Referee Marty Elias Reveals Shawn Michaels Requested Him To Referee WrestleMania 25 Match

Marty Elias was recently interviewed by Sportskeeda, where he revealed how referees are selected for matches in WWE.

“When I first got there, that was done by the senior officials. At the time, there were a couple. We had Mike Chioda and we had Nick Patrick. Mike Chioda was the RAW referee and Nick Patrick was the SmackDown referee. When ECW was there, it was Scott Armstrong. They would be the ones who would make all the assignments and either give you a dark match or a main event. If you were in your hometown, you always got the main event. That was always something that was cool.

"Anytime we were in L.A at The Staples Center, The Honda Center, or anywhere near L.A., I was always blessed with getting the main events in L.A. It was always cool to have my family there and they got to see that. That’s pretty much how that went, but prior to me leaving, I know that was done by John Laurinaitis. Then again, more times than not, you would have people like Shawn Michaels or Chris Jericho who would request a certain referee. They would ask either Mike Chioda or Nick Patrick at the time, or John Laurinaitis that they would really like to have Marty Elias referee their match. That’s how I got the Undertaker-Shawn Michaels WrestleMania 25 match. Shawn Michaels went to John Laurinaitis and said, ‘I want Marty as the referee’, and low and behold, we made history.”