Evan Bourne Talks WWE Referees Receiving Bonuses for Calling Disqualifications

Former WWE Superstar Evan Bourne, who now goes by the ring name Matt Sydal, recently did a shoot interview for YouShoot on iPPV. The shoot interview was broadcast live on Thursday, Aug. 7. Replays are available at WNNLive.com for $15.99. 

At one point, Sydal was asked who the biggest “b**ch” was in WWE, in terms of authority. Sydal said the following:

“I don’t think you could call any of the producers little b**ches at all. Every now and then, they try and get the referees to be snitches on us. Not the agents, in the Talent Relations chain, someone would leverage a referee for information. I always felt like that might have been a thing that went on.”

Sydal would elaborate further on what exactly he was talking about, revealing referees received bonuses for calling disqualifications:

“Referees weren’t always with wrestlers. On the house shows, they would [join] the ring crew, so they would travel completely separately. There was certainly… they’d try to pit us against each other. They did stuff like…if you’re doing something totally illegal, like if you have a 5 count in the corner and you’re punching the guy, the ref counts to five, and he disqualifies you. He got a bonus for that DQ because he followed the rules, and we didn’t. I’m dead serious. That was a thing. They would bonus the ref for applying the ruleset.”

Evan Bourne was released by WWE on Thursday, June 12, on a day that WWE released 11 members of its talent.

Editor’s Note

If true, that’s really strange. Interesting words from Sydal.