for everybody to stay in sync with one another. You can feel it when you’re in the ring like your mind is channeling with the other people in the ring and everything is kind of gelling together. The minute that starts going off sync, things just start flying out of place. Some of the better wrestlers stop and take a moment and click back in and everything is fine, but not everybody is the best wrestler in the world and not everybody is the best referee in the world and sometimes bumping into someone at the wrong moment can really throw off the rest of the match."
"A lot of us travel as many miles as the wrestlers do. Also, the majority of the work that has gone into setting up the building is on the referee’s shoulders. We are often the leaders of the ring crew and we will help set up the chairs and the lights, and a lot of running around town getting whatever props, costumes, or whatever is needed for the show. Last night, I helped out Impact Wrestling in California, and I was more than happy to do it. I think I left the building to get things for the show 6 or 7 times in addition to doing ring crew work. From the moment that I showed up to literally the time that it was time to get into my ref gear for the show, I didn’t stop working or moving around. It’s part of the job and I’m more than happy to do it, but it’s just something that people don’t know about."
Finally, he had some advice for young referees who are looking to make it in the business.
"If you’re a young referee and trying to get into the business, make sure you watch a lot of tapes. Watch matches, study referees. Someone gave me some really good advice. Make sure that the match you are studying you watch it three times. Watch it to enjoy it, watch it to study the wrestlers, and watch it to study the referee. You should find a school that’s run by people who are competent trainers who have had some measure of success so that they can give you proper advice. Get as fit as possible, because you need to keep up with the boys and you need to look good in your stripes. Aside from that, find us on Zebra Talk and find me anywhere on social media and I’ll do my best to help guide you wherever you wanna end up."
You can get in touch with him here:
"If anyone wants to find me on Twitter or Instagram I am @odie1kenodi and then on Facebook, I’m Robert Odie Brown. If you search Zebra Talk you can click to add yourself to the group and answer the questions we have provided, and I’ll see if you are up to snuff (laughs)."
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