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Mike Chioda was at one time one of the best and most recognized referees that the WWE had. Most casual fans do not know that referees usually have a personal relationship with most of the wrestling talent that a particular promotion has.
Mike has worked for the WWE for many years. He has countless stories to tell about the wrestlers and what goes on behind the scenes.
Mike Chioda Talks About Umaga Having to Wear Makeshift Face paint once
On an episode of Monday Mailbag, Mike was asked to tell a story about Umaga.
Umaga was at one time one of WWE’s finest wrestlers, that wore face paint. He was at one time a main event talent. He was known for his power and his explosiveness. Mike shared a humorous story about Umaga’s face paint.
"I remember me, Johnny Stamboli, Rey Mysterio, and Ekie in the car and we're driving down. Ekie's got a — he's started this Umaga thing with the paint and all that stuff," Chioda recalled. "So he'd go to TVs and have one of the guys paint his face all the time.
We're in the car on the way to a live event, I remember Johnny [Ace] calling him. He says, 'Ek, you didn't wear your face paint last night at the live event.' Ek's like, 'Yeah, Johnny, I put it on the TVs.' 'You gotta start putting it on now or else you're gonna get fined.'
He was like, 'What?'" "So we tried to stop at a couple places to get some markers real quick because we had about an hour before we get to the show, then we had to do this. So we got black markers and I had to f****** paint his face in the car.
That s*** didn't come off for like three days until he got to TV. He was so pissed at Johnny too because Johnny was serious he was gonna fine him. And every time Johnny wanted something done, 'Vince wants the face paint on.'
Vince's name comes out all the time." Mike also revealed that he lived five minutes away from Umaga down the road. This was when Mike shifted to Houston in 2007. During his time in WWE, Umaga won the WWE Intercontinental Title 2 times. Umaga is one of the many former WWE wrestlers that died at a very early age. He died at the age of 36.