By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
JOB’d Out interview with Bryce Remsburg
Interview available at JOB’d Out YouTube Page
On differences between being a referee in AEW compared to the indies: “Refereeing on the indies for 17 years was getting my bachelors degree, refereeing in AEW is my masters degree. I learn something every week. There’s a different thing to consider, there are ear pieces, there are times, there are twelve cameras… many times it feels like you are sort of conducting an orchestra. You can’t grab the violin and make it play the notes you want but you can strongly suggest it’s time to play a certain note in a certain place, for example.”
Refereeing a bout between two imaginary wrestlers – Invisible Man and his evil twin brother Invisible Stan: “I told my wife to make sure they show it at my funeral because I think it is my Opus. For better or worse… It’s the thing that fans (still) yell during commercials at Dynamite pretty much every week… I was very excited about this challenge. I said, ‘Yeah, this sounds great,’ and then I realized I didn’t have any idea what I was gonna do. I agreed to this in principle but I had no execution or concept.”
Remsburg insists the credit for its success really belongs in one place: “Obviously, the real secret sauce in all of this is the audience. It’s WrestleMania weekend, it’s NYC, it’s late at night, they’re serving alcohol at the venue, everyone’s having a good time and is relatively invested in this ridiculous Invisible Man storyline… so if I had gone out there and done this Shakespeare pantomiming nonsense and they’re just sitting on their hands… we might’ve gone home pretty quick (and) it would’ve been along four or five minutes for Bryce! But luckily, and this is a testament to GCW, they have a very passionate fanbase.”
With twenty years under his belt, Remsburg laid out very simply what his goal is for the remainder of his career: “If there’s an opportunity to referee a type of match I’ve never refereed before – I want to do it. If there’s a 60-minute ironman match, casket match, ladder match, inverted battle royal, best seven out of thirteen falls match… I want to have the most eclectic wrestling referee resume of anyone in history.”
Being proud of the two invisible man match, and pointing out that the AEW crowd yells to him about it, isn’t the positive thing he seems to think it is. It’s moronic shit like that that will keep AEW from ever getting beyond the small indie neckbeard audience it currently has.
Given Khan’s propensity for trotting out every match type he’s ever seen, heard about, or vaguely recalls someone mentioning once while drunk at a party, if Remsburg wants to ref as many match types as possible he’s come to the right place.