The game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers ended with a questionable officiating call. The NFL released a statement saying that even though the call was wrong, the referees’ decision is final. Here’s a clip from the press release:
The NFL Officiating Department reviewed the video today and supports the decision not to overturn the on-field ruling following the instant replay review.
The result of the game is final.
This totally reminds me of pro-wrestling. I remember several matches where Ric Flair beat Dusty Rhodes / Lex Luger / Sting / Ricky Morton / Any NWA Face through questionable means. He’d be using the ropes for extra leverage on the pin or pulling his opponent’s tights or deftly kicking his foe in the groin. The referee didn’t see it and Flair would win by cheating, but the “NWA Commissioner” would release a statement saying that the result of the match is final.
Hell, the same thing is happening in the WWE. Last week John Cena pinned CM Punk while the latter’s foot was on the rope. The referee didn’t see it, but this week general manager AJ Lee let the decision stand.
The referees in the WWE are supposed to have a certain level of incompetence and are supposed to blow certain calls. It’s a huge problem when real referees in professional sports are tarnishing the game for the fans, creating an unsafe environment for the players, and chipping away at the integrity of sports gamblers across the nation. You know there’s a problem when professional referees are behaving like their sports-entertainment counterparts. There’s something wrong when the league office sounds just like fictional authority figures in pro-wrestling.
It’s kind of funny and kind of sad that the NFL replacement referees are just like WWE referees.
Well, if you are going to go down that road, why not just suggest to Goodell to get rid of some of the replacement refs and instead have special guests referees a-la WWE.
For example; instead of that ref who called the touchdown for Seattle, we could have had, say… The Rock as a special guest referee and when he comes over to see who has the ball, he rips it out of Tate’s and Jenning’s hands, turns on the microphone and says: “The Rock has the ball, so The Rock wins!” Anyone that comes to argue with him immediately gets a rock bottom.
OR
After the Ravens kicked their game winning field goal, Bill Belichick starts getting belligerent as he’s yelling at and lays his hands on special guest referee Shawn Michaels. After the official review confirms that the kick was good, Michaels delivers a sweet chin music to Bill’s face.
I’m sure you guys can think of a few other moments that would be SGR-worthy.
-M
Goodell won’t pay for that level of talent. He’d hire a guy who has been fired from most of the lower tier wrestling organizations.
Sixx-Pac?
Jeff Hardy?
I was actually watching my DVR of Raw with my son last night when tokz and slam started talking about this on G+ as it was happening.
I seriously thought to myself that maybe both shows used the same writers.